| Summary: | 碩士 === 淡江大學 === 國際事務與戰略研究所碩士在職專班 === 98 === This paper raises disturbing new issues in this comprehensive analysis of a post-Cold War phenomenon: private companies offering specialized military services for hire. These organizations are nothing like the mercenary formations that flourished in post-independence Africa, whose behavior there earned them the nickname les affreux: "the frightful ones." Today''s corporate war-making agencies are bought and sold by Fortune 500 firms. Even some UN peacekeeping experts advocate their use on grounds of economy and efficiency.
Governments see in them a means of saving money-and sometimes a way to use low-profile force to solve awkward, potentially embarrassing situations that develop on the fringes of policy. This paper describes three categories of privatized military systems. "Provider firms" (the best known being the now reorganized Executive Outcomes) offer direct, tactical military assistance ranging from training programs and staff services to front-line combat. "Consulting firms," like the U.S.-based Military Professional Resources Inc., draw primarily on retired senior officers to provide strategic and administrative expertise on a contract basis.
Finally, the overlooked "support firms," like KBR, provide logistic and maintenance services to armed forces preferring (or constrained by budgetary factors) to concentrate their own energies on combat. At the point, researcher takes Blaclwater Worldwide as a case study of private military company. By the case, this research finds PMC operation limited and political conflict.This paper takes pains to establish the improvements in capability and effectiveness privatization allows, ranging from saving money to reducing human suffering by ending small-scale conflicts. Technical issues, like contract problems, may lead to an operation ending without regard to a military rationale. A much bigger problem is the risk of states losing control of military policy to militaries outside the state systems, responsible only to their clients, managers, and stockholders. So far, private military organizations have behaved cautiously, but there is no guarantee will continue.
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