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Mercenaries are dangerously unreliable. According to Machiavelli, employing mercenaries or foreign troops “limited freedom of action and created dependence on other powers.” Yet for the first time in its history, and despite cautionary words against condottieri, the United States is relying heavily on private firms to provide security services in an unstable environment. In fact, not since the seventeenth century has there been “such a reliance on private military actors to accomplish tasks directly affecting the success of military engagements.” But military excursions to foreign soil raise perennial issues related to the imposition of order, discipline, and training, the foundations upon which commanders traditionally build successful campaigns. Waging war with a combination of regular troops and private security company (PSC) contractors can be done; however, at times the contractors act at cross-purposes with the stated objectives of the campaign. Abuses by PSCs in the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have, according to some analysts, undermined the mission. Local inhabitants are not the only people who object to these incidents. Regular troops do so as well; discipline suffers. And even the President of the United States, before assuming the responsibilities of commander-in-chief of the nation’s armed forces, presciently noted that “we cannot win a fight for hearts and minds when we outsource critical missions to unaccountable contractors.”

Cowboys in the Middle East: Private Security Companies and the Imperfect Reach of the United States Criminal Justice System