Description
How do we create a new security force in a post-conflict state? To what extent is it possible to do so ethically, for instance, without the exploitation of individuals or exposure to intolerable risk? This is the question at the heart of post-conflict planning for the last Thirty years in which a ‘Westernised’ model of intervention and occupation has become dominant. They key objective has often been to build and train an indigenous security force to operate alongside and eventually replace foreign troops, an orthodoxy that has seen some notable recent failures such as in Afghanistan.
With the increasing prevalence of private military contractors in deployments, providing everything from VIP security to logistics, what role do these elements have to play and what are the ethical concerns with widespread use of these forces. Might they represent an alternative approach to providing security, one that might be bought rather than built?
This paper will build on my previous work examining the moral and ethical issues associated with building indigenous security forces as viewed through an ethical framework of Just War Theory and seek to expand that analysis to include the private sector element. Inspired by questions provoked from James Pattison’s excellent analysis in The Morality of Private War this paper will seek to expand my research into an adjacent and yet unfamiliar area that will bring with it an entire new set of moral and ethical issues to contrast with those previously explored.
