Few industries profit from war as directly as private military companies (PMCs). Privately employed security contractors provide security services in conflict regions – serving alongside national militaries, but answerable only to their employers.
The United Nations calls them mercenaries, and in 2001, outlawed their use with the ‘International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries treaty’. There was one problem though; none of the world’s major powers ratified this treaty – China, France, India, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States all abstained from the treaty.
The reason is that there are strategic and commercial interests at play. The United States has played a key role in ‘outsourcing‘ warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan.
For 16 years, the United States has been bogged down in the ‘Graveyard of Empires’ that is Afghanistan. The cost of war has been staggering for Washington – $1 trillion and over 2,400 American lives. But over half these casualties have been from PMCs. In the latter part of the Obama administration, PMCs in Iraq and Afghanistan outnumbered the U.S. Army three to one.
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