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Risk and Private Military Work

Carolyn Gallaher

School of International Service, American University, Washington, DC, USA;[email protected]

Abstract: To date geography has paid scant attention to private military contracting.Other disciplines have studied the topic, but their work is state-centric. In this paper I examine private military contracting through a geoeconomic lens and make four arguments. First, the heightened security risks of the contemporary era cannot beexplained solely as a result of states decision to cede their monopolies over the meansof violence. We must also examine the private military rms that have created newmonopolies and the strategies they use to manage and distribute risk. Second, the industry

has increased risk in the world system by ofoading security risks onto their employees.This responsibility over rights management model provides inadequate human rightstraining and battleeld adjudication procedures for contractors and civilians alike. Third,the geography of private military work does not always conform to the global division of labor between north and south. Instead, private military work creates a class of work thatcuts across social and geographic divides. Finally, while activists should encourage statesto regulate the industry, they should also push it to reform employment practices sinceprivate military rms are increasingly global in scope.

Keywords: military privatization, class, private military contracting, risk, geoeconomic

In 2003 when the USA invaded Iraq, its forces were accompanied by the largestcontingent of private military contractors (PMCs) in US history. There was onecontractor for every 10 military personnel in the Iraqi theatre. By comparison, theratio in the 1991 Gulf War was one to 50 (Isenberg 2004). While private military rms(PMFs) rst drew wide public attention during the second Iraq War, PMFs have beenengaged in contemporary warfare for more than 20 years. Halliburton, for example,created a subsidiary, Brown and Root, in 1986 to provide war-related services tothe US government (Singer 2003). In 1995 during the Sierra Leone civil war, thehead of the countrys fragile government hired a PMF, Executive Outcomes, to rout

its guerilla adversary, the Revolutionary United Front, from the countrys diamondmines (Richards 1996).To date, the discipline of geography has paid little attention to the place of

contract soldiers in modern warfare or the rise of the private military industry (for an exception see Paglan 2009). However, the issue has drawn the attention of writers in international relations (Avant 2005; Howe 1998; Pattison 2008; Singer 20012002) and law (Francioni 2008; Verkuil 2007). A good number of journalistshave also covered the topic (Pelton 2007; Scahill 2007). Most of the work on PMCshas tended to view private military contracting through the lens of security. This focus gives the work on PMCs a state-centric avor. Indeed, though security scholarsacknowledge that the rise of PMCs is emblematic of the corporatization of warfare(see Singer 20012002), their work has largely focused on what this means for statesseeking to maintain, regain, or establish security.

Antipode Vol. 44 No. 3 2012 ISSN 0066-4812, pp 783805 doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8330.2011.00893.xC 2011 The Author Antipode C 2011 Antipode Foundation Ltd.


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In this paper I examine PMFs through a geographically sensitive political economic framework. This focus is not intended to debunk state-centered analysis of PMCsa focus which has yielded important insightsbut rather to provide an alternateview of the industry. In particular, I use work in geography on the relationshipbetween militarization and the rise of a geoeconomic order (Cowen 2008; Cowen

and Smith 2009; Flint and Radil 2009; Roberts, Secor and Sparke 2007). This worksituates military privatization in the shift from a world system dominated by interstaterivalry to one framed by economic competition. In the geoeconomic order wars areincreasingly imperial and mercenary forces have proven useful for those wagingthem. I also draw on Ulrich Becks work on risk (1992, 2002, 2009) to examinewhat these changes mean for the distribution of security risk in the internationalsystem.

While this literature provides fertile ground for the project herein, it also containsgaps this paper is designed to address. In particular, while we know that the newgeoeconomic order has changed the types of wars we ght (and the reasons for launching them), we know little about how labor relations are organized withinthe private military industry, or what this organization means for the distribution of risk in the international system. To address these lacunae I make four interrelatedarguments. First, the heightened security risks of the contemporary era cannotbe explained solely as a result of states decision to cede their monopolies over the means of violence. Rather, we must examine entities such as PMFs that havecreated new monopolies in their place and the strategies they use to manageand distribute risk. Second, and relatedly, I argue that the industry has increasedrisk in the world system by ofoading security risks onto its private soldiers. This

responsibility over rights management model does not provide adequate humanrights training or battleeld adjudication procedures for either contractors or thecivilians they encounter. As such, and contrary to Beck, I contend that risk continuesto be structured by class positioning. Third, I argue that the geography of the privatemilitary class does not always conform to the global division of labor between northand south. Instead, it includes workers from across social and geographic divides.Fourth and nally, this nding has implications for how we resist the clustering of security risks. While activists are correct to push states to regulate the industry, theyshould also push the industry to reform its employment practices since both PMFs

and their workforce are increasingly global.The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. I begin with a brief discussionof the extant literature on the industry to demonstrate its state-centric focus andillustrate the need for geographically sensitive political-economic analysis. I then turnto the geographic literature that frames my analysis. Though most of this work doesnot focus specically on the private military industry, its focus on risk, militarization,and the rise of the new geoeconomic order make it well suited for such a focus. I alsopoint out lacunae in this work that my analysis is designed to address. In the nalsection I conduct a case analysis of the personnel section of the code of conductestablished by the International Stability Operations Association (ISOA) 1 , a registeredlobby for the private military industry. I read the codes functionality around threetest cases involving contractor risk to unpack how PMFs manage workplace risk andhow this management model affects the distribution of risk beyond it. I conclude by

C 2011 The Author Antipode C 2011 Antipode Foundation Ltd.


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discussing what my case data say about the rise of the geoeconomic and resistanceto it.

Analyzing PMFs through a State-centric FrameworkThe literature on privatized militaries is a burgeoning eld, especially withininternational relations (IR) where scholars have examined the topic through asecurity framework (Howe 1998; Pattison 2008; Rosemann 2005; Singer 20012002). Security has traditionally been dened in reference to both individual statesand the state system. At the level of individual states, IR scholars dene securityas the ability to monopolize the means of violence in order to protect citizens from external enemies (Weber 1978). In the state system, security is viewed as theability of powerful states to ensure the integrity of the state system by protectingweaker states against invasion or mitigating system wide threats, such as nuclear war (Mearsheimer 1990; Morgenthau 2005).

The literature on PMFs has adopted this view of security. As such, the scholarshiphas largely been devoted to analyzing whether the rise of PMFs is good or bad for the state, and by extension the security of the state system. As I will demonstrate,this focus means that scholars have tended to ignore what the rise of the privatemilitary industry means for other scales/institutions/actors in the system.

