11/12/2022
What are Private Military Companies? 🪖
🪖 Private Military Companies are playing an ever-increasing role in modern warfare.
They fight in Russia’s war in Ukraine, protect mines in Africa, became a major part of the US’s occupation of Iraq and seem to be playing an ever greater role in the increasingly murky world of warfare - what exactly are Private Military Companies (PMCs)? Being a mercenary is one of the world’s oldest professions, but the origins of the modern PMC can be traced back to a group of ex-SAS veterans, who, in 1965, founded a company called WatchGuard International. A dramatic growth of PMCs occurred after the end of the cold war in the early 90s, with falling military budgets and an exodus of over 6 million personnel from national militaries being some of the main driving factors. Since then governments of all calibres worldwide have used PMCs for different tasks, including in anti-piracy efforts off the Horn of Africa, operational support in Iraq, and in kinetic conflicts such as that in Yemen. Some of the most well-known companies include the notorious Blackwater, now called Academi, founded by Erik Prince, to the Russian Wagner Group. PMCs provide a degree of separation between governments and conflicts which is politically favourable, allowing for plausible deniability, and their use can only be expected to increase.
