Great little article by David about the evolution of the industry, with a mention of Combat Operator and Eeben’s blog. I like the PMC 2.0 phrase, and that would be cool to see that as the new buzzword ‘du jour’. –Matt
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Dogs of War: Private military contractors — mysterious? No.
Published: Feb. 6, 2009 at 3:09 PM
By DAVID ISENBERG
WASHINGTON, Feb. 6 (UPI) — A common refrain from many who observe the private military contracting industry is that it is opaque, shadowy, veiled, secretive, hidden, non-transparent, etc. Is this true? Yes and no, but mostly no.
When I first started following this industry in the early 1990s, it really was difficult to get information on it. Partly that was because there were relatively few companies to follow. Three companies garnered most of what little coverage existed: Executive Outcomes of South Africa, Sandline of Great Britain and U.S.-based MPRI. And the first two were not particularly eager to answer press inquiries.
MPRI, whose not-so-modest motto back then was “the greatest corporate assemblage of military expertise in the world” because it was founded and run by relatively high-ranking retired U.S. military officers, escaped that pigeonhole thanks to the efforts of one of its vice presidents, whose openness and charm enabled MPRI to gain enormous publicity for its training efforts in the Balkan wars. But it was an anomaly back then.
