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The TTP and peace talks after Hakimullah Mehsud

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by Maryyum Mehmood

Pakistani_military_at_Baine_Baba_Ziarat_-_Flickr_-_Al_Jazeera_English
Pakistani forces captured Baine Baba Ziarat, the highest point in Swat valley
(courtesy of Al Jazeera English)

Following the killing of Hakimullah Mehsud, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) leadership has come under the control of Mullah Fazlullah. In the past week since the decision was announced, much analysis has been made of this in both the domestic Pakistani and international press, painting a mixed picture for the future of this already tumultuous region. This piece seeks to briefly assess the effect of Fazlullah’s induction on the TTP’s internal structure, and the wider implications this will have on the Pakistani government’s security policy and ultimately, the prospects of the already long-stalled peace talks.

38 year old Fazlullah, like the overwhelming majority of his TTP comrades, has had no formal education. A one time ski-lift operator in his native Swat valley, Fazlullah was notorious for his fervent hate speeches directed towards the Pakistani state, which were broadcast around local villages through the interception of private radio stations.  Fazlullah flourished under the leadership of Sufi Muhammad, founder of the Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM), a banned outfit whose aim it was to coerce the Pakistani state into implementing a violent, tribal-brand of Sharia law to govern the whole of Pakistan. It was here that Fazlullah’s role as Sufi’s right-hand man enabled the TNSM to wreck havoc in the once quaint Valley of Swat. Soon after, this relationship was cemented with familial ties, with Fazlullah marrying one of his leader’s daughters. Fazlullah took complete control of the Swat region, in February 2009, when the Pakistani government appeased the TNSM, by signing a pact which would restrict the activities of the Taliban to Swat alone. It was not long before Fazlullah broke the established ceasefire, leading to the Pakistani army operation Rah-e Rast (Right Path) in May 2009. While countless TNSM members were captured during the operation, the near-fatally wounded Fazlulluah, managed to escape across the border to Afghanistan.

Interestingly, in the four years since the operation, Fazlullah has established strong connections inside of Afghanistan, where he has set up bases in both the Nuristan and Kunar provinces. Despite this, alarmingly, Karzai and Afghan authorities seem unconcerned and will most likely be willing to engage in talks with Fazlullah. Moreover, this shift in the locus of power from North Waziristan, Pakistan to the Eastern provinces of Afghanistan would have grave repercussions for the TTP. If he decides to hold base in Afghanistan, while it means that Fazlullah would evade the Pakistani army, the physical absence of an authoritative leader could mean the weakening and eventual collapse of the outfit as we know it. Furthermore, Fazlullah’s reign might be short-lived considering that he is the TTP’s first leader selected from outside the Mehsud tribal clan, from which the majority of its members belong. This again, might give way for inter-group rivalry and signal a split within the TTP, causing it to disperse into smaller (and weaker) factions.

Fazlullah’s propulsion into the forefront of the TTP must give the Pakistani government a sense of déjà vu.  Nawaz Sharif’s PML-N led government will, like its PPP predecessor, defiantly call for the halt of drone strikes, demanding that Pakistan can defeat the TTP menace on its own accord. However, Sharif‘s government will probably be less keen to call for army action in the region of Waziristan, in a similar operation that we saw in Swat (2009). Military action seems a highly unlikely move at this moment in time, not just because of the fragile situation, but also because Sharif is not one to make such risky moves until he is driven to the brink. The events of past few weeks have certainly put a dampener on the already slow-paced ‘peace talks’ that were set to be negotiated between the Pakistan government and the TTP under Hakimullah Mehsud. Unlike the TTP’s founder Baitullah, Hakimullah hinted at the possibility of non-violent engagement, by declaring his interest in conducting peace talks with the Pakistani government, just days before his killing. With the entrance of Fazlullah, it appears that peace talks are again back to square one and  the Pakistani government has been put back into an-all-too-familiar stalemate situation.

