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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.

Strife Remembers, Remembers

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by Jill. S. Russell

It is that time of year when conspirators and urban mayhem are ritually on the minds of Londoners. One year on from the start of Strife and the first of my Guy Fawkes pieces, it is worth considering how two recent events can fundamentally shift the terms of urban security, either for good or ill.

Turning first to the September attack on the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, there is much to concern the observer. The insurgent as commando is entirely effective against soft population targets, to take and hold micro-territory to short term tactical success. [1] Taking account of what we know about the modern mob in tumult [2] then the coupling of the insurgent and the mob emerges as a viable, if novel, Combined Arms [3] model for 21st century warfare. [Read more…] about Strife Remembers, Remembers

Pakistan Taliban leader killed: another drone, another Mehsud. At what cost?

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by Maryyum Mehmood

Hakimullah Mehsud, leader of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), was reported to have been killed in an American drone strike early Friday morning. According to conversations between TTP spokesmen and Pakistani news outlets, Mehsud, along with two of his bodyguards, was killed in the village of Dade Darpakhel in North Waziristan, Pakistan. This article outlines some of the key consequences of his death for Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s overtures for negotiation with the TTP and more broadly for Pakistan.

33 year old Hakimullah Mehsud succeeded Baitullah Mehsud, when his predecessor was slain under similar circumstances, in a US drone operation in the troubled regions in August 2009. Mehsud’s killing has been wrongly reported on several occasions in the past. Details surrounding the circumstances of Mehsud’s actual killing are still emerging. A bounty of $5million had been offered by the FBI since 2010.

Lacking in any formal education and dropping out of a Madrassah in his early teens, Mehsud can be seen as an archetypal TTP foot soldier. Mehsud persevered, working his way up through the ranks of the Taliban; despite his humble beginnings as one of the outfit’s truck drivers, Mehsud climbed the ladder of the Pakistani Taliban’s hierarchy. Being in charge of suicide bomb training and later becoming a spokesman for the TTP, media savvy Mehsud never failed to amuse international reporters but was also considered to be eccentric and often described as reckless. Amongst his many infamous plots, Mehsud is said to have been the mastermind behind the 2009 suicide bomb attack on the CIA officers stationed in the eastern region of Khost, Afghanistan.

The news of Mehsud’s killing comes only a day after the Pakistani government officially vocalized its desire to negotiate with the TTP. Pakistani PM, Nawaz Sharif, said on Tuesday that Pakistan was committed to holding unconditional talks with the Taliban. Mehsud echoed this statement in early October 2013, following the capture of the TTP’s second in command by US forces in Afghanistan.

The timely killing of Mehsud has definitely tossed a spanner into works, showing once more the premature failure of diplomacy in the region. Interior Minister of Pakistan Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, condemned the drone strikes, branding them as a deliberate attempt to “sabotage” his government’s plans to engage in peaceful dialogue with the Taliban. While Pakistani officials consider this to be a great step towards defeating the Taliban, the government’s stance for the time being will not err from its demand in halt for drone strikes. The government has officially issued a statement following the events on Friday, in which it “strongly condemns the US drone strike,” lambasting drone attacks as “a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity” which “have a negative impact” on bilateral ties, regardless of the drones’ high profile targets.

In a somewhat similar fashion, much of Pakistani civil society, whilst rejoicing at the end of Mehsud, will take issue with the use of drones for their notorious track record of civilian casualties. Estimated figures show that civilians bear the brunt and for every, ‘victory’ such as the killing of Mehsud, hundreds of innocent Pakistanis are killed and labelled ‘collateral damage’. Many question whether the lives of hundreds of innocents is really a price worth paying. They demand justice. They demand accountability. Most importantly, however, the killing of Mehsud has led many frustrated by the Taliban’s reign of terror in Pakistan to question why now, and not sooner? At the other end of the spectrum, conspiracy theorists in Pakistan will condemn Nawaz Sharif for being embroiled in a charade of peace talks whilst he was allegedly aware of the plan to kill Mehsud.