PMFs as a Positive PhenomenonThe most common argument in support of PMFs is that state militaries are ill-equipped to ght the irregular forces that now dominate contemporary battleelds.Indeed, guerillas and warlords do not have the repower of the US or British ArmedForces, but they have greater exibility. Horizontal command chains, cell structures,and familiarity with the terrain give irregular forces a distinct edge over statecompetitors. Moreover, because these groups are not states, they can make militarydecisions without worrying that their tactics will alienate allies, domestic publics,etc. In fact, warlords tactics are often designed to terrorize in as much as most gainpower through coercion rather than consent (Kaldor 2001). In this context, statesare better off subcontracting their war-making to entities organizationally similar to

contemporary warmaking groups. An unstated corollary is that PMFs are freer thanstates to behave like their enemies. Another line of argument in support of PMFs is focused on Africa. Scholars argue

that African states are often too militarily weak to ght off guerillas (Brooks 2002;Howe 1998). As such, when African states use PMFs to repel guerilla forces, they notonly avert state collapse, they protect citizens from guerillas capricious behavior.Singer (2003) makes this point with a vignette from the Sierra Leone civil war. In1995 after 3 years of ghting, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) was perched20 miles outside the capital. On its way to Freetown the group had pillaged villagesand terrorized civilians by cutting off their hands, and residents in the capital feareda general massacre (p 4). The struggling government was able to fend off abloodbath by hiring a South African PMF, Executive Outcomes, to rout the RUF.The PMFs military success allowed the government to re-establish itself and hold



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its rst election in 23 years. Although Singer is hardly a PMF booster (his criticismsalso appear in the following section), he argues that PMFs can provide an importantsecurity functionprotecting civiliansthe state is either unable or unwilling toperform.

Scholars also argue that PMFs are a positive phenomenon because they are more

effective than state militaries. Using military success as his metric, Howe (1998)argues that Executive Outcomes operations in Angola and Sierra Leone in theearly 1990s were effective because the company was able to defeat guerilla forcesboth governments had tried and failed to beat. Lawyer (2005) comes to a similar conclusion in a comparative analysis of PMF and UN peacekeeping forces in four African countries between 1993 and 2003. Using length of time in theatre, Lawyer nds that PMFs are more effective than UN forces because they average less timein theatre (25 months for PMFs compared with 90 for the UN). Effectiveness is alsomeasured in light of the political considerations surrounding the choice/ability touse force. Several scholars argue, for example, that the use of PMFs by the USAand other big powers is effective because it allows states to meet objectives thatare politically unpopular at home (Jefferies 2002; Markusen 2004). Jefferies (2002)notes, for example, that the USA used contractors to assist the Croatian military inits battle against Serbian forces even though the US public did not support sendingsoldiers to Yugoslavia. Jefferies concludes that the USA could not have secured itsinterest in the region (limiting Russian inuence by attacking their Serbian proxies)without PMFs.

PMFs are also lauded because they are viewed as more economically efcient thanstate or international forces. Lawyer (2005) nds, for example, that while PMF units

cost more per individual unit than UN forces, they are ultimately cheaper becausethey use fewer personnel. Their shorter time in theatre also helps PMFs bring their overall costs below those of UN forces. Other studies point to the inefciencies in thecurrent military model to demonstrate PMFs greater efciency. Apgar and Keane(2004:46) argue, for example, that the USAs use of an all-volunteer military meansthat people are no longer in unlimited supply; they must be managed as scarceresourcesfully priced and apportioned with the same care as in business.

PMFs as a Negative PhenomenonThose who view PMFs negatively make a variety of arguments to supporttheir position. Some scholars argue that state reliance on PMFs erodes politicalaccountability (Cohn 2007; Rosemann 2005). A classic function of the state is themonopolization of the means of violence. With the advent of PMFs, states not onlycede partial control of that monopoly, they do so to entities who are not elected.In democratic states citizens can weigh in on the decision to wage war throughthe political process. The 1973 US War Powers Act, for example, was designed todemocratize warfare by ensuring that the decision to go to war rested in morerather than fewer sets of hands (ie in the legislative rather than executive branch).Likewise, citizens in democracies can vote against elected ofcials for supportingunpopular wars, or opposing popular ones. In the USA the Department of Defensenow bypasses these checks by inserting funding for PMFs into defense appropriations



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bills, which can be thousands of pages long and tend to receive little public scrutiny(Rosemann 2005).

A second critique is that using PMFs allows states to do an end run aroundhuman rights law (Carney 2006). Indeed, while most states agree to abide by theGeneva Conventions, non-state actors do not. In Colombia PMFs contracted by

the US government as part of Plan Colombia have been accused of human rightsviolations. And, although the US and Colombian governments have publicly decriedthese abuses, critics believe the public denouncements are insincere because nearlyall violations have gone unprosecuted (Kurlantzick 2003).

Though less critical than some scholars, Singer (20012002) also sees the potential for human rights abuses related to state use of PMFs. Singer notes that PMFs maybe encouraged to disregard human rights because obtaining repeat business oftenentails being seen as a rm that gets the job done. And, getting the job done canrequire using tactics that are militarily effective but contrary to human rights. As anexample, Singer cites Executive Outcomes work in Angola. The group was militarilysuccessful in retaking territory from UNITA rebels, but its success was due in partto its use of vacuum bombs. International Organizations strongly oppose the use of vacuum bombs because they have a wide kill radius and cause excruciatingly painfuldeathmost victims lungs are ripped apart. As Singer concludes, considerationsof the commonweal are matters of morality, while the bottom line is fundamentallyamoral (20012002:214).

Scholars also argue that PMF abuses undermine the legitimacy of state war efforts. Critics argue, for example, that PMF misbehavior in the war on terrorhas undermined US efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and as a consequence, overall

US security (Alkadry and Witt 2009; Cohn 2008; Pelton 2007; Ricks 2006). PMFabuses in Iraq, for example, contributed to local distrust of the US military andmade it difcult for uniformed commanders trying to halt a brewing sectarian war to gather local intelligence (Ricks 2006). Others argue that the USAs use of PMFs isimperialist. Like empires before it, the US hires mercenaries to maintain its economiccontrol of far ung territories (Scahill 2007). Likewise, Watson (2008) argues that thegrowth of contractors is indicative of military overreach. He speculates that duringa natural disaster, such as an outbreak of bird u, the US government could usecontractors instead of national guardsmen or local police to maintain order, and

American citizens could nd themselves subjected to the same abuses that Iraqicivilians experienced at the hands of contractors.Critics have also taken on the contention that PMFs are more effective than state

militaries. Musah and Fayemi (2000) argue, for example, that military success aloneis not a good measure of effectiveness. Rather, effectiveness must be consideredin terms of a client countrys long-term goals. The stability Executive Outcomesbrought to Sierra Leone, for example, was eeting. Once Executive Outcomes leftthe country, the guerillas retook much of the land the company had taken fromthem (Richards 1996).

Likewise, critics contend that PMFs greater efciency is illusory. Markusen (2004)notes that while industry-produced reports often tout savings of between 20% and30%, their projections are based on savings estimates at the initial bidding stage.



