Author sean mcfate is next on booktv. The associate professor of the National Defense university and former military mercenary talks about the use of mercenaries in wars around the world today. He says we are headed towards a future that will resemble the middle ages hiring mercenaries to fight in wars is the norm. [applause] thank you. Thank you to Atlantic Council for hosting us and thank you for making at out on a less than auspicious weather day. This book is about the return of private military force International Relations today. I wrote this not simply as an International Relations scholar but also as a practitioner that i work for a Company Called dyncorp national for several years in africa and while i was working there i saw many press reports, many think tank reports, a lot of leftwing and rightwing kneejerk reaction to simply did not get what i thought the industry was right. The genesis of writing this book was not in any way a whistleblower book. It was really to paxton salience around a very polemical issue and that is the origins of way wrote this book. Now before you begin the actual argument i want to lay out a few disruptive facts from a decade of war. First is using for example 2010 numbers the pentagon spent 366 billion obligated to contractors. 54 of it budget. Seven times the u. K. Defense budget. When most people think about Armed Forces Honor and contractors they think 30 or so her arm. Thats not true. Only 10 to 15 during the wars were armed. This is the element of the contractor world that im focused on. The vast majority of contractors contractors, prepared trucks were linguist etc. But i focus on this. For me the private military industry is this. Those who kill or train others to kill. I dont use the euphemism in this book. If you look at contractor deaths in iraq and afghanistan youve and afghanistan you will see a stark trend emerge. In the beginning blew our u. S. Troops and rather contractors paid around 2009, 2000 they started to crisscross. You had more contractors killed in usg communist government as the numbers we know about. Companies dont always reveal this information by the way. One can ask is there a growing dependency on the u. S. For the private sector when it wages war . In world war ii only 10 to 15 of the workforce abroad diploid were contractors. In iraq it was 50 , a 1 1 ratio of troop to combat an even higher in afghanistan. Sometimes when i talk to foreign journalists or other experts abroad this is the question i get. A generation from now will the u. S. Be fighting its wars mostly with contractors 80 contractors . So one could ask why did this happen . When i talk to people in washington d. C. They dont expect this. Not just the experts. The problem at least in my opinion is the allvolunteer force cannot recruit enough people enough americans to go fight abroad to sustain two tenyear wars. Policymakers had a difficult dilemma on their hands. The first option they could do was just withdraw from iraq and afghanistan and avoid messy quagmires in the future. While there might be merit to isolationist policy there are many who would also argue the u. S. As a global superpower superpower and global responsibilities and it does not have the option to sit down during conflicts. The second is to assume u. S. Allies will fill all u. S. Gaps. Thats an unreasonable expectation or the third is having vietnam era conscription which would be political suicide. Before then i think you are seeing where im going with this is contractors offer a truly bipartisan policy solution that republicans and democrats in the white house both contract a great deal and there is good reason for this. Before you get into that i want to differentiate types of contractors. I have a typology in a book that lays out different types of contractors but for this purpose i focus on two. What are mercenaries . Mercenaries are autonomous private militaries they can wage offensive military campaigns for whomever he think of mercenaries in the middle ages in the 1990s. In africa theres a Company Called executive outcomes i can do this. He can topple rebel movements and governments. They are now defunct. That is not the type of contract the u. S. Government used in iraq or afghanistan. When i worked for dyncorp dyncorp is not a mercenary corporation. Its what i would call a military enterprise are. All the contractors that are armed or military enterprises. This comes from the 30 years war to a tradein raise military military forces would not deploy them. They would use them to augment a Standing National army, not to wage their own wars. That is actually what we saw in iraq and afghanistan. Military enterprises shall not mercenaries. Why was there such an turning to the contact . It wasnt just because they fill crucial gaps. They also did some things very well. They are generally cheaper. They can be better than Government Forces at certain tasks. Theyre good Stability Operations. They bring innovation. They have flexibility. They dont hold turf wars etc. But there are also concerns. Obviously profit motive to killing is a serious concern. Moral hazard lowers the barriers of entry too complex for policymakers could i do want to dwell on the slide. We can can discuss this in q a but there is great benefit and any risks in the question is should we use contractors moving forward and how to maximize the benefits and mitigate the risk . What i want to really focus on today briefly are looking for it. I have identified four trends beyond afghanistan and iraq. The first trend is industry is not going to go away when the u. S. Leads afghanistan. A multibillion dollar industry its chief consumer leaves finds new clients but we dont know who they are going to be. This is going on right now. Also the fact that the u. S. Has used its industry for 10 plus years has