Hakimullah Mehsud, like his predecessor Baitullah before him, is no more. However, the menace of the TTP, its ideology and militants very much remain. Inevitably a new leader will be announced in the coming days. Rumors suggest that Mehsud’s replacement will be a toss-up between Maulvi Omar Khalid Khurasani, of the Mahmand region and Maulana Fazlullah, leader of the Swat Taliban. Regardless of who is to take up leadership of the TTP, one thing is certain: the only way to prevent the repetition of this continuos cycle of killing and bloodshed is revolt from below, from the people on ground. In the Pakistani political context, air strikes carried out by foreign forces are certainly not a sustainable long term solution to eliminating Pakistani Taliban insurgency, putting an end to terror and establishing effective peace.

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Maryyum Mehmood is a first year PhD candidate at the department of War Studies, King’s College London. Her research focuses on mechanisms of racial and religious prejudice, and responses to stigmatisation. She is also interested in South Asian security issues.

Overpriced or Out of Sight: What subsistence history teaches us about contractors and tactical logistics at war

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In this, our second instalment in the PMSCs series, Jill Russell will be taking a look at the practical ramifications of logistical contracting in the US armed forces and will argue that contractors are not sufficient for the critical roles they are often assigned.

Birthe Anders
Department of War Studies, King’s College London
PMSCs Series Editor

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The Private Military Security Contractors Series. Part II:
Overpriced or Out of Sight: What subsistence history teaches us about contractors and tactical logistics at war

by Jill S. Russell

Sutlers_tent_petersburg_01730v
Siege of Petersburg, Va - Sutler’s tent, 2d Division, 9th Corps, November 1864

Without much fanfare the American armed forces have over the last several decades shifted responsibility for increasing portions of operational and tactical logistics to private contractors. Focussing specifically upon subsistence, and furthermore on the preparation and delivery of food to the front lines, little concern has emerged over the ramifications of this change in practice. Especially at the tactical level [1] this is a dangerous oversight, for as I will argue here, American experience, both distant and recent, demonstrates that contractors are not sufficient to the critical task of feeding troops at war.

The unreliability of the private sector in tactical logistics was one of the first lessons of American military history. The experience diverged from historical practice, as civilians had long played a part in the delivery of provisions whether as labour, involuntarily with impressments of goods, or enterprise in the food and drink on offer by the local sutler. Considering only the last for the purposes of this discussion, Continental Army leaders might have been able to expect that this character would serve the Revolutionary cause and fill the subsistence gaps the infant army could not handle.

Bordering on catastrophic Revolutionary War subsistence logistics nearly proved the undoing of the Patriot cause. Suffering no lack of provisions extant in the Colonies, plaguing the army’s inability to feed its soldiers were deficiencies rooted entirely in its logistics, from inadequate manpower to a complete lack of professional knowledge and practices. Even still, sutlers could have been the army’s salvation. Unfortunately, in that war, while their propensity to fleece the troops was entirely reliable, their presence where and when necessary could not be guaranteed, in large because the Continental dollars did not interest. However, as the goods were present in the country, it was the want of money in the government coffers that guaranteed the struggle, for were the last not an issue then entrepreneurship would at least have eased many of the logistics challenges.

Thus, weak in the Revolutionary War for reasons of profit, this experience taught that especially at the tactical level, successful logistics could only be guaranteed by the armed forces themselves. The Americans might have been the first to learn this lesson, but the European powers would realize this truth as well over the course of 19th century warfare.

More than a century would pass before this capability was fully developed. The Civil War, for example, was marked by their presence, as sutlers remained an imperfect stopgap when necessary. However, they were never meant to fully serve the logistical needs of the front lines. The long 19th century was a slow march to the military capabilities necessary to manage logistics. Strategic logistics, especially in manufacture and internal transportation, were (and remain) areas in which the private sector outperformed the armed forces.

