<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <META content="MSHTML 6.00.2716.2200" name=GENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=#ffffff> <DIV>"meeting the needs of a free market"</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>PRIVATE MILITARY COMPANIES PART OF U.S. GLOBAL REACH By Deborah Avant (Editor's Note: Excerpted from a new FPIF policy brief available in its entirety at: <A href="http://www.fpif.org/briefs/vol7/v7n06miltrain.html">http://www.fpif.org/briefs/vol7/v7n06miltrain.html</A> .) When the Soviet Union collapsed, U.S. forces were downsized, but they were not sufficiently reorganized to meet the demands of regional and ethnic conflicts, humanitarian emergencies, and new missions such as counternarcotics and counterterrorism. In scrambling to meet more requirements with fewer personnel in a more competitive labor market, the U.S. government has turned to private contractors to carry out logistical support, site security, foreign military training, observation missions, and other functions. Today, at least 35 PMCs are based in the United States. Although older companies such as Vinnell, SAIC, and Cubic have expanded into new services, some of the highest profile firms (including MPRI, which L-3 Communications purchased in 2000) are products of the post-cold war. One of biggest growth areas for these companies has been in providing military training. During the 1990s, U.S. private firms trained militaries in more than 42 countries. For instance:   * Hungary hired Cubic to help it restructure its military to comply with NATO standards.</DIV> <DIV>   * Croatia and Bosnia each hired Military Professional Resources Incorporated (MPRI) to help professionalize, train, and equip their armed forces in 1995.</DIV> <DIV>   * The U.S. has hired MPRI, DynCorp, and other PMCs for military training and other drug war missions in Colombia.</DIV> <DIV>   * The State Department and Pentagon have outsourced portions of military training in Africa to SAIC, MPRI, DFI International, Logicon, and other U.S. companies. Training foreign armies is a prime component of current U.S. engagement strategy, according to A National Security Strategy for a New Century, published in 1999. Military training is said to further U.S. contact with other countries, to aid in the spread of democracy and good civil-military relations, and to enhance specific U.S. strategic concerns. As the Bush administration pursues its war on terrorism into more countries without expanding the number of uniformed U.S. personnel, PMCs appear certain to be hired to carry out even more training and other missions. Currently, for instance, the Pentagon is considering hiring PMCs to train Afghanistan's post-Taliban military, according to Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair General Richard Myers. The use of private firms to assist overt and covert military missions is not new. British companies were involved in the Middle East and Africa in the 1950s and 1960s, and the U.S. contracted companies to train Vietnamese forces in the 1960s. During the cold war, private U.S. firms were associated with tasks deemed "too dirty" for the U.S. government. In Vietnam and Central America, reports of shady and illegal activities--including drug smuggling--by private contractors were rampant. The Iran/contra scandal, for example, uncovered evidence that companies like Southern Air Transport and Setco Aviation transported weapons to the Nicaraguan contras after Congress had cut off aid. Although little is publicly known about PMC activities, occasional scandals have continued to capture headlines. In 2001, private American contractors piloting a CIA plane on a drug interdiction flight over Peru mistakenly identified a missionary plane as belonging to drug smugglers. The Peruvian military shot down the plane, killing an American missionary and her infant. Today's PMCs are a subset of what has typically been called mercenary activity. As the number of firms and variety of their functions have expanded over the last decade, PMCs have tried to polish their image and operate more publicly as legitimate businesses. Many have websites, grant interviews, and appear at conferences. They present themselves as flexible tools for use in accomplishing the security goals of their clients around the world. There is now even an organization, the International Peace Operations Association, designed to enhance industry standards. Revenues from the global international security market are expected to rise from $55.6 billion in 1990 to $202 billion in 2010, according to private industry projections. During the 1990s, private security companies with publicly traded stocks grew at twice the rate of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette reported in February 2000. (Deborah Avant <<A href="mailto:avant@gwu.edu">avant@gwu.edu</A>> is an associate professor of political science and international affairs at the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University.) </DIV></BODY></HTML>