Description
The meteoric rise of private military companies (PMCs) in the 2000s was brought to the fore by the controversial U.S. contractor Blackwater and its role after the 2003 Iraq invasion. The relatively low-cost, flexible structure of PMCs, as well as the legal vacuum in which they operate, rendered them increasingly useful to governments worldwide, culminating in a proliferation of such entities deployed in high-risk areas. Initially dedicated to limited security provision, PMCs quickly begun to offer a diverse set of “services,” from counterinsurgency to reconnaissance and surveillance, leading analysts to question the continued relevance of conventional armed forces in contemporary conflicts. Nevertheless, the advent of hybrid warfare provided a robust incentive to embed PMCs into state strategic planning. Conventional military forces would no longer simply procure PMC services in an ad-hoc manner, but would, instead, integrate their capabilities in state security doctrines. In this manner, the full spectrum of hybrid warfare options would be made available to policymakers, who could henceforth apply different levels of coercive force seamlessly. By taking a closer look at the case studies of the Russian Wagner group in Crimea and the Turkish Sadat Consultancy in Syria and Libya, the article suggests that far from competing against conventional armies, PMCs are increasingly integrated into state security planning, constituting a core element of hybrid warfare. By lowering the financial and political cost of coercive force application, however, PMCs have an adverse effect on global stability, rendering escalation to conventional, full scale warfare, more likely.
