Following the rise of the use US private contractors, has this in turn undermined the key and

overall goal counterinsurgency?

GLBS 4401 Final Paper

Alex HUANG 1155100775
23rd April 2019

The privatisation of the military for use in modern day conflicts and wars has been a long
standing and hot topic amongst policy makers and the general public and this is a testament
to the way the US has run their spending, policies and global focuses with regards to the US
military. For context, we must first understand that the US has recently confirmed that it will
increase its military spending for the 5th consecutive year in alignment with the fact that the
US already has a total military expenditure of USD 643 billion. (Stein & Gregg, 2019) Also
to note of importance is that private military forces, otherwise known as mercenaries, have
been consistently in use throughout historical times, but according to a 2017 Berkeley
Political review, ‘since 2009, the ratio of contractors to U.S. troops in war zones has
increased from 1 to 1 to roughly 3 to 1’ (Berkeley Political Review, 2017), meaning that
there has been a significant rise in the usage rate and focus on private military personnel.

To further the background and context behind the usage of private contractors in the Iraq war
and whether or not it undermines the counterinsurgency campaign, one must also understand
COIN and the two theories with which are presented, the Hearts and Minds theory and the
Cost/Benefit theory. In short, the HAM theory presented the solution against insurgents of
‘reducing the negative consequences of development while enhancing the positive aspects’,
including ‘increasing political rights of the people, improving standards of living and
reducing corruption and abuse of government power’. (Long, 2002) The Cost/Benefit theory
on the other hand is a more systematic approach to tackling insurgencies and the idea in short
is to evaluate ‘how well they (COIN) either raised the cost of inputs to the system or
interfered with outputs’ (Long, 2002) in alignment with predictions of how populations
would react to incentives or sanctions.

More specifically in this research paper, one will take a closer look at Blackwater, now
renamed as Academi, which is an American private military company that has surfaced over
the years as a top security company. Blackwater has previously been involved in multiple
missions, including being based in both Iraq and Afghanistan following its first mission of
‘protect the CIA headquarters and one remote OGA base, in Shkin, supporting the hunt for
Bin Laden.’ (Pelton, 2010) For more context, Blackwater has been one of the most
controversial private military companies which has been under media and public scrutiny for
some time with regards to their tactics during rules of engagement, the shooting of innocent
civilians, the most well-known incident in 2007 where 14 Iraqi civilians were killed, and
other incidents and Blackwater contractor deaths. As a result, there has been much debate
over whether Blackwater and other military contractors are a solution for the war in
Afghanistan and Iraq.

For the public, military contractors are seen as a higher cost for US military expenditure, with
a 2007 congressional hearing with Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater, alleging that,
‘Blackwater charges the government $1,222 per day per guard, equivalent to $445,000 per
year, or six times more than the cost of an equivalent U.S. soldier.’ (Stout & Broder, 2007)
Others arrive at the argument that Blackwater, with its overly aggressive nature, as proven by
Blackwater contract deaths and civilian casualties, has no place in the theater of war, as
potentially backed up with the fact that ‘the Iraqi government approved a draft law revoking
the immunity from prosecution private security contractors enjoy under Iraqi law’ back in
2007. It is simple to see how the general public may come up with these baseless accusations
and assumptions without reading a bit more on the finer details and educating themselves a
bit more.

In fact, Blackwater proposed to ‘replace almost 50 000 NATO troops with 2000 US special
operators and 6000 contractors along with cutting spending by almost $30 billion USD’.
Reports have also come out from congressional hearings and testimonies from Prince that
prove otherwise to already ridiculous assumptions and accusations of murder and the media
has cast an unfair spotlight on Prince, and according to the Men’s Journal, ‘The press soon
brought Blackwater’s most egregious acts to the attention of the public: dead Iraqis, a crashed
plane, crushed vehicles, a drunken shooting of a vice-president’s security man, media guards
gunned down, and much more.’ (Pelton, 2010)

Of course, with the case of Blackwater and private contractors, we must first understand that
there are a lot of issues with regards to privatising a war. Put simply, the benefits of any form
of privatisation whether it be public utilities, goods and services etc is the increase of
efficiency and profits, as competition between competing companies increasing incentives for
innovation and improvement. On the other hand, some disadvantages for privatization
include deregulation and decreased government revenue. Blackwater falls under both these
categories of benefits and costs, as a perfect example of what happens under privatization. In
fact, Blackwater deliberately hires its contractors with elite level of expertise from Delta
teams, Seal Team 6 etc, only hiring lesser skilled contractors when they needed more
personnel towards more recent years due to more contracts. Blackwater is also notorious for
not only their high level of expertise and experience for also for their training and state of the
art equipment including canine training, targeting systems and developing their own armored
vehicle just to name a few.

