Rolf Uesseler

Private Military Corporations (PMCs) is the sanitized name for mercenary armed forces, which play strong and dangerous roles in wars throughout the world. Often mercenary armies, and the large number of support staff that accompany them, outnumber the armed forces of the nations that employ them. Instead of fighting to preserve a balanced global world, PMCs fight for profit, as war has become a highly lucrative job. The term, PMC, was coined by Tim Spicer, CEO of Aegis Defense Services, one of the largest of the sixty-eight PMCs operating in Iraq.
The author, a native of Dortmund, Germany, is a freelance writer who has lived in Rome since 1979, and has written two previous books, Mafia, Myth, Power, Mora (1987) and Challenge Mafia: Strategies Against Organized Crime (1993), which focus on Uesseler’s specialties, organized crime and illegal economic activities. He gained first-hand experience by participating in the Italian anti-Mafia movement and has published widely in German and Italian periodicals.
Private Military Corporations are much more than armed forces of mercenaries. They are among the world’s wealthiest corporations, such as Blackwater Worldwide and Kellogg, Brown and Root, which offer a wide array of services that include security, training, intelligence, and logistics. KB&R, a subsidiary of Halliburton, in 2005 alone received $13 billion in contracts for its services in the War in Iraq. Vice President Richard Cheney, Halliburton’s former CEO, has allegedly made millions from its gross overcharges of the U.S. government, the author claims. Blackwater has made a fortune providing security in Afghanistan and Iraq, but has been notorious for terrorizing the local population. Blackwater bills the government (U.S. taxpayers) $445,891 for each of its employees a year, compared to the $51,100-$69,350 that is paid to each member of the U.S. military.
Despite the spin, PMCs do not provide cost effective services, the author maintains. Mediocre service at exorbitant cost is the rule. In addition, since PMC members are private employees, they are allowed to operative with little oversight and infrequent disciplining. This was the case at Abu Ghraib prison, where water boarding and other forms of Geneva Conventions-defying torture were inflicted on inmates by American forces, who in some cases were disciplined, and by PMC forces, who were not. In Iraq, 30,000 members of PMCs serve, the second largest force besides the United States, and PMCs also maintain a substantial force in Afghanistan.
Clients of PMCs range from the most advanced countries, like the United States, which supplements its 1.5 million armed forces with one million PMC employees, to private businesses, warlords and drug cartels. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have documented PMCs abuses, including murder, rape, torture, and bartering their services for shares of lucrative drug trade and for gunrunning in Columbia, Rwanda, Botswana, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone and other third world countries. Human rights groups, however, have not documented any cases of PMCs establishing enduring peace.
The current abuses of Private Military Corporations that the author chillingly describes are not a new phenomenon. Uesseler presents an historical overview of the widespread use of mercenary armies, which shows that they have been inconsistent, ineffective, and a danger to the nations they were hired to protect. With the end of the cold war, PMC services have been in greater demand because most nation’s decreased their defense budgets before new security needs were made necessary by 9/11 and worldwide terrorism. Outsourcing became the expensive but viable alternative.
The author is not optimistic about PMCs being reformed either internally or by the nations in which they operate. This is especially true for poorer third world countries, in which PMCs have caused much more social and economic disruption than in more advanced countries. The author might have devoted more discussion to reforming PMCs, or perhaps he does not view this as a possibility. Uesseler does call for more international oversight, so that diplomatic, not cost plus, solutions, is sought for war-torn nations. This would require accessible healthcare, a financially and politically accountable government, and participatory politics. Likely, the global economic downturn will make implementing these improvements more problematic. Overall, the author has written and illuminating and bleak account of how Private Military Corporations continue to grow in power because they are the readily available, if not a good, alternative for settling disputes and protecting people and resources. (December, 2008)

Copyright ForeWord Magazine, Volume 12, NO. 1
by Karl Helicher… (plus d'informations)

Book describes the current use of private corporations for activities reserved for Government supported armed forces. The author has a very dim view of there practices and is concerned over the long-term implications they may have in the long term. The author does give a backround as to why nations have taken such actions and analyzes the fact that these orgranizations frequently fail to perform as anticipated and often result in larger problems than anticipated. However, I get the impression the author has a dim impression of the armed forces and doesn't propose a method to achieve the benefits these companies provide through another means.… (plus d'informations)