How to help? Political chaos and poaching in Zimbabwe and Malawi

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by Alister Wedderburn

no_poaching_by_aztlanwayne-d2y2awu

This summer, just over a fortnight after his landslide victory in Zimbabwe’s presidential elections, and a matter of days after the subsequent announcement that Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC party would legally contest the results, Robert Mugabe touched down in Lilongwe. His presence, along with that of the region’s other leaders, was required at the Heads of State or Government Summit of the Southern African Development Commission (SADC). It was an opportunity for scrutiny and challenge that, inevitably, went begging. On August 8, Malawian state broadcaster MBC reported that president and incoming SADC chair Joyce Banda had wired a message of congratulations to Harare. The SADC’s own report on the Zimbabwean election, meanwhile, claimed ‘general adherence’ to its rigorously worded in-house set of guidelines, a ‘procedural and transparent’ counting process, and congratulated the country on opening ‘a new chapter in the process of consolidation of democracy in the Republic of Zimbabwe.’ Multiple Zimbabwean and South African news sources reported that the SADC attempted to persuade Tsvangirai to withdraw from the election as close to polling day as June.

Written in that confrontational, buck-balled tone seemingly universal to all the world’s outsider governments, official Zimbabwean reports trumpeted each congratulatory message received, mostly from SADC allies. They also boldly claimed the election to be a ‘crushing’ answer to ‘more than a decade of sustained assault by the western powers that [have] sought to depose [Mugabe].’ In other words: the neighbours don’t mind, so hands off. The statement given by Foreign Secretary William Hague shortly after the election was firm in timbre, but gave no indication of any alteration to the current diplomatic arrangement, a precarious but durable structure built primarily out of sanctions and fist-waving.

The current provincial elections – some of which have been cancelled – have, if anything, made matters worse, opening up factions within Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party regarding the medium-to-long term future of Zimbabwe’s ruling cabal. It is unclear what contingencies ZANU-PF have in place for the 89-year old president’s eventual death, but what the presidential election made clear (and the provincial elections are confirming) is that change is unlikely to come from without, and is likely to be messy. But how to help? Zimbabwe’s obvious present dysfunction and the weakness of the SADC’s response to Mugabe’s intransigence throws clearly into focus the fraught moral and political complexity that laces not only past but also present and future western activity in this part of the world.

A hundred and twenty miles north of Lilongwe, in Kasungu National Park, I sit atop Black Rock. It is a protrusion of some several hundred metres that offers views across a county-sized expanse of mostly forested land that is almost entirely uninhabited by people. The sun, the colour of a lit fag-end, is just coming up.

Fifteen years ago, there were two thousand elephants in the park; the number now is less than two hundred. The story is familiar: the combination of a large Asian-centric demand for ivory, local poverty and a lack of governmental police resources creates fertile conditions for poaching. Except, I am told, the Malawians almost certainly camping somewhere in the expanse beneath us are unlikely to see a huge amount: each stands to make little more than fifty dollars or so for a tusk that will most likely be sold in China for tens of thousands. Ivory seems to be making no-one very rich except for a few shadowy middlemen, and certainly offers no more than modest rewards to the locals it relies on to do the dirty work.

It’s doubtful whether an emblem for the intricacies of foreign intervention is necessary – its moral and political complexity is the whole point of much the dialogue surrounding it, after all, and symbols have a tendency not only to distort but also to simplify. But here, at 5 in the morning, one unexpectedly presents itself. On the way down from the rock I ask the Belgian ranger Richard[*] if he’s ever had cause to use the rifle he’s cradling confidently in his hands. Twice, he tells me; both times to fire at poachers. I ask about the protocol if he comes across a poacher in the park: does he shoot to kill? Richard’s response is businesslike. ‘That is not the policy in Malawi. It is in some countries. But not here.’ He lights a cigarette; at odds with the otherwise macho figure cut by his khakis and army-issue bovver boots, it is a menthol one. He makes sure I’m looking him in the eye before continuing. ‘But the park is big, and if something happens, nobody will ever know.’

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NOTES

*Name and nationality have been changed.

Why failures in American leadership endanger peace

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by Avram Lytton

The UN Security Council in session
The UN Security Council in session
(photo by Pete Souza)

Whether we like it or not, we live in a relatively stable time thanks to the presence of a single hegemonic super-power – the United States. Its political, military and economic power (current political dysfunction aside) remains unrivalled in its totality. It is therefore disheartening to see this power and clout squandered by the current administration in its failures and capitulations over Syria and Iran.