For now however, one will first have a look at COIN and the two theories presented, the
Hearts and Minds theory and the Cost/Benefit theory in relation to how private contractors,
and more specifically Blackwater has a role with actively playing a part in counterinsurgency
and whether Blackwater undermines the overall goal of counterinsurgency. Using the Hearts
and Minds theory, unfortunately Blackwater and its tactics used to participate in
counterinsurgency does not fall into this category. As mentioned before, the HAM theory
seeks to ‘reduce the negative consequences of development while enhancing the positive
aspects’ and Blackwater does not seem to include this in their contingency plans. In actuality,
this is a key difference between a private military force and a state-run military program such
as the US military and other leading special forces. Private contractors such as Blackwater
have no obligation to contain and progress activities such as improving standards of living,
political rights etc amongst populations where they are stationed and are only obliged to
perform duties with regards to military matters only. While Blackwater is in all cases, acting
under contract, meaning that they are legally bound to their contract, it means that more often
than not, during Afghanistan and Iraq deployments, they will be under the guidance and
instruction of US officials. In fact, in a New York Times report, Blackwater acts under the
instruction and supervision of the CIA in some cases, with Blackwater’s defence lawyers in a
federal court case introducing, ‘statements from former C.I.A. officials who said that they
knew that Blackwater had been acting at the agency’s direction, and filed motions seeking
documents and evidence of the C.I.A.’s role in the weapons deals.’ (Risen & Mazzetti, 2013)
In fact, one must take into consideration that as a result of Blackwater being a private military
contractor, their first purpose is to serve the contract that is given to them, and more often
than not, it is of military concern. As a result, the HAM theory does not apply to Blackwater.
Moving on to the Cost/Benefit theory, Blackwater is a fairly reasonable example to apply to
this theory. According to a COIN theory chapter within the book, ‘On "Other War": Lessons
from Five Decades of RAND Counterinsurgency Research, Austin Long writes, ‘Populations
were viewed as rational actors that would respond in more or less predictable ways to
incentives and sanctions from the competing systems of insurgent and counterinsurgent.
Ultimately, what mattered to both systems was not the population’s attitudes but its actions.’
(Long, 2002) In short, this theory flows well with the mission of Blackwater, as actions prove
to be more predictable and it is up to the people overseeing and supplying Blackwater with
contracts to be more actively involved in aspects such as risk management, predicting
situations, analysing cost/benefit situations etc.

With regards to the Cost/Benefit theory, one must also take into consideration one of the
biggest objections to the theory as summarized by Austin Long as the ratcheted escalation
problem which is the idea that violent repression can actually cause more insurgent activity.
This issue is also brought up in an interview with Eric Prince on a Head to Head talk show
with Mehdi Hasan where Hasan asks Prince a similar question. (Al Jazeera, 2019) In what
can be seen as perhaps a key moment, Prince points out that even though Blackwater was
involved in the killing of 14 Iraqi civilians in 2007, he was not responsible for 110000 killed
by terrorist forces. Perhaps this is key, due to the fact that there are already many casualties
of war committed by insurgents, there must be a strong and ruthless military presence which
must be committed to the same theater. Prince is also questioned about the rules of
engagement that Blackwater operates under including 84% of the time, Blackwater opened
fire first in shootings. However, host Hasan fails multiple times throughout the interview to
acknowledge the idea that insurgents operate outside the boundaries of normal warfare
including the usage of car bombs, women and children being used to carry weapons etc.
Hasan also fails to acknowledge the fact that in 2017, ‘U.S. forces were no longer bound by
requirements to be in contact with enemy forces in Afghanistan before opening fire, thanks to
a change in rules of engagement orchestrated by Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis.’ (Mehta,
2017) This means that US military forces, not private contractors, can open fire on enemy
forces without being in contact first, meaning a looser rule of engagement, meaning a
possible higher rate of casualties from the US military and a higher rate of US military
personnel firing first.
There are many aspects that one must take into consideration when looking at the costs and
benefits, the history and implications of using private military contractors, and the
effectiveness and potential dangers of using services such as Blackwater in heavy handed
campaigns such as Afghanistan and Iraq. However so far, even with so much controversial
drama and media scrutiny, Blackwater has been cleared from a lot of its lawsuits and
congressional hearings, and from its success rates in the field and professionalism, has not
undermined counterinsurgency efforts, and instead should be the way forward.

Word count: 1773 words

References

Al Jazeera. (2019, March 8). Blackwater's Erik Prince: Iraq, privatising wars, and
Trump[Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOB4V-
ukpBI&fbclid=IwAR0DQKT350SkeNdh5yktqc9fe_DrFBp1t9QqHTJplyx2i8EezxE
oRX8RjtA
Berkeley Political Review. (2017, October 25). Soldiers of Fortune: the Rise of Private
Military Companies and their Consequences on America’s Wars. Retrieved from
https://bpr.berkeley.edu/2017/10/25/soldiers-of-fortune-the-rise-of-private-military-
companies-and-their-consequences-on-americas-wars/
Long, A. (2002). COIN Theory: What Are Insurgencies and How Does One Fight Them?
In On "Other War": Lessons from Five Decades of RAND Counterinsurgency
Research. Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation.
Mehta, A. (2017, October 3). Mattis reveals new rules of engagement. Retrieved from
https://www.militarytimes.com/flashpoints/2017/10/03/mattis-reveals-new-rules-of-
engagement/
Pelton, R. Y. (2010, November 30). An American Commando in Exile. Retrieved from
https://web.archive.org/web/20110614181219/www.mensjournal.com/an-american-
commando-in-exile/4
Risen, J., & Mazzetti, M. (2018, October 19). Case Ends Against Five Ex-Blackwater
Officials. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/22/us/case-ends-
against-five-ex-blackwater-officials.html
Stein, J., & Gregg, A. (2019, April 18). U.S. military spending set to increase for fifth
consecutive year, nearing levels during height of Iraq war. Retrieved from
https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2019/04/18/us-military-spending-set-
increase-fifth-consecutive-year-nearing-levels-during-height-iraq-
war/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.7274278724cf
STOCKHOLM INTERNATIONAL PEACE RESEARCH INSTITUTE.Retrieved from
https://www.sipri.org
Stout, D., & Broder, J. M. (2007, October 1). Report Depicts Recklessness at Blackwater.
Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/01/washington/01cnd-
blackwater.html