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Many companies offer below market bids because the contracting process at theDepartment of Defense allows rms to request additional funding later on.

Whats Missing? While the literature on PMFs is diverse, the state lies at its analytic core. Indeed,although scholars highlight the states retreat from the monopolization of the meansof violence, the focus is on what this drawback means for both individual states andthe wider state system. This focus appears on both sides of the debate betweensupporters and opponents of PMFs. Scholars such as Brooks (2002) and Howe (1998)argue, for example, that the state maintains power by outsourcing military functions,while others (Alkadry and Witt 2009) argue that state efforts are undermined byPMF use. In both scenarios, however, the locus of analysis is on what happens tothe overall health of the state and of its interests.

Although studying the rise of PMFs with reference to the state is theoreticallysound (there has long been consensus that state formation involves themonopolization of the means violence), it is a spatially static approach. By zeroingin at one level on the geopolitical scale the literature ignores dynamics at other scales and overlooks important actors outside of state institutions. It also ignores theerosion of the geopolitical system itself.

Relevant Geographic Literature As I note at the start of this paper, the discipline of geography has paid little attentionto the rise of PMFs. However, geography provides fertile theoretical ground onwhich to begin such an investigation because it has a well developed tradition inpolitical economy. Here, I draw on recent work on militarization and the rise of anew geoeconomic order (Cowen and Smith 2009; Flint and Radil 2009; Roberts,Secor and Sparke 2003; Sparke 2007). I also draw from Ulrichs Becks work on risk(1992, 2002, 2009). Together, these works help me place the industry within ageographically sensitive political economic framework, and in so doing, to focuson how industry dynamics play out in the new geoeconomic system. To providecoherence I break my analysis into subsections. I begin by discussing the connectionbetween military privatization and the new geoeconomic order. I then discuss how

this relates to Ulrich Becks work on risk. In the next two subsections I discuss thechanging nexus between military service and citizenship and the nature of privatizedmilitary work. I conclude by outlining lacunae in this work, especially as it relates toclass.

Military Privatization and the Geoeconomic Over 20 years ago Edward Luttwak (1990) coined the term geoeconomic tocapture a shift in the global system from one where interstate rivalries frame thebalance of power to one where economic competition between states, corporations,regions, and individuals does. While geographers have not wholly adopted Luttwaksidea of geoeconomics, they have used the approach to develop a number of important insights relevant to the study of war. First and foremost, geographers



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note that the shift (however partial) from a geopolitical to geoeconomic order has undone the importance of territory in war (Cowen and Smith 2009; Sparke2007). Dominance is not displayed by capturing or holding territory but rather by capturing and expanding market share. This is not to suggest that territoryis absent from the calculations states at war make. States continue, for example,

to reserve the right to acquire territory and/or maintain territorial control theyalready have, but it is, as Cowen and Smith (2009:42) note, a tactical option rather than a strategic necessity. Likewise, Sparke (2007) argues that the geopoliticaland the geoeconomic are discursive constructions with different geostrategicunderpinnings. While geopolitical discourse imagines space as partitioned, enclosed,and/or protected, the geoeconomic discourse imagines space as at, inclusive, andexpansionary.

Second, and relatedly, geographers note that the shifting logic in the world systemaffects the types of wars that are increasingly waged (Cowen and Smith 2009;Roberts, Secor and Sparke 2003). Cowen and Smith (2009) argue, for example, thatthe territorial wars that were at the center of the geopolitical era are increasinglygiving way to imperial wars in which economic accumulation (by states and privateentities) is the goal. The second Gulf War is a good example. While the USA invadedand briey occupied Iraq, its goal was never to take over the country so muchas establish a climate suitable for corporate extraction and sale of Iraqi oil to the West. Indeed, while imperial wars have been around for quite some time, Roberts,Secor and Sparke (2003:888) note that the contemporary geoeconomic period isdifferent because the gangster capitalist intervention at the previous n-de-si eclehas been replaced by a much more open, systematic, globally ambitious, and quasi

economic style.The twin contentions at the heart of the geoeconomic orderthe economic

imperative of accumulation and the social impetus to expand the inclusionary netaround which accumulation occurs (and in which it presumably confers benets)have also facilitated new norms for starting war. While the geopolitical era requiredsome threat to security to legitimate an attack, the geoeconomic logic permits, evenencourages, preemptive war (Roberts, Secor and Sparke 2003). Indeed, because thegeoeconomic order is envisioned as socially useful, war to expand it is viewed asjustied.

This work, though not focused on military privatization, has relevance for understanding it. Indeed, the rise of PMFs is part and parcel of the geoeconomicorder. And, recognizing their presence within this new order helps us esh outmore clearly the contours of this new order as it relates to war. Indeed, thegeoeconomic order is not only dened by changes in the types of wars waged (moreimperial wars), or the justications necessary to wage them (preemptive war is nowacceptable); it is also marked by a new type of accumulation in war. Territoriallyorganized accumulation, by states on behalf of their citizenry, has been replaced byaccumulation unanchored to a body politic. And this new type of accumulation hasrelevance for how security risks are now distributed. States no longer ght wars for the body politic, so the historic promise at the heart of the states monopolizationof violencethat the state will only use its monopoly externally to protect the



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citizenryhas collapsed along with its willingness to mediate security risks on behalf of its citizens.

Risk Although Ulrich Beck is not a geographer, his work on risk society is useful here for further unpacking the nature of risk under the new geoeconomic order. For Beck,risk is a product of modernity. During feudalism, people saw themselves as subjectto unseen forces over which they had little sway. As the modern era progressed,however, unseen forces such as bacteria were studied and identied by scientistswho developed mechanisms for controlling them. As the state system emerged,states established means for averting risk for their citizens, and where aversion wasnot feasible, distributing it as widely as possible across the citizenry. In so doing, themodern state was able to increase social and economic benets for all. However, bythe end of the twentieth century, individualism started to dominate views of risk.Instead of relying on state institutions to mitigate risk, for example, individuals arenow expected to assume more risk on their own. Beck also argues that risk is nowglobal in expanse and cannot be temporally or spatially contained. Risks associatedwith the overproduction of harm, for example, affect even those who believe theycan insulate themselves (Beck calls this blowback). Victims of the September 11,2001 attacks, for example, included Christians and Muslims (Beck 2002). Likewise,the radiation fallout from Chernobyl killed the young and the old. Indeed, Beckargues that risk is no longer clustered at the bottom of the class hierarchy but spreadacross it. Furthermore, the global nature of risk means that states can no longer effectively manage it. And, the rise of neoliberal logicespecially of privatizationmeans that many states have stopped trying to do so. In this void, decision-makingabout security and the power that stems from it occur outside the state in whatBeck refers to as the subpolitical (2009:95). Subpolitical groups include a variety of non-state actors, such as transnational corporations, social movements, and eventerrorist networks.