In Syria, what started as a protest movement against the corrupt and oppressive Assad regime has escalated into a chaotic civil war. Rather than attempt to support moderate rebel factions, the Obama administration dithered and misrepresented the extent of aid it was providing. Even worse, it effectively vetoed additional aid from regional powers who, in the absence of a more concerted effort, have had great difficulty coordinating actions or even agreeing on a strategy. The result has been an ever worsening, and widening war that has not only devastated the Syrian state, but has also radicalised the opposition to an alarming degree and provided safe havens for jihadist groups. The Assad regime, with substantial aid from its ally, Iran, has even regained the momentum it was once thought to have lost.

When the Assad regime began using chemical weapons on a small scale, the Obama administration did nothing. When it deployed those weapons on a larger scale on August 21, it seemed that, at last, the President would respond to the crossing of his ‘red line’. Instead, the world was treated to a darkly comic series of missteps and blunders. When it appeared that no action would be taken, a deal was brokered by Russia. This deal, however, is not the happy ending it appears for two key reasons. First, as it relies on the Syrians to do most of the work, overseen by personnel from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), it is predicated on the survival of the Assad regime for however long it takes to complete. Secondly, because of the nature of the agreement, it will be relatively easy for the regime to retain some of its CW deterrent through deception. Thus, the United States has been removed as a player in Syria, split from its allies and discredited. Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin has emerged as the world’s leading statesman.

On the Iran front, the United States looks poised (at the time of writing) to strike a bad deal that could see Iran given an economic lifeline while the international community receives nothing meaningful in return. The heart of the problem is that diplomacy relies on there being room for a deal to be made that is acceptable to both sides. The ultimate objective of the international community, in particular Israel and Saudi Arabia, is the cessation and rolling back of the Iranian nuclear program. However, the Iranian regime has made it clear that it will never cease enriching uranium, even if its people suffer for it under sanctions. Negotiations for the sake of negotiations simply obfuscate the issue.

Yet, in all this, it is the Americans who seem the most keen to reach a deal, any kind of deal, as quickly as possible. Sanctions are hurting the regime and, if drawn tighter, may lead to its collapse. The White House, however, seems more interested in removing itself from the region than in regime change and is even opposed to tighter sanctions, lest they hurt diplomacy. To the United States, Iran is a distant and theoretical threat, but to countries in the Middle East it is a very real menace. No wonder then that the Israelis are furious; no wonder that the Saudis, already angered over American inaction in Syria, are threatening to break ties with the United States.

Unending war in Syria and a massive regional mobilisation of radical elements is in no one’s interest. Also unappetising is an advancing Iranian nuclear program, bolstered by better and more numerous centrifuges while the regime is strengthened by weakened sanctions. Let us not forget, that not only does this regime have a long history of sponsoring terrorism in other countries, but it also relies on its hostility to Israel and the West to legitimise its governance. The United States, by negotiating for a compromise with Iran and avoiding influencing the proxy war in Syria, is simply punting these security issues to the next administration.

None of the above is leadership; it is risk avoidance. War is a last resort, to be sure; it is a last resort in Syria, not least because of the greatly uncertain outcome, and it is a last resort with regards to the Iranian nuclear program. However, broadcasting one’s lack of seriousness about the use of force, whether through an evaporating red line or through a rushed and dubious deal with the untrustworthy Iranian regime, does not avoid war. Indeed, by horse trading with Iran rather than dictating, the international community has given the regime in Tehran a legitimacy it does not deserve and a sense of power it has not earned. It has also left the final say to a number of regional powers who feel far more threatened than Washington does, and may not feel as restrained when they react to that threat.

Approaching the 100th anniversary of an infamous act of terrorism in the Balkans, one should reflect on what events a small power can set in motion when tensions are left to simmer in a multi-polar environment. It is the power of the United States that underwrites and maintains the current international system and restrains the behaviour of the smaller powers. If the US is retreating from its position as de facto world policeman, then I fear that the peace we enjoy may soon disappear with it.

There’s a new sheriff in town – but can he keep the peace?

