How the Private Security Industry Is Shaping Conflicts Around the World in 2023
During the last 13 months, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has highlighted both the ubiquity and potency of private military contractors (PMCs) as several, led by the now infamous Wagner Group, have garnered international headlines. While Russian PMCs have become prominent, groups based out of other countries are increasingly influencing conflicts around the world. Indeed, the industry still seems to be broadly dominated by Western private security companies. One 2015 study suggested that 27 of the world’s 50 largest security providers originated from the USA, while another 12 operated from the UK and another one from Canada. Meanwhile, as the scope of China’s foreign policy widens, particularly through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Beijing, too, is increasingly using private security firms.
There is a vast array of companies operating within the private security industry from security firms and PMCs to mercenaries, and it is important to distinguish between them. Part of the difficulty in defining PMCs lies in their versatility; they are involved in combat, supply lines, logistics and training, among other tasks. And every actor, from powerful states such as the US and Russia to developing states, non-governmental organisations, international organisations and multinational corporations seem to have engaged their services.
PMCs have steadily proliferated since the end of the Cold War, filling in a security gap and adapting to the changing nature of war in the pro-free market conditions of the 1990s and 2000s. Moreover, by their very nature, PMCs normally contain top military experts who exert a genuine influence on the outcome of conflicts.
But, as well as fighting in wars, PMCs can influence conflicts through covert operations, maritime security or by complementing a state’s foreign policy. Given the shadowy nature of the industry, it is difficult to find contemporary open-source intelligence for each individual example but, using recently reported events and openly available data, it is possible to pinpoint these areas as likely trends in the private security industry this year.
Military operations in wars
The roots of the 21st-century private military industry are situated in the American-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, launched in 2001 and 2003 respectively, partly because of public backlash to the deployment of troops. PMCs are still fighting in wars today, notably in Ukraine. As well as Russian PMCs, there are other private groups present in the conflict.
Former US Marine colonel Andrew Milburn founded the Mozart Group – its name a response to the Wagner Group – and was among the private contractors fighting in Ukraine until it imploded in February following infighting among its leadership and a series of allegations against Milburn that included making disparaging comments about Ukraine’s leaders. He and his staff, mostly former special operations soldiers, were involved in many different aspects of fighting from rescuing civilians to conducting frontline training and workshops on drone warfare. However, his group, though largely aligned with American foreign policy, seems independent from it. His biggest donors were hedge fund managers from New York and a humanitarian organisation specialising in evacuations.
The Mozart Group was just one of many Western-led volunteer groups operating in Ukraine where an estimated 1,000 to 3,000 foreign fighters are reported to be active. However, while the aims of these groups largely align with Western states, their methods can end up contradicting NATO and the Biden administration’s efforts to avoid direct involvement in the war.
Maritime security
Anti-piracy has become another central tenet of the private security industry with several companies highlighting their work in the Gulf of Aden, Indian Ocean, Gulf of Guinea, Horn of Africa, and Somalia. These groups provide a wide range of services from training crews against piracy attacks to maintaining weapons systems and protecting ships. This has unequivocally succeeded in reducing piracy, but a growing reliance on private contractors has exposed the human rights violations perpetrated by these groups, UN experts said in November 2022. Its use of floating armouries has also intensified weapons proliferation at sea. Such issues are compounded by non-existent or weak regulatory frameworks far away from land-based law enforcement. But this side of the industry seems to be changing of late, due to its very success. Piracy is becoming less of a threat and bandits are increasingly targeting inland waterways instead, creating a different role for PMCs. Guaranteeing security in these situations is becoming hybrid, involving both state navy and PMCs, bound together by highly profitable contracts.
Complementing state foreign policy
The private security industry is also used to complement a state’s foreign policy, helping to protect strategic sites and people abroad in less secure countries.
With the growing footprint left by the BRI, it seems that there will be an increasing role for Chinese private security companies (PSCs), employed to protect strategic interests in other countries, such as mining facilities, ports, and infrastructure projects. Unlike their Western counterparts, however, these groups are closely controlled by the central government, limiting their operations. Once again, it is important to distinguish between PMCs and private security companies as China forbids PMCs but legalised PSCs in 2009. As such, these groups have largely fulfilled security functions rather than engaging in military operations. It seems likely that their role will increase following President Xi Jinping's remarks at the 20th Communist Party Congress in which he said: “We will strengthen our capacity to ensure overseas security and protect the lawful rights and interests of Chinese citizens and legal entities overseas.”
Several other states also use PMCs to augment their foreign policy. As of 2018, dozens of big private British security companies “are all either already involved across either sub-Saharan Africa or north Africa, where there are vast security issues,” John Hilary, executive director at War on Want, told Open Democracy. One British company alone, G4S, employs more than 500,000 people and is present in more than 90 countries, as of 2020. Its role includes providing event security, security systems and running prisons.
Covert operations
The more clandestine side of the private security industry also lends itself to covert operations, offering plausible deniability for those commissioning the work. In one instance, members from a PSC called CTU Security have recently been arrested for assassinating Haiti’s President Jovenel Moise in July 2021. This US-based company recruited 20 Colombians with military training to help storm the president’s home and assassinate him. During the subsequent investigation, CTU Security was also accused of hatching a plot to assassinate Bolivian President Luis Alberto Arce Catacore in October 2020. Representatives from the company reportedly travelled to the country and planned with the Bolivian defence minister Luis Fernandez López to assassinate the president, preventing him from taking power after an election.
Although this example is extreme, it illustrates the wide-ranging effects that PSCs can have on a country’s politics and security, intensifying a pre-existing conflict. The assassination, which prosecutors say was motivated by businessmen who hoped to secure lucrative contracts under a new administration, has plunged Haiti into violence, creating a power vacuum for gangs to fill.
PMCs seem to be involved in the assassinations of other political figures too. Four of the Saudis who participated in the 2018 assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi received paramilitary training in the USA from an Arkansas-based security firm Tier 1 Group in 2017. The company said that the training was defensive rather than offensive, but its links to the assassination still illustrate the impact of the private security industry on political assassinations such as this one.
The private security industry is a wide-ranging one, encompassing everything from providing security for multinational companies to mercenary armies. As such it is capable of influencing conflicts in 2023 in ways beyond simply fighting in wars as has been highlighted during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The industry has carved out an important role for itself in maritime security too, influencing the nature of and reducing the potency of piracy. Moreover, by operating in tandem with more powerful states’ foreign policies, such as China or the UK, the private security industry assists these countries in maintaining a greater global footprint. Finally, the industry’s entanglement with more covert activities plays a direct role in influencing the domestic politics of less stable states and, in the case of Haiti, in perpetuating internal conflict.