Becks work here is relevant because it helps us conceptualize how security riskis distributed through (and perceived within) the international system. The globalnature of contemporary risk, along with a lack of centralized risk management at

the level of the state, means that for many people security risks appear greater andless predictable. These perceptions have facilitated the growth of the private militaryindustry, whose executives successfully sell themselves as mitigating the risk theyoften perpetuate. Becks recognition of the importance of subpolitical actors is alsouseful because it suggests that PMF decisions on the battleeld are as important tounderstanding the distribution of risk as those made by the states that hire them.

Changing Nexus of Military Service and Citizenship The shift away from a geopolitical order to a geoeconomic one also has importantramications for how military work and citizenship are connected. Under thegeopolitical order military work was seen as an aspect of citizenship. Thus, militarywork often came to be dened as military service . While many developed countries



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had forcible conscription, the state made concessions to soldiers by creating asystem of welfare for them (Cowen 2008). Military welfare provided services such assubsidized housing and economic assistance for job training and/or college. It alsoabsorbed some of the risks associated with soldiering. The families of soldiers killedin battle, for example, received survivor benets and returning veterans received

subsidized care for the rest of their lives. In terms of battleeld risk, soldiers werealso guaranteed a military justice system so that infractions by or against an activeduty soldier were adjudicated fairly. States also protected servicemen accused of breaking foreign laws by trying them at home where the legal system was familiar and any jail time could be served on home soil.

The advent of neoliberalism, and its application to the US military, has undonethe relationship between citizenship and military work (Cowen and Smith 2009).The rst application came after the Vietnam War when the USA ended the draft andreplaced it with an all volunteer force. As Cowen and Smith (2009) argue, the allvolunteer force represented a marketization of military service. The US Armed Forcesnow advertise for recruits, and most branches of the service rebrand themselvesevery couple of years. The marketization of the Armed Forces in the seventies alsoallowed privatization advocates in the 1980s to push for deeper market reforms.In particular, advocates encouraged the US Armed Forces to privatize portions of itsoperations. Their success over the next decade was highlighted when then Secretaryof Defense Donald Rumsfeld launched a hearty defense of military privatizationin the wake of the September 2001 attacks (Rumsfeld 2002). Although manycommentators lamented the prior decades downsizing when discussing the attacks,Rumsfeld (2002) vigorously defended the Armys smaller footprint and suffered little

recrimination for doing so.This delinking is relevant to understanding the geography of contemporary

military work. Within state militaries, especially in the rst world, service has becomesocially and geographically clustered. The reduction in overall troop size, coupledwith the decision to cut or scale back many of the entitlements associated withmilitary service, has reduced the attractiveness of military work. The private sector now offers better pay and benets than the militaries of most developed countries(see Cowen 2008 on the Canadian Armed Forces). The result is that military serviceis now the province of people with limited job prospects. In the USA, for example,

military recruiting is geographically concentrated in economically depressed regionssuch as the rural south and the inner city (Cowen and Smith 2009). Within the emerging private military industry neoliberal practices also structure

the labor force, with similar social and geographic clustering. Managementpositions, for example, tend to be lled by former ofcers in Western militaries whilefoot soldiers and support positions (eg food preparation, clean-up, transportation)are often staffed by men from the developing world such as Bangladesh, El Salvador,India, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka among others (Schulman 2008).

The Nature of Military Work One of the sacrosanct parts of the geopolitical order was the divide between militaryand police functions. Indeed, the monopolization of the means of violence by



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the state was legitimated in large part because the state promised to only useits monopoly of force externally, to protect those within the territorialized nation-state. And, in an effort to ensure militaries did not overstep these boundaries, mostdeveloped nations put their militaries under civilian control. Maintaining internalsecurity was the job of police forces, which were branches of local government.

Of course, there have always been states where this rewall was bridged on asemi-regular basis. Countries in Latin America, for example, have tended to haveoperationally independent militaries. However, in these places the legitimacy of thestate, and trust in it by the citizenry, have tended to be weaker than in countrieswhere militaries were controlled by elected ofcials and prohibited from policing.

The breakdown of the geopolitical order, and the rise of the geoeconomic one,has created a blurring between police and military functions (Cowen and Smith2009). For their part, police have become more militarized. After September 11, for example, US federal agencies in charge of ghting terrorism formed partnershipswith domestic police forces. Local police now patrol borders and deal with crimesthat would normally be the jurisdiction of the military. And, many local police forcesnow have elite paramilitary units within their ranks and use military style surveillancetechnology (Maguire and King 2004). Military units have also witnessed a blurring of their role. As inter-state wars give way to so-called new wars, militaries increasingly ght in urban areas populated with civilians (Cowen and Smith 2009). Once theycapture an urban battleeld, soldiers often nd themselves doing police and evenjudicial workapprehending thieves, adjudicating land disputes, keeping the peace,etc (Kaldor 2001). Unfortunately, the shoot to kill ethos of the battleeld does notalways translate well to the policing sphere where one deals with a suspect rather

than an enemy and the discharge of a rearm is more restricted.The changing nature of military work is relevant to the study of PMFs because the

blurring of military and police work is occurring in the private military workplace aswell. In particular, while the industry likes to maintain that there is a distinctionbetween security and military contractors, 2 security contractors often ndthemselves in military situations for which they have little training (Avant 2005).This blurring not only increases risk for contractors, but also the civilians with whomthey come in contact.

The Role of Class? The geographic literature reviewed above provides a good basis for situating militaryprivatization within a political economy. However, there are also lacunae in thiswork. As I note in the beginning of this paper, the literature on PMFs outsideof geography has tended to look at the PMF phenomenon as it pertains to states. While geographers have avoided this trap by examining what the rise of the industrymeans for the structure of the international system (and the rules that govern it), ithas not specically examined the structure of labor relations within the industry or

its effects on the distribution of risk within the system. Cowen and Smith (2009:37)recognize, for example, that military outsourcing reects and reproduces globalclass difference, but they proffer no concrete explanation for how this processworks. Nor do they discuss the possibility that variations from the old order are



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likely. For his part Beck (1992, 2002) dismisses class altogether, arguing that classpositioning no longer explains the way that risk is distributed throughout society.

In this paper I make four interrelated arguments about how labor relations withinthe industry are organized and how these relations affect the distribution of securityrisk today. First, while states have been actively engaged in reducing their own

monopoly over the means of violence, the source of insecurity is not based, inand of itself, in the states decision to subcontract risk. Rather, we must look at theentities to which risk was subcontracted and assess how they absorb and distributeit.3 States have primarily subcontracted risk to PMFs.