legitimized it in National Relations de facto. It has created market to force around the world. The second trend is this industry as it searches for new clients is becoming more globalized and is proliferating. We are starting see new demand. Ngos are hiring this industry. Oil companies is hiring private military security pity you can also have tycoons, very rich individuals that you can have actresses who want to hire blackwater for intervention in darfur. These are all possible. We are possible. We are also seeing Companies Come out of places like uganda and south africa. Recently for example nigeria is reported to have hired 300 private military contractors in its for boko haram in south africa. Security can generate its own demand. Mercenaries demand 5000 pounds of gold this month and we will be back next month. Out of work mercenaries can create wars. They can elongate worse. They can become bandits. This is a problem. We are also seeing proliferation out of four of the five demand worse. We have seen land private Security Companies but we are seeing private babies up with coast of new guinea. They have arsenal ships with contractors and armaments and they will fly to a tanker and they will harden a tanker with wire is a tanker moves the waters and want to stop the powered waters the contractors returned to the mothership. Contractors are also eight x. Experimenting with drums and easily turning them into, cause he drums. The third trend is that the industry is going native. So we have private military Companies Selling their services for example to the u. S. Military. Who is buying them and afghanistan . We also most of these companies are multinational. They may have american and british senior people that most of the personnel are from different countries. What happens to them when they go home . What happens to subs . Often a big big company will go to afghanistan and will create or hire a subcontractor to do security even the big contractor goes back home to the United States of america when the contract ends the subcontractors are left there to defend for themselves. And lastly and this is important, we are a crossroads between a future market where you have mercenaries operating a true freemarket fashion or military enterprises. These are what we saw in iraq and afghanistan who work in a Publicprivate Partnership with the United States or with the United Nations etc. Great right now we are seeing both developed simultaneously. Frankly if you could be one you could also be the other. So in conclusion what does this mean for world order . First of all this is not a new phenomenon. In fact most of military history was privatized. Mercenaries are the second oldest profession. In the middle ages for example contract warfare between mercenaries were how wars were planned. Hiring a contractor, they were called mercenaries. They work called jury was no different than hiring a contractor to build your mode or to build your castle. It was considered a legitimate, bloody legitimate form of trade. We also have private military Companies Back then, three companies that had people in scotland to syria serving sidebyside with each other. In the late 17th century state started to consolidate the market for force to monopolize it so much so that the zenith of it in the 20th century the idea that a nonstate actor could legitimately wheeled force would be enough but we have seen that unravel in the last 25 years. What we are doing is simply going backwards to the status quo auntie up what they world war was to force states over. The last couple hundred years have been anomalous. The question is if this continues to unravel where force is no longer in a place by states what might this look like if it continues on autopilot . It looks like durable disorder. World order some ways like the middle ages that can contain but not solve world problems. I call this in the book new medievalism. Its a nonstate centric world with overlapping allegiances and overlapping authorities and its a politics of identity. If you are for example a person in pashtuns are you a pashto first or afghanistan first or a local village. In liberia you had 14 to 16 ethnic tribes and you also have liberia. There are certain mind which groups say you have mix competing authorities in allegiances. You also have the commodification of conflict for security can be bought in an insecure world. People can buy military force for any reason they want. Mercenaries start to emerge. Right now we are only seeing military enterprises in the u. S. Go but that might start to change. We are seeing things beyond the u. S. Go. This could give rise to new actors. Before the superrich multinational corporations can become superpowers. Already the 1450 or more powerful than the 194 states in the world. If they are armed you can do the math. Contract warfare is resurrected. The response to market logic so for example just say im a city state and i want to take up my enemy. I could buy up all the mercenaries to deny my enemy defense but they can also bribe my mercenaries to the effect on battle which happened a lot during machiavellis year and why was a vitriolic in my opinion. And lastly more work. If we live in an era with an industry invested in conflict going to the most conflict prone places on the planet we will likely have more war. So thank you for this and i would like to welcome my College General hamm and mr. Marc garcetti. Thank you very much for that presentation sean and quite an ample scope for discussion to kick this off we turn to general hamm. As you look at this group on the stage you might be reminded of that old sesame Street Program which of these things is not like the other . I think im the one that doesnt quite fit here. I had a good occasion to meet peter a number of times in africa and he has forgotten