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Isenberg Video
- Here and There with Dave Marash, February 3, 2015
- Sep. 2, 2014 Al Jazeera English segment on Blackwater trial - Comment by David Isenberg
- Jan 2, 2010, Al Jazzeera (English), re Judge Urbina’s dismissal of charges against Blackwater contractors
- June 28, 2010. heard in “Controversy over CIA Blackwater contract,” The World
- August 17, 2010, on C-Span III, speaks on private military contracting
- Examining the role of the military contractor
- Has the Privatization of National Security Gone Too Far? The Future of Military Contracting, November 14, 2008, 9:30-11:00am, New America Foundation
- David Isenberg on PressTV - US contractor with poor ratings hired again
- Outsourcing War and Peace – Video
Recent Comments
- Joseph Burwell on Former student blasts military school for private defense contractors
- Gomes Castro on Families of slain and injured sue Ericsson over claims it funded Middle East terror
- A United States in Perpetual War Should Consider a Foreign Legion as a Pragmatic Solution | NextBigFuture.com on LEGITIMIZING A DE FACTO U.S. FOREIGN LEGION IN AFGHANISTAN: TRANSFER OF MISSION CRITICAL SECURITY OPERATIONS FROM PRIVATE CONTRACTORS TO U.S. MILITARY PERSONNEL
- Resource curse alive and well in Afghanistan - Antony Loewenstein on $488 Million Investment in Afghanistan’s Oil, Mining & Gas Industry at Risk
- Il Boom dei contractors in Africa – SURIYA HABIBATI on Mozambique: Hydrocarbon companies deny security deal with Erik Prince – AIM
Tag Archives: Outsourcing/Privatization
PRIVATE EQUITY & THE PMSC INDUSTRY: From Guards-for-Hire to Integrated Military Capability Platforms, 1990–2050
The private military and security contracting (PMSC) industry is no longer well described as a market for armed guards. Its contemporary form spans armed and expeditionary security, military logistics, aviation support, intelligence, cyber operations, training, engineering, and government mission support. Private equity (PE) has been one of the principal forces behind that broadening. Through leveraged buyouts, platform acquisitions, roll-ups, and recapitalizations, PE sponsors have converted what were once relatively narrow contractors into large, diversified government-services enterprises capable of selling states integrated packages of military and security capability.
This report ranks the private-equity firms most consequential to that transformation; examines six portfolio companies — Amentum, Peraton, ManTech, GardaWorld, Allied Universal/G4S, and Constellis — as six distinct models of PE-driven institutionalization; compiles a 50-entry database of PE–PMSC transactions; and projects the industry’s trajectory to 2050. Continue reading
THE DORSAI CLAUSE
It wasn’t nothing, Reyes had to admit. Half the industry ran on verbal handshakes and post-hoc invoices, and a clause that actually bound the client as much as the contractor was, on paper, worth the laminate. The trouble, as always, was the four sentences that weren’t in Section 14(c). No mention of what happened when a client under sanction quietly transferred the paper to a shell that wasn’t. No mention of who audited the audit. No mention, notably, of what a Dorsai soldier in Dickson’s own books would have called the whole point — that the code only meant something because the ones enforcing it would rather lose the contract than the reputation. Continue reading
Posted in Control, David Isenberg, Fiction, Outsourcing/Privatization
Tagged Control, David Isenberg, Fiction, Outsourcing/Privatization
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Privatization of War in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is increasingly relying on foreign contractors and mercenary networks to bolster the operational capacity of its armed forces, particularly in countering the advancing March 23 Movement (M23) rebels. Continue reading
Posted in Africa, Outsourcing/Privatization
Tagged Africa, Outsourcing/Privatization
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Trump’s Private Hacker Memo Is the Right Idea
The U.S. government’s plan to enlist private-sector hackers to target cybercriminals is controversial, but it addresses a real problem and is surprisingly measured. Continue reading
The Rise of Cyber Mercenaries: How Private Threat Actors Are Reshaping Global Conflict
The traditional monopoly of nation-states over advanced cyber-espionage and offensive digital operations has fundamentally collapsed. In its place, a lucrative, globally distributed marketplace of Private Sector Offensive Actors (PSOAs) and Commercial Surveillance Vendors (CSVs) frequently termed “cyber mercenaries” has emerged to redefine the parameters of modern conflict. This industry, estimated to be worth more than $12 billion worldwide, specializes in the development, packaging, and deployment of highly invasive intrusion suites to government clients. By democratizing access to military-grade cyber weapons, these commercial entities are reshaping geopolitical power dynamics, allowing middle-tier and authoritarian regimes to project asymmetric power, and introducing systemic instability to the digital ecosystem. Continue reading
Posted in Mercenaries, Outsourcing/Privatization
Tagged Mercenaries, Outsourcing/Privatization
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THE LONG SHADOW OF THE SWORD-FOR-HIRE
“Ramesses II fought the Battle of Kadesh with Sherden mercenaries in his personal guard — men recruited, by most reconstructions, from what’s now the eastern Mediterranean, fighting for Egypt’s pharaoh for pay, not for pharaoh’s gods. The distinction matters. A conscript fights because the state compels him. A mercenary fights because the state — or a fragment of one — writes a check.” Continue reading
Posted in David Isenberg, Fiction, Outsourcing/Privatization
Tagged David Isenberg, Fiction, Outsourcing/Privatization
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JOVANA JEZDIMIROVIC RANITO
Dr. Jovana Jezdimirovic Ranito is a Serbian-born scholar of international security and the private use of force who occupies an unusual dual position: a tenured-track academic post at the University of Twente’s honours college, University College Twente (UCT/ATLAS), and, concurrently, one of the most consequential international human-rights mandates dealing with privatized force — Chairperson-Rapporteur of the UN Human Rights Council’s Working Group on the Use of Mercenaries. Continue reading
Why doesn’t it work? US Regulatory Challenges in Outsourcing Private Use of Violence in Stability Operations
Why doesn’t it work? US Regulatory Challenges in Outsourcing Private Use of Violence in Stability Operations Jovana Jedeimirovic Ranito Dissertation May 2016 You must be logged in to view this content. Click here to subscribe
Posted in Academic, Control, Outsourcing/Privatization
Tagged Academic, Control, Outsourcing/Privatization
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CHRISTOPHER SPEARIN
Professor, Department of Defence Studies, Royal Military College of Canada / Canadian Forces College — Scholar of Private Military and Security Companies, Mercenarism, and Security Privatization Continue reading
Deborah D. Avant
For PMSC company-profile work, her most durable contribution is the disaggregation of “control of force” into political, functional, and social dimensions — a framework that resists both the “mercenaries run wild” alarmism and the “contracting is just neutral efficiency” complacency that dominate popular treatments of the industry. Continue reading
Posted in Academic, Outsourcing/Privatization
Tagged Academic, Outsourcing/Privatization
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