Second, and relatedly, I argue that instead of absorbing important battle-associated risks for their soldiers in the way that states did, PMFs have individualizedrisk at the level of the private soldier. I label this a responsibility over rightsmanagement model. As a result, and in contradistinction to Beck, I argue that classcontinues to be important not only for understanding where security risk is absorbedwithin the global system but also where blowback from harm production originates.

Understanding the dynamics of this class of workers/work is important. Scholarsof irregular warfare note that the intensity and spread of battleeld blowback variesby both the type of ghting group and its internal organization. Kaldor (2001)argues, for example, that guerillas following a hearts and minds paradigm tend totreat civilians better than those who use a fear and hatred model to meet goals.Similarly, Kirk (2003) notes that kidnapping increased dramatically in Colombia after Pedro Marin, the head of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC)reduced salaries from central command. A similar, systematic analysis of the waycontracting effects battleeld dynamics has yet to be undertaken but is in order.

Third, I argue that the clustering of risk distribution within the industry doesnot simply reinforce the global division of labor. Certainly, the distribution of risks follows this pattern in many ways. First World contractors do, for example, receivehigher pay than their Third World counterparts, and this differential means theyare in a better position to cover costs associated with battleeld injuries than their peers from the developing world. However, in terms of battleeld risk, contractorsdoing military work face the same responsibility over rights management modelacross the industry regardless of their social status or national origin. In this sense,an industrial class is created from the expansionary logic of the geoeconomic even

as the risks associated with it remain clustered on the shop oor.Finally, while efforts to force states to regulate PMFs are important, they canand should be supplemented by the actions of worker collectives demanding thereduction of risk in the work place. Mitigating these risks not only protects workersthemselves, but also civilians who encounter them on the battleeld. To makeand demonstrate these arguments I examine the personnel section of the code of conduct developed by an industrys trade group (ISOA 2009).

Risk and the PMC Workplace

Should We Care about PMCs? Before examining the ISOA code of conduct, a temporary detour is in order toconsider whether private soldiers and potential abuses in their workplace merit



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our concern. Indeed, contractors are often unsympathetic gures. They tend to bedepicted as either apocalyptic cowboys popped up on steroids (Durkin 2004) or opportunistic handmaidens of empire (Scahill 2007).

There are, however, several reasons for examining the PMC workplace and tryingto improve it. First and foremost, it bears reminding that wars are rarely the

responsibility of those who ght them. This point is not to suggest that soldiersare robots with no free will, but rather that while they may be a fundamental partof war, they are not synonymous with its decision makers. Indeed, many countriesstill have forcible conscription. And, warlord groups have long recruited membersby kidnapping them. Even in countries where joining an army (private or national)is a choice, it is often a circumscribed one. In developed economies, for example,there is often a defacto economic draft (Cowen and Smith 2009). Likewise, in thedeveloping world, voluntary enlistment in a guerilla group is often done in theabsence of other options (Mueller 2007). The complications surrounding job choicein many sectors of the economy explain why the labor movement has traditionallyavoided moral assessments of particular jobs, and why doing so in the contextof PMFs would likewise be unproductive. Second, the labor relations inherent inthe responsibility over rights management model not only explain why risk isconcentrated in a class of work, but also why it rarely stays contained there andoften affects civilians in random and capricious ways. As such, even if one feels nosympathy for contractors themselves, their workplace risk creates harm and risk for others. And, while eliminating military privatization is certainly a more attractivegoal, its illusiveness suggests that targeting its labor practices may provide a more feasible route to limiting the industrys harm.

ISOAs Code of Conduct ISOA was established in 2000 as a registered lobby for PMFs. The following year theorganization adopted a code of conduct. In 2007, ISOAs founder, Doug Brooks,explained the genesis and transformation of the code in the organizations in-housepublication, Journal of International Peace Operations . Brooks interest in PMFs beganin 2000 when he was doing research on the civil war in Sierra Leone. Brooksdiscovered that while Sierra Leoneans respected the international legitimacy thatcomes with UN peacekeeping, they had lost any faith in the capability of the UNto provide actual security (Brooks 2007:8). Brooks experience led him to questiontraditional views of security and to ponder what role private contractors could playin places like Sierra Leone. To avoid provoking the cynicism directed at UN troops,however, Brooks believed contractors would have to hold themselves to higher standards.

ISOAs code of conduct is a sub-political effort to delineate these standards, andcompanies who join the group voluntarily agree to abide by them. In this sectionI examine the codes functionality around real world workplace situations in order to assess both how PMFs manage workplace risk and how that management affects

the distribution of security risk beyond it.ISOA has revised its code of conduct 11 times. The initial version covered a variety

of issues, including transparency, human rights, and accountability, but it did not



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contain a specic section on personnel issues. The most recent code (March 2009)contains a personnel section with 13 provisions related to employment practices(IPOA 2009).

Three of these provisions relate to guarantees companies must provide employees.Companies that sign the agreement, for example, promise to inform contractors

of risks associated with their job (provision 1), to offer training appropriate totheir duties undertaken (provision 3), and to provide them with equipmentand materials necessary for their jobs (provision 11). Three other provisions serveas checks against employer abuse of contractors. Companies are prohibited, for example, from retaining contractors travel documents, or preventing them fromending their employment (provision 10). Companies must also vet, supervise,and train personnel, including teaching them about applicable legal frameworksin the places they work (provision 4). And, companies must act responsiblyand ethically toward their personnel, including responding appropriately if allegations of personnel misconduct arise (provision 6). There are also six provisionsdesigned to protect clients from potential abuses by individual contractors hiredby a PMF. Companies must ensure, for example, that they hire personnel whoare medically t (provision 2) and meet minimum age requirements (provision9). Companies must also promise not to engage in human trafcking or allowtheir employees to do so (provision 12). Companies may only base salarieson merit and national economic differentials, not race, gender, or ethnicity(provision 8). And, they must seek personnel that are broadly representativeof the local population (provision 7). Finally, companies must act with duediligence when hiring subcontractors to ensure they are not hiring individuals

who have violated human rights in the past (provision 5). The nal provision (13)lays out guidelines for the personal behavior of contractors. They are expectedto conduct themselves humanely, with honestly, integrity, objectivity, anddiligence.

A Code with Gaps In terms of worker protections, ISOAs most recent iteration of its code of conductrepresents a substantial improvement over the groups initial effort. Indeed, the rst code did not even include a personnel section, so its addition representsmeaningful progress. However, the current code is not without problems. I identifythree here. The rst problem is that the code contains inadequate guarantees for contractor training. The second problem is that the code does not addresssubcontracting, which is often used by companies to avoid taking responsibility for ensuring adequate workplace safety for employees. The nal problem is thatthe code does not require companies to properly describe the scope of contractor duties, and whether security work may also involve, or devolve into military work.Taken together, these problems indicate that contractor risk does not just stem from the nature of the job (warmaking), but also from the way the workplace isstructured. They also suggest that curbing industry excesses will require not justregulating the states who hire PMFs, but also the workplace guidelines under whichindividual contractors operate.



