The Emperor's Leased Clothes: Military Contractors and their Implications in Combating International Terrorism
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The Emperor’s Leased Clothes: Military Contractors and their Implications in Combating International Terrorism Christopher Spearin Academic Directorate, Canadian Forces College, 215 Yonge Boulevard, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5M 3H9. E-mail: [email protected]
The article contends that while the threat posed by contemporary terrorism challenges the state’s monopoly on violence, the American response to this threat, with its heavy reliance upon military contractors, itself challenges the status quo of the state possessing the monopoly on violence applied extraterritorially. This challenge reveals a dynamic, multifaceted, and substantial public/private partnership. In the War on Terrorism, this shift affects the dynamics of traditional interstate relations and brings into question the ontology of the units expected to own and direct the means of violence. Overall, the paper asserts that whether or not military contractors acquire greater acceptance and authoritative status in international affairs will depend greatly upon their actions and success in the United States’ prosecution of the War on Terrorism. International Politics (2004) 41, 243–264. doi:10.1057/palgrave.ip.8800076 Keywords: military contractors; privatization of security; counter-terrorism; monopolization on violence
Introduction A common assertion in the study and practice of statecraft is that the state possesses the monopoly on violence (see, for example, Waltz, 1986, 100; Weber, 1968, 54). In other words, the state is the primary actor responsible for the ownership, management, and direction of actors that are critical for the employment of legitimate force. Granted, while criminal groups and other organizations that employ violence exist, their actions are seen as illegitimate, as on a smaller scale than state activity, and as not posing a direct threat to the state’s monopoly. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, however, were a direct challenge to the state’s monopoly on violence in two ways. First, the destruction and disruption caused by the attacks and the overwhelming media coverage they received delegitimated the ‘American’ state because substantial weaknesses in the American security apparatus were exposed to the American population
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(Hall and Biersteker, 2002, 15). Second, because al Qaeda, a non-state, transnational actor, executed the attacks so successfully, the events of 9/11 contested the assertion that all states possess the monopoly on violence. At first glance, the United States’ response to the challenges posed to its monopolization of violence and to international statecraft can be seen as reestablishing, in both means and method, the status quo. In the wake of the attacks, Washington activated longstanding state alliances; this is evident in the first-ever evocation of NATO’s Article Five. The Bush Administration also restored defence spending to Cold War levels and applied the American military worldwide, from Iraq to the Philippines, to counter the
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