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In this, the final post of the Private Military and Security Contractors Series, series editor Birthe Anders examines the current state of PMSC regulation, with special attention to the recently launched International Code of Conduct Association.
Strife Editors

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There’s a new sheriff in town – but can he keep the peace?
by Birthe Anders

One of the main concerns about Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs) is that their employees carry weapons in volatile situations and are not as well regulated as state forces. While armed guarding is only one part of the industry it is arguably the one that raises the biggest concerns over the effective control of potentially deadly force. However, with the recent launch of the International Code of Conduct Association, PMSCs have never been as well-regulated as right now – but is this enough?

In September 2013, a new regulatory body for PMSCs was established: the International Code of Conduct for Private Security Service Providers Association (ICoCA). The ICoCA is a non-profit organisation based in Geneva and is supposed to certify companies and monitor their compliance with the Code of Conduct for Private Security Service Providers (ICoC). The code contains provisions on company management, governance and the conduct of personnel, including on the use of force.[1] As of early November, 708 companies had signed up.[2] Thus monitoring its implementation is no small task. While some commentators have welcomed the ICoCA [3] and others condemned it as a poor attempt to legitimise PMSC’s work,[4] overall the launch of the ICoCA has not generated much discussion so far. Why is this? It might be due to confusion and uncertainty if this is an achievement worth celebrating. Even for long-standing followers of PMSC regulation efforts it is not yet clear what effect the ICoCA will have.

Recently Anton Katz, chair of the UN Working Group on Mercenaries warned of regulatory gaps created by differing national regulations that could lead to human rights violations.[5] The Montreux Document[6] and the ICoC were valuable, but they were not enough as ‘these initiatives are not legally binding and cannot be considered as complete solutions for the problems concerning PMSCs’.[7] While it is always good keep an ideal situation in mind (i.e. a legally-binding, international convention on PMSCs’ rights and obligations especially in war zones complemented by national legislation, all of them well-monitored and enforced of course), it is worth examining what we have right now. While not the same as a law, the ICoCA will monitor compliance with the ICoC for those PMSCs that signed up to it. So what we have right now is for the first time an oversight mechanism that is supported by companies, governments and advocacy groups at the same time.

For anyone not familiar with PMSC regulation, a brief overview is in order. In a nutshell, many laws and regulations apply to PMSCs and their employees, but few were specifically created for them. This can be problematic as even the best laws need monitoring and enforcement – inherently difficult in many contexts PMSCs operate in. On the national level, few states have addressed the issue. Exceptions are South Africa, the US and most recently Switzerland. On the international level, the UN Working Group on Mercenaries has published a Possible Draft Convention on PMSCs,[8] while the most prominent efforts are those initiated by the Swiss government: the Montreux process and the ICoC. The Montreux Document is aimed at states and (in a legally non-binding way) signatories acknowledge their obligations under human rights and international humanitarian law. In contrast, the ICoC is directed at companies. A central aspect of PMSCs regulation is its implementation. Nullo actore nullus iudex – if no one brings a claim forward there will be no investigation. Whithout adequate oversight AND enforcement, the best regulation is useless.[9] This brings us back to the ICoCA.

Once it is up and running, companies that signed up to the ICoC can – among other things – expect to have their performance monitored by the ICoCA. As one observer commented, the Association will institutionalize ‘the relationship between stakeholders’ as well as ensure ‘that PMSCs that sign on the ICoC actually conduct themselves accordingly’.[10] This has a lot to do with money. If the Association is not properly funded, oversight tools such as field visits will not take place. Companies pay according to their size, with small companies paying US$ 2.500, medium companies US$ 5000 and big companies US$ 9000 in the first year of membership, which increases slightly in the following year.[11] One member of the Steering Committee stepped down in summer 2013. Among his criticisms was company dues being set too low to allow the association to carry out independent monitoring of company behaviour. However, both the UK and the US have welcomed the ICoCA. The State Department might incorporate ICOCA as requirement into the bidding process (as well as to the ANSI-PSC 1 standard),[12] while the UK has announced that a national certification system will be created to measure companies’ implementation of the ICOC.[13] These announcements are significant as both countries are important PMSC clients.