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Problem 1: inadequate training. Critics argue that the provisions for contractor training in the ISOA code of conduct are vague [Amnesty International USA(AIUSA) 2009; DeWinter-Schmitt 2009]. Amnesty International argues, for example,that there are no denitions or explanations of terms to clarify what theserequirements entail (AIUSA 2009). In particular, ISOAs provisions on training

(provision 4) do not include specic requirements for training related to humanrights law. Thus, contractors often go into a war zone without any training onwhat constitutes a human rights abuse in the contractors home country, thecountry where battle is occurring, and the country where the PMF is registered.None of this means, however, that contractors are immune from prosecution fromhuman rights law. Indeed, contractors can nd themselves subject to criminalprosecution in their home country, the country in which they are working,and/or in the International Criminal Court (ICC). And, unlike citizen soldiers,who are usually granted access to military counsel and timely adjudication of charges, contractors are guaranteed neither. Even in Iraq, where the US-ledProvisional Authority granted contractors immunity from prosecution in Iraqi Courts(Order 17), contractors may still face legal charges in their home courts and theICC, and neither the PMFs that hired them nor the US agency that contracted their employers guarantees them legal protection or assistance.

A recent example of human rights violations by an American contractor inIraq provides a good example of how these problems play out. In 2003, StevenStefanowicz, a contractor doing interrogations at the Abu Ghraib prison complexallegedly ordered US military police (MP) in the prison to withhold medicine fromprisoners and use attack dogs on them. MPs claim Stefanowicz wanted prisoners

softened up before he began interrogating them (Human Rights Watch 2006). A military commission set up to examine the abuses in the prison found evidencethat the allegations against Stefanowicz were true and amounted to torture (Jonesand Fay 2004). Stefanowiczs then employer, CACI, rejected the assertion thatStefanowicz had engaged in abuse. In interviews with media outlets CACI arguedthat it requires all employees to abide by all relevant local, national, and internationallaws, suggesting that its employees were aware of applicable legal codes on humanrights (Zagorin 2007). However, in a webpage CACI created in the wake of theStefanowicz scandal entitled Truth and Error in the Media Portrayal of CACI in Iraq ,

the company acknowledges it did not provide contractors training on rules of engagement (where legal codes pertaining to human rights violations would bediscussed). Rather, CACI claims its contract with the Pentagon specied that the Army would provide CACI employees with readiness training and briengs on rulesof engagement and general orders applicable to U.S. Armed Forces, DoD civilians,and U.S. contractors (CACI 2009). Based on past practices, it is highly unlikely thatthe Pentagon provided such training. Indeed, the economic point of subcontractingis to relieve the state of costly operations such as training. Moreover, if critics arecorrect that the USA uses contractors in order to outsource illegal tactics, then it isequally unlikely the government provided such training. Unfortunately, the JusticeDepartment has so far declined to try Stefanowicz for his alleged criminal behavior,so there is no public record of the contract CACI had with the Pentagon.



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Although Stefanowicz is hardly a sympathetic gure, the industrial relationsgoverning his status as a contractor mean that he, rather than CACI or the USgovernment, assumes the majority of legal risks associated with his work in the Iraqitheater. Indeed, though he is immune from Iraqi prosecution, he may be prosecutedin the USA. To date, the US Department of Justice has indicted only a handful of

contractors, and Stefanowicz is not one of them. However, congress has introducedlegislation to mandate prosecution of contractors violating human rights, andhuman rights advocates continue to press the administration and congress to see itthrough the legislative process (Flaherty 2007). Stefanowicz, therefore, nds himself in legal limbo. Certainly, critics are correct that Stefanowicz is lucky to have (so far)escaped prosecution, but some contractors in his situation would likely welcomean opportunity to make a case for innocence, or to establish that his companysclient (for Stefanowicz, the Pentagon) had signed off on illegal actions. Unless he isindicted, however, Stefanowicz can do little to defend himself since doing so couldinvolve self-incrimination. In short, the risk of prosecution Stefanowicz faces is notpeculiar to his job as a soldier, but to his employer (a PMF rather than state military).

The Stefanowicz case also demonstrates that the risks associated with theresponsibility over rights management model does not stay contained on theshop oor. If Stefanowicz and other contractors accused of human rights violationshad been US soldiers, for example, their victims among the Iraqi civilian populationcould have reported such abuses to the soldiers superior, who could order aninvestigation and if enough evidence was found, recommend a court marshal. Thesoldier would then have his guilt or innocence established at trial. Instead, Iraqiprisoners subjected to abuse by Stefanwicz have little legal recourse for seeking

criminal justice for the abuses they suffered. Order 17 prohibits them from seekingjustice in Iraq. And, their only recourse in the USA is to seek civil judgments in UScourts (Stefanowicz is currently named in such a suit in the Eastern District court of Virginia). The distance and costs are prohibitive for most victims, but even wherepossible, a civil judgment in a foreign country is not the justice most former prisonersseek. Most want criminal charges led, and criminal punishments applied if guilt isdetermined.

In short, CACI and other PMFs have structured a work place where contractorshave few rights and bear responsibility not only for their individual decisions but

also those made by their employers and their employers clients. Human rightstraining will not prevent all abuses, of course, but they will prevent some. At present,however, contractors are responsible for knowing all applicable human rights lawsand how they apply in specic on the ground circumstances, but there are no clear mandates for their employers or their employers clients to provide that training.Unfortunately, the ISOA code, which is designed to ll such gaps, fails to do so.Indeed, the provision covering training (4) does not mention human rights, insteadusing the more generic phrase legal frameworks. Training on legal frameworkscould include information about specic laws related to human rights violations,but it could just as easily cover the administrative breakdown of a countrys justicesystem with no mention of specic laws.

Problem 2: subcontracting as a mechanism for avoiding corporate responsibility. Asecond problem with ISOAs code concerns its failure to address issues related to



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subcontracting. Typically, subcontracting is viewed as a mechanism for companiesto ofoad costs. In the security context, it is also a device for PMFs hoping to ofoadrisk to the shop oor. This problem is well illustrated in a deadly altercation inFalluja, Iraq in early 2004 involving a small team of Blackwater 4 contractors. On30 March the team was given a mission to provide security for a small convoy of

trucks delivering kitchen supplies to Camp Ridgeway, an American base near thecity (Pelton 2007; Scahill 2007). Although Fallujah was then a hotspot for insurgentactivity, the convoy took a route passing through the city. It remains unclear whythe contractors chose to go through the city rather than around it. Some accountssuggest the team did not have accurate maps of the region; others suggest thecontractors got lost (see Pelton 2007 for an overview). When the convoy enteredthe city it was caught in a trafc jam and soon came under sniper re. The trucks inthe middle of the convoy managed to escape, but the two security vehicles in theconvoy did not. Residents soon surrounded their vehicles, beating contractors andthrowing stones and other blunt objects at them. They eventually set the contractorsvehicle on re. The contractors, by then dead, were pulled from their vehicles andhung from a nearby bridge (see Scahill 2007 for an overview).