more about africa then i would ever know. I got to the point at the end of my tenure i would stay to my knowledge ever good to be best summed up by saying i was just beginning to understand how much i didnt know about africa at the end of my tour. Sean of course is a noted author and professor. I was a pretty marginal student i think it certainly markets you heard rights for one of our nations leading publications. I have been known to read the New York Times on occasion. So anyway i am glad to be here. I will admit publicly that i very much enjoyed the opportunity to read seans book. I think its both a timely and important subject for us to talk about. It probably wont surprise you that i dont agree with all of his premises and conclusions. Im probably less alarmist about the trend of the expanding role for private Security Companies or private military companies globally. I think he is right to caution us about the direction in which this might be having and i think there are some very real concerns. Many of you in this room i suspect have had the opportunity to read our review barely recently released National Security strategy by the white house. There were two points that i thought were pretty employed and, to tenants that were described there. They would lead with capable partners to build the capacity to prevent conflict. Both of those in the National Security strategy context are much broader than the military but they do have implications for how the u. S. Military will operate and how the u. S. Government will seek to strengthen the defense and Security Capabilities of partners particularly new or nontraditional partners around the globe. As this group knows quite well Security Assistance falls primarily under the purview of the state department. Thats where congress has placed most of the authorities and most of the resources for Security Assistance around the globe. In order to execute those functions for the most part state Department Contracts that work out to Security Companies as sean has mentioned and highlights it in his book. There is a good reason for that that sean has articulated the cause being perhaps if not at the top of the list near the top of the list is to why that is a pretty good solution. But there is recently been some success in liberia, somalia and some other places with a bit of a blended approach where the primary authority has resided with the state department and is executed with a private Security Company or military enterprisers to you Sean Sternbach augmented for specific capabilities by the uniformed military of the United States. I think that blending of contractor and uniformed military might offer us some insights into how we might think about maximizing the effect that the u. S. Government writ large can achieve in achieving its goals of building partner capacity. There are some other authorities that have been specifically granted to the department of defense. Section 1208 and 1206 come to mind that with the state department concurrence allows the department of defense to take a leave for some specifically focused security matters. But even in those theres almost always some element of a contractor support whether its in logistics or facilities infrastructure or some other role for private Security Company or a contractor. I think again thats a worthwhile role. The real challenge as sean has laid out for us in the future we know the u. S. Defense budget in the Security Assistance budgets are going to decline in the coming years. How is it that we will be able to achieve the stated goals of strengthening defense capabilities and Security Capabilities of our partners around the globe in an era of a declining budget . I think that almost always leads us to the conclusion of at least sustained if not increased reliance upon contractors to achieve that. For the u. S. Military i think this presents an interesting challenge for us in training and education, recognizing that private security contractors are going to be wherever the u. S. Military operates either in support of u. S. Military, in support of the host nation or perhaps in support of the international organization. How do we prepare our next cohort of leaders to understand how to operate in that environment . What is the proper relationship between the uniformed military and the contracted force . How do we manage those and how do we develop leaders who recognize the complexities of that environment . I think there are a lot of things we can do in our training and Education Programs to have leaders who are more and more comfortable with that role. Sean has raised the possibility of perhaps the increased presence of contractors in u. N. Missions around the world then again i think that has pretty significant implications beyond just the United States one of which as many nations seek participation as a means frankly of sustaining their own force. Receiving a stipend and the training and equipment that they otherwise simply could not afford. Those forces from troop contributing nations are now supplanted by contractors. I think we need to think through the longerterm implications of what that might be well into the future. Lastly sean talks about the invisible hand of the marketplace and he addressed it in his comments here. I think that too is something that is worthwhile taking a positive direction. The marketplace will force most contractors who operate in that space to professionalize to provide Good Services a degree of accountability that they would hope for in order to be competitive to get awarded the contracts to sustain their business. My concern is that the other end of the spectrum the contractors who say im not going to invest the money to attain those high standards and a customer who is not willing to pay a high price for the highend contractors, do