Industry representatives were – together with government and civil society representatives – involved in the creation of the ICoCA, yet it goes beyond previous attempts at industry self-regulation. That is a big step. Arguably, we can now only judge the ICoCA by what’s on paper. The Association is currently looking for an executive director,[14] so it will be some time before it is up and running. How robust its monitoring and complaints procedures are remains to be seen when first cases of misconduct are reported. We all remember that Blackwater simply withdrew from the US industry association ISOA and its code of conduct in light of an impending misconduct investigation a few years ago.

So the answer to the introductory question depends on whether you are a glass half-full or half-empty kind of person. Yes, the success of the ICoCA remains to be seen. Yes, it applies only to companies that signed up to it and yes, it does not eliminate the need for individual states to regulate companies within their jurisdiction. It may be a small step, but it is a critical move towards a more comprehensive regulation of the industry, especially by differentiating between companies that committed to the ICoC and those that did not.

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NOTES

[1] For the full code see http://www.icoc-psp.org/uploads/INTERNATIONAL_CODE_OF_CONDUCT_Final_without_Company_Names.pdf.
[2] For an overview of where signatory companies are headquartered, see http://www.icoc-psp.org/Home_Page.html. With 208 the UK is the country with the most signatory companies.
[3] Human Rights First, http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/2013/09/18/icoca-launch-marks-significant-step-to-improve-private-security-contractor-oversight/.
[4] War on Want, http://www.waronwant.org/news/press-releases/17987-charity-slams-conduct-code-for-private-military-and-security-companies.
[5] UN Press Relase, 13 September 2013: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=13729&LangID=E.
[6] Available at http://www.icrc.org/eng/assets/files/other/icrc_002_0996.pdf.
[7] UN Press Release, 4 November 2013: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=13940&LangID=E.
[8] Available at http://psm.du.edu/media/documents/international_regulation/united_nations/human_rights_council_and_ga/open_ended_wg/session_1/un_open_ended_wg_session_1_draft-of-a-possible-convention.pdf.
[9] For those interested in further reading, information about PMSC regulation is as good as never before, largely due to the Private Security Monitor, a project of the University of Denver in association with DCAF. It provides an extensive, annotated library of national and international laws, conventions and other instruments somehow related to the regulation of PMSCs. This includes a detailed list of national regulation for PMSCs for most countries around the world. Having said that, hardly any country has laws specifically applying to PMSCs. Instead, laws focus on domestic security provision, mercenaries or the enlistment of a country’s citizens in foreign armed forces. http://psm.du.edu/.
[10] http://psm.du.edu/commentary/index.html.
[11] http://www.icoc-psp.org/uploads/ICOCA_Draft_Financing_Model.pdf.
[12] http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2013/08/213212.htm. For the ANSI-PSC standards see http://psm.du.edu/industry_initiatives/asis_international.html.
[13] https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/international-code-of-conduct-for-private-security-providers-association.
[14] If you have seven or more years of work experience in the private security sector along with a number of other skills you can apply until 18th November. http://www.icoc-psp.org/uploads/ICoCA_Executive_Director.pdf.

Why becoming a Private Security Contractor cannot be explained by motivation

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In the third instalment of the Private Contractor Series, the focus is on individual contractors. Alison Hawks argues that the money motive is not a sufficient explanation as to why individuals become security contractors – as is often assumed by critics of the industry.

Birthe Anders

PMSCs Series Editor

Why becoming a Private Security Contractor cannot be explained by motivation

by Alison Hawks

Motive is often used in an effort to explain who an individual is and why they do what they do. Private security contractors have not been immune to this application, and popular discourse about the individual security contractor often revolves around what ‘motivates’ these individuals. The question is fair. The money is pretty good. But to understand individuals about whom little is known, working in an industry often described as opaque, the individual’s motivation gives little insight. This post will explore the ubiquitous explanation of ‘money motivator’ of military veterans-turned-private security contractors by looking at past studies and drawing on interviews.

Private security contractors are often mistook for ‘mercenaries.’ The Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions put forth six conditions, including the individual’s ‘motivation’, required for the ‘mercenary’ assignation. As Krahmann pointed out, it is not only problematic to prove all six conditions simultaneously, as is required by the Protocol, but proving an individual’s personal motivation virtually impossible in determining if they are a mercenary or not.[1] What is interesting is that motivation was included at all in the Protocol. Motive is not only difficult to prove, it is also somewhat useless in understanding a population of which little is known.