The contractors families argue that the contractors were sent to Fallujah withoutproper safety precautions (Scahill 2007). In particular, two precautions were ignored.First, although the contract the men were working under specied that securityconvoys should have a minimum of six men, the Falluja convoy only contained four. Second, the team was not furnished with armored vehicles, even though their contracts required armored vehicles for security (Pelton 2007). A better-protectedconvoy would have likely suffered losses, but it would have had a better chance

of survival (Scahill 2007). After the ambush families of the slain contractors leda wrongful death suit against Blackwater. As the case made its way through thecourt system, subcontracting became an obstacle to families seeking to assignresponsibility for the death of their loved ones. In court, Blackwater argued thatanother PMF, KBR (a subsidiary of Halliburton) was responsible for the men becausethe rm had subcontracted the workers from Blackwater to run the Falluja mission(Scahill 2007). Thus, KBR, not Blackwater, was responsible for the workplaceconditions that contributed to the contractors deaths. KBR, however, has deniedhiring subcontractors from Blackwater. Unfortunately, it is impossible to fact check

either groups claim since PMFs in Iraq have used government contracting provisionsallowing companies to protect propriety data to keep such details out of the publiceye (Scahill 2007).

The International Labor Organizations (ILO) Convention on Occupational Safetyand Heath (1981) provides a benchmark against which to measure the distributionof risk in the Falluja incident. Part 4, Article 16 states that employers shall berequired to ensure that, so far as is reasonably practicable, the workplaces, machines,equipment and processes under their control are safe and without risk to health.Employers are also required to provide, where necessary, adequate protectiveclothing and protective equipment to prevent, so far as is reasonably practicable,risk of accidents or of adverse effects on health. In the Falluja case it is clear thatBlackwater did not provide its convoy with adequate protective equipment. Indeed,the convoys vehicle was not armored even though the contractors were working



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under a contract that required armored vehicles, and despite the fact that Fallujawas considered very dangerous for Americans at the time (Pelton 2007). Likewise,Blackwater did not meet the terms of its contract related to proper convoy size. BothPelton (2007) and Scahill (2007) note that the mission was too small to effectively ght off attacks while retreating for safety (the mission was not military so retreat

was expected).Unfortunately, the personnel section of ISOAs code of conduct does nothingto ensure that PMFs accept responsibility for meeting the terms of their contractswith employees. Nor does it establish a mechanism for sorting out responsibility insituations involving layers of subcontracting. Indeed, Blackwaters responsibilityover rights management model allowed it to inoculate itself against anyresponsibility towards its employees. As Pelton (2007) notes, Blackwater not onlyignored the provisions in its own contract with its workers, it forced them tosign waivers promising not to sue Blackwater for any job-related injury. The ISOApersonnel section should, therefore, require companies to adopt ILO workplacesafety protocols. It should also force companies to accept responsibility for notmeeting the terms of their contracts with employees. In particular, waiverspreventing suing should be forbidden in the code of conduct. Finally, ISOAshould develop a protocol for assigning responsibility for workplace harm whena subcontract is involved. If all companies signed onto such protocols, it wouldbe more difcult for companies to use subcontracting as a means for avoidingresponsibility for employee safety. It would also provide civilians affected by war clear mechanisms for addressing war-related grievances. Such measures would needto be specied for military contracting, but the ILO has worked with states and

corporations to apply their provisions in particular workplaces (DeWinter-Schmitt2009).

Problem 3: inadequate job descriptions. A third problem with ISOAs code relates tothe scope of contractor duties on the job. The failure to lay out what contractors arerequired to do in the fulllment of their job is especially relevant given that the linebetween security and military functions is not as rm as the industry often claims it is. And, while the ISOA code of conduct species that companies must train contractors for their workplace duties (provision 3), the code does nothing to address the factthat security operations often blur into military ones. The experience of contractors

working for the British company Gurkha Security Guards (GSG) in Sierra Leoneprovides a case in point.In 1995 the interim government in Sierra Leone, the National Provisional Ruling

Council (NPRC), began searching for assistance in its war with the RevolutionaryUnited Front (RUF). After 3 years of ghting the RUF had captured several diamondand bauxite mines in the country and the NPRC wanted assistance to retakethem. The NPRC signed a contract with a British rm, J&S Franklin Limited,which subcontracted the job to Gurkha Security Guards (GSG). The GSG wassupposed to assist the NPRC by offering training to cadets in the Republic of Sierra Leone Military Force (RSLMF). The NPRC announced that the Gurkhaswould do no ghting, explaining that it would train the RSLMF in jungle tactics(Vines 1999:130). GSG made similar statements to British newspapers, notingthat its contractors were not in Sierra Leon in an offensive role (as cited in



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Vines 1999:130). Based on these public pronouncements, the Gurkhas wouldbe classied as security rather than military contractors. However, the workingconditions in which the Gurkhas found themselves were clearly military in nature. And, though the ISOA code of conduct did not yet exist, it would have providedlittle protection for the Gurkhas had it been in place.

When the Gurkhas arrived in Sierra Leone in January of 1995 they were stationed ata military base in central Sierra Leone called Camp Charlie, where they trained cadetsand guarded the base. However, their security functions quickly bled into militaryones. Indeed, the base was in hostile territory and the Gurkha unit was expectednot only to guard it but to also ensure pacication of the surrounding area(Vines 1999:130). At the end of February the Gurkhas job would become evenmore militarized when a contingent of Gurkhas and RSLMF men left the campto nd a suitable location for rearms training. While on the scouting mission,the group encountered an RUF unit and engaged in a reght with the rebels.Reports from the reght suggest that most RSLMF cadets ed the scene (Vines1999). At the end of the battle 21 people, mostly Gurkhas, were killed. Many of thebodies were never found. Others were taken back to an RUF camp, mutilated, andphotographed to publicize RUF dominance over the government. In the followingweeks Camp Charlie came under repeated RUF assaults. The RSLMF withdrew itsremaining cadets at the end of March, leaving the Gurkhas to defend the base alone.The NPRC then asked the GSG to engage in offensive operations against the RUF.The GSG refused, citing the terms of its contract.