Cresting in WWII, finally triumphant over most of the challenges, it seemed that the demands of logistics at war had finally been equalled and could soon be mastered. This was not to be the case, and before the lessons of that war’s logistics could be fully learned the apparatus was slowly dismantled. I suspect it was part of the rise of the preference for private sector wisdom regarding what constituted best practices. After all, if America’s businesses could thrive and dominate the global economy then they must have something valuable to teach the armed forces. [2] Except cost savings and efficiency fail war when effectiveness is contested by a determined enemy or the ruthlessness of chance. What works for Wal-Mart does not necessarily serve the Marine Corps.

Unlike in the Revolutionary War, the matters of resources and expertise have not harmed the private sector’s performance in logistics since WWISS. Rather, the altered terms of warfare define the weakness of private contractors in logistics, their failure to adequately serve is caused by risk. By the 20th century the increasing lethality of war meant that unlike the finite and constrained battles of the past, now combat raged night and day, death reigned, but still soldiers needed to be fed. Although durable, portable and ready to eat field rations would be developed, even their delivery to the front lines could be contested. Nor was it the case that these rations could serve for the long term to good fighting effect. That is, no one would starve if there were unlimited C-Rats, but that is not the same as sustaining fighting skill. Accordingly, field rations would never preclude the need for some amount of fresh (or near fresh) provisions to be delivered and prepared for front line personnel.

This significant growth in risk means that even given the premiums paid to contractors, there are levels of personal peril which cannot be mitigated by money alone. Uniformed military personnel accept risk, but they are trained and indoctrinated to do so as part of a group to which they have bonded. In fact, I might argue that it is the matter of risk which defines and separates military personnel from others, and perhaps is their inspiration as well. Absent this trained acceptance, there is a limit beyond which it will remain exceedingly difficult to get contractors to operate effectively.

And yet, by voluntarily choosing the private sector to handle an increasing burden of tactical logistics, by the 21st century’s first wars it has been forward into the past with a return to modern day sutlers and civilians who do the cooking. One might assume that this would mean success all around, as there is no real lack of resources within the nation or government. This has not been the case.

Second chances are always written with new twists, and so this time around it is the government rather than the soldiery that is likely getting fleeced. [3] I suppose that is some consolation. Or it would be except for the unholy gap that has been created at the very front lines and for the smallest units. Coping with this gap, the forces have most often returned to the “old ways.” In OIF and OEF, where the FOB feeding paradigm left small, far forward-deployed units unserved, the answer to the feeding gap has been to send a soldier or Marine to do the cooking. [4] And as American defence budgets are reduced, back in garrison, the days of freedom from KP duty may be coming to an end.

Which raises the question, why has the US returned to a mode of tactical logistics that relied upon the private sector? Logistics love ingenuity. In the private sector this ingenuity improves efficiency and cuts costs. However, in war, it simply worries the problem until the job is done. Rather than a private contractor, the guy who will live and die with the quality of the logistics is like to produce the best results. At least at the tactical level, logistics needs to be returned to the forces. It is part of the fight and needs to be treated as such.

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NOTES

[1] There are many ways – depending on the service questioned – to refer to the tasks I consider within the sphere of tactical logistics. The Marine Corps, eg, uses combat service support. For the purposes of this essay tactical logistics refers to the final delivery and/or preparation of goods or services to manoeuvre units for their use.
[2] Of course, if one stops to consider that most of the private sector experience in logistics had been gained in war, that the armed forces had been the trailblazers in such areas, then its presumed superiority must be questioned.
[3] Attempting to unravel the complexity which is the accounting for recent military operations is well nigh impossible. What is clear is that private contractors have not provided the significant cost savings that were promised, nor have they been found to take particular care of the public funds with which they have been entrusted.
[4] I have extensive evidence on one unit’s experience, as well as scattered anecdotal information across multiple deployments. As the problems were structurally determined, it is likely that similar shortfalls were experienced across the deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.