Most private security contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan are not Westerners, but either local nationals (LNs) or third country nationals (TCNs). Of those that are Western private security contractors, most have either prior military or law enforcement service, and most are men. They are the focus of this post. While many people assume these individuals are motivated by money, and even adventure, we do not really know what influences them to become contractors.

Security contractors do get paid well, for the length of their contract. As one security contractor pointed out to me during an interview, ‘there is no security in security.’[2] Security contracting is dependent on conflicts that by their circumstance create a market for outsourcing. It is not a one fits all approach. Making $150,000 for one year as a contractor does not equate to being an active duty soldier making $40,000 per year for 10, 15 or 20 years. Security contractors do not receive from their employer life insurance, long-term savings plans, housing, health insurance, or benefits extended to spouses or children.

Security contracting can also be adventurous. Yet, recent numbers show that security contractors are 4.5 times more likely to die than soldiers.[3] In fact, by 2010 more contractors had died than soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.[4] Like their armed forces counterparts security contractors have reported similar rates for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), alcohol abuse, depression, suicidal ideation and suicide.[5] Further, they suffer disabilities as a result of their work like amputated limbs, blindness, and deafness among others as a result of being exposed to IEDs, ambushes, mortar attacks, kidnappings and incoming artillery fire.[6] When their contracts are over, unlike active duty service personnel or veterans, contractors have little recourse to address their mental or physical health and well-being.[7] Those contractors who are military veterans often encounter the bureaucratic snag that the government and public veteran service providers will often turn contractors away as they cannot prove their symptoms are something they incurred while serving in the armed forces, leaving the individual to advocate for themselves while trying to secure care for their issues.[8]

If we focus on Western private security contractors we know that the majority have served in their state’s military. Often, this experience is required for a job. Prior military experience situated with discourse on the individual’s ‘motive’ for becoming a security contractor is somewhat of a paradigm shift. For one, the individual’s serving in the military are not normally defined by economic motivation. Surveyed US enlistment propensities show that many individuals initially join the military in an effort of social mobility across four broad categories: institutional (desire to serve, be patriotic, be adventurous, be challenged, and be a soldier); future-oriented (desire for a military career and money for college); occupational (need to support family and best choice available; and pecuniary benefits (desire to repay college loans and receive bonus money).[9] A second study has show similar results and private gain did not top the list of why the individual stated they became a security contractor.[10] It is natural, as a result of compensation in the military, for the individual to be attracted to the earnings of a security contractor. But will this disparity in earnings explain who the individual is? Or why they decide to become a contractor? No. A look at what ‘motive’ is helps to understand why this is so.

Motives, as the sociologist C. Wright Mills wrote, are fluid and flexible, influenced by the individual’s environment. If the environment changes, Mills argues, the individual’s motives will as well. Inversely, if the environment remains unchanged, motive also remains unchanged.[11] He writes, motives ‘are words…they do not denote any elements ‘in’ individuals. They stand for anticipating situational consequences of questioned conduct.’[12] Meaning, motivation is contextual and rational. In contrast to intrinsic and extrinsic motivations in efforts to understand the individual, Mills examines motive by way of vocabulary. He writes ‘conversations may be concerned with the factual features of a situation as they are seen and believed to be or it may seek to integrate and promote a set of diverse social actions with reference to the situation and its normative patterns of expectations.’[13] The italics, emphasis not in the original, highlight the influence of institutions on situations and how they will subsequently engender a particular narrative constructing not only the individual’s motive but also what is expected by others for the individual’s motive to be. In regards to the above ‘money motivator’, the normative social construct existing today regarding security contractors restricts the individual to being driven solely by economic gain. For Mills, this explanation of money as a sole motive would be far too reductive in considering these individuals. Verbalizing ‘money’ as a motive is not copasetic to the military institution – the military institution is one that embeds, reinforces and nurtures the individual’s role in the Social Contract, emphasizing the service the individual provides. Motives, therefore, are an accepted part of understanding, but are not definitive. They can describe the effects of the individual’s environment, but will not necessarily describe the individual.