While the GSGs decision to abide by its contract probably saved Gurkha lives,it did not represent a refusal of military work. The Gurkhas left defending the

camp were already functioning as a military unit given the daily and repeatedassaults on the camp by RUF units. Indeed, though GSGs defense of Camp Charliecould be viewed as a security rather than military operation because it did notinvolve offensive action, the work GSG contractors were doing exceeded the typicalunderstanding of a security assignment. Security usually involves avoiding threats or keeping them at bay, and the use of a rearm would be sporadic and temporaryonly until a military or police unit could be summoned. Military operations, bycontrast, involve persistent interaction with an enemy (whether from the defensiveor offensive position), and sustained use of a rearm.

The experience of the contractors working for GSG highlights both importantgaps in the ISOA code of conduct and the complex geography that emerges outof contracting. First and foremost, the failure of the ISOA personnel code to offer clear distinctions between military and security work creates a context in whichcontractors may be hired under false pretext. A person hired for a security post, for example, may only nd out he/she must do military work once on the job. And, the point at which he/she discovers this fact may indeed be a pitched battlewhere the option to refuse participation or quit are circumscribed. The ILO does nothave a general resolution about hiring under false pretenses, but it has establishedsuch prohibitions for certain categories of people, such as young women hired for domestic work outside their home country and migrants going to another country.These general provisions should be included in the ISOA personnel guide withreference to the security/military work divide.



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The fate of the Gurkha contingent killed and mutilated by RUF soldiers, alongwith the similar outcome in Falluja, also suggests that the distribution of securityrisk dees easy geographic categorization. Indeed, while the Gurkahs were from thedeveloping world (Nepal) and the contractors in Falluja were all American, the twogroups were both hired and trained for security work that devolved into military

work. Men in both groups were also killed and their bodies mutilated becausethey were not properly prepared for the full scope of their duties. In this way,military contractors form a class. The formation of this class does not, however,replicate the extant global division of labor. Rather, it mimics the structure of the geoeconomicit is expansionary rather than partitioned. Indeed, contractingprovides a place where workers from across the North/South divide, form a global,if spatially unrooted, class of workers and concentrated risk. This does not mean, of course, that corporations no longer differentiate between workers doing the samejob. Pay differentials by national origin remain an industry standard (and one ISOAsupportssee provision 8). However, the geoeconomic nature of war means thatcompanies do not protect specic categories of soldiers in the way that states didwith their own citizen-soldiers. Indeed, Blackwater is just as likely to leave Americanunits ill equipped for their jobs as foreign ones.

Conclusion: Risk, Industrial Relations, and the NewGeoeconomic Order My analysis has made four interrelated arguments. First, we must move beyondeasy platitudes that the states decision to cede its monopolization over the meansof violence explains the redistribution of security risk within the world system, andthe seemingly capricious nature in which it strikes. Certainly, the states decisionwas important, but as a precipitating rather than immediate factor. Indeed, I haveargued here that to understand the distribution of security risk today we mustexamine the practices of the entities that have created new monopolies over themeans of violence. Second, I argue that one of these entities, PMFs, has chosento ofoad security risks onto individual contractors rather than assuming many of the risks that states traditionally did. Contractors, for example, cannot expect their vehicles to have proper armor, nor can they expect to receive human rights training.

Contractors may also nd themselves in workplace situations for which they areunprepared. People hired to transport goods may instead nd themselves engagingin a re ght to the death. I term this a rights over responsibility managementmodel and note in contradistinction to Beck that class continues to affect thedistribution of security risk today. Third, I have argued that the geographic clusteringof security risk today does not overlay neatly onto classic geographic categories of unevenness. While a North/South divide continues to explain some of the clusteringof risk (eg rst world contractors are more buffered from the risk of injury than their developing world counterparts by virtue of their higher salaries), it is also true thatthe private military work creates a class whose risk is dened by its occupationrather than its state of origin. Indeed, the US contractors killed in Falluja suffered thesame fate as the Gurkhas killed near Camp Charlie in Sierra Leone. And, these riskswere heightened because the men in both instances were hired (and presumably



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trained) for security tasks rather than the military operations in which they foundthemselves. Finally, I have argued that proponents of regulating the private militaryindustry should also focus on efforts aimed at modifying industrial relations on theshop oor. Though not perfect, ILO guidelines provide a good starting place fromwhich to strengthen the ISOA personnel code.

Although I have not discussed it at length here, it is also worth thinking about therole worker collectives could play in pushing the industry towards self-regulation.Indeed, while I believe a reduction in military privatization is a preferred goal,and I am aware that supporting workplace regulation could help legitimate theindustry, I also recognize that states have shown little appetite for regulatingmilitary privatization. Indeed, even left of center governments appear to have signedonto the military privatization model. In the USA, for example, opponents of theindustry had hoped the Obama administration would step up prosecutions againstmilitary contractors accused of human rights violations in Iraq, but it has failedto do so. And, despite the drubbing Blackwaters reputation received after theFalluja incident, the CIA recently signed a $100 million contract with the company(Stein 2010). It is also worth noting that intervention at the state level aloneis no longer sufcient. Although states are currently the dominant group hiringPMFs, hospitals, hotels, mining companies and other corporations are taking up anincreasing share of PMF clientele. Corporations have already proven adept at takingadvantage of uneven regulatory regimes, so advocates of regulation may have torely on new tactics to enact change.

In this context, social movement tactics designed to force self-regulation areone option for reducing the risk association with military privatization. DeWinter-

Schmitts (2009) comparison of self-regulation in the apparel and private militaryindustry indicates, for example, that alliances between watchdog groups and worker collectives are particularly important in encouraging rms to self-regulate. In theapparel industry, for example, watchdog groups worked successfully with workersto put public pressure on apparel companies such as Nike to force improvements inthe plants of its subcontractors. Such efforts are just beginning in the private militaryindustry, but they have borne some fruit. Indeed, although Amnesty Internationalhas critiqued the ISOA code of conduct, it was one of several organizationsencouraging ISOA to adopt a code and it continues to lobby for changes to it.

The fact that Blackwater quit the organization after the code was established alsosuggests that the industrys worst offenders fear such efforts.

AcknowledgementsI am most grateful to the three anonymous reviewers whose incisive comments andconstructive suggestions helped me hone my arguments. Any mistakes that remain are solelymy own. My thanks also go to Ever Guandique.

Endnotes1 Before October 2010 ISOA was known as the International Peace Operators Association(IPOA). The acronym IPOA is retained in references.2 The industry maintains that there is a difference between security and military contractwork. Security contractors provide services that are ancillary to war making. They prepare



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meals, transport equipment around the war zone, and provide security for ambassadors,NGO staff, and UN ofcials. They are only allowed to discharge their weapon in self-defense.By contrast, military contractors are engaged in classic war-making activities. Their job is toadvance a strategic or tactical mission on the battleeld (Brooks 2002).3 While security risks have been individualized, they could also be centralized abovethe nation-state. Anarchists on the left and militias on the right both worry about the

monopolization of the means of violence by an international body.4 Blackwater is now known as Xe Services.

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