I argue that to understand military veterans-turned-private security contractors, two things are more important than motive alone. The first is the ‘environmental continuity’ security contracting provides by way of operational environment, language and similar experience of peers; and the experience the individual seeks by way of becoming a security contractor. These two things are better situated within military institutionalisation, and military – civilian transition, not motivation. While Western armed security contractors are a small group, they are an important population to understand. Motives generalise these individuals, often unfairly. I propose more inquiry into what influences the individual, when and where, to become security contractors and the attraction of the security contracting environment, as those will provide a pragmatism in scholarship that motives do not. After all one can be motivated to do something, and never do it. Shall we let that define these individuals carrying arms in high-risk environments? I should think not.

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NOTES
[1] Elke Krahmann, States, Citizens and the Privatisation of Security (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 6.
[2] A. Hawks, Interview (October 2013)
[3] Steven Schooner & Collin Swan, ‘Contractors and the Ultimate Sacrifice’, George Washington University Law School Public Law and Legal Theory Working Paper No. 512, Legal Studies Research Paper No. 512 available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1677506.
[4] Christian T. Miller, ‘This Year, Contractor Deaths Exceed Military Ones in Iraq and Afghanistan’, in ‘Disposable Army, Civilian Contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan’ (published September 23, 2010), available at: http://www.propublica.org/article/this-year-contractor-deaths-exceed-military-ones-in-iraq-afgh-100923 (last visited on 6 November 2013).
[5] Katy Messenger et al., ‘The Experiences of Security Industry Contractors Working in Iraq: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis’, JOEM, Vol. 54, No. 7 (July 2012), pp. 859-867; Anthony Feinstein & Maggie Botes, ‘Psychological Health of Contractors Working in War Zones’, Journal of Traumatic Stress, Vol. 22, No. 2 (April 2009), pp. 102-105, 102-103; Neil Greenberg, ‘The Mental Health of Security Contractors Cannot be Ignored’, The Huffington Post (January 10, 2012) available at: http:/ /www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/professor-neil-greenberg/danny-fitzsimmons-mental-health-g4s-b_1929016.html (last visited on 6 November 2013).
[6] See Table 1 in Messenger, ‘Experiences’, p. 861, where the following were ranked highest by contractor surveyed: ‘thought might be killed or seriously wounded’, ‘came under small arms fire’, ‘came under enemy sniper fire’, ‘saw UK/allied forces killed or wounded’, ‘discharged weapon at enemy’, ‘encountered hostile or aggressive reactions from civilians’ and ‘handled or uncovered human remains’; also, Kevin Powers, ‘A Soldier’s Story: Returning Home from Iraq’, Parade Magazine (October, 2012), available at: http://www.parade.com/news/2012/10/21-iraq-veteran-kevin-powers-interview-the-yellow-birds.html (last visited on 6 November 2013).
[7] John Nova Lomax, ‘Returning to War Contractors Face Second Battle, Against AIG’ Houston Press, (November 12, 2012).
[8] Ibid.
[9] Todd Woodruff, Ryan Kelty and David R. Segal ‘Propensity to Serve and Motivation to Enlist Among American Combat Soldiers’, Armed Forces & Society, Vol. 32, No. 3 (April 2006), Pp. 353-366, 360-361); and James Griffith, ‘Institutional Motives for Serving in the U.S. Army National Guard: Implications for Recruitment, Retention, and Readiness’, Armed Forces and Society, Vol. 43, No. 2 (January 2008), pp. 230-258, 231.
[10] Volker Franke and Marc von Boemcken’s results from their survey on prior US law enforcement personnel-turned-private security contractors are somewhat similar. The motives of the individuals surveyed ranked, from highest to lowest, as follows: to face and meet new challenges, to help others, to feel like my work makes a difference, to serve my country, and to make more money than in my previous job. See Volker Franke and Marc vom Boemcken ‘‘Guns for Hire’: Motivations and Attitudes of Private Security Contractors’ Armed Forces and Society, Vol. 37, No. 4 (October 2011), pp. 725-742.
[11] C. Wright Mills, ‘Situated Actions and Vocabularies’ (1940), p. 907.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Ibid.