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A Valuable Commodity To The World At Large

The saying goes that "Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it." Certainly this is true for the issue of the modern shadow professionals of the international security industry. Their ancestors have played a critical role in the development of all of the modern "successful" nations.

England, France, Germany, Switzerland, Ireland, Canada, the United States, Japan, China, Mexico, Chile, Greece, and a host of others all had their emerging national destinies shaped by mercenary soldiers. There is no reason to believe that the future of other nations, both today and in the years ahead, won't also depend on such support during times of need when no other help can be found.

The second constant through our past has been the fact that no matter how much we pine for peace, we have never truly achieved it on a global scale. There have been and always will be for the foreseeable future regions of the world where competition for resources, ethnic and religious divisions, and a general thirst for conquest will drive human beings to conflict.

The world did make great strides in the latter half of the twentieth century to find solutions to this issue. The creation of the United Nations as a forum for world conflict resolution through dialogue rather than force of arms is a leap ahead in the quest for peace. Where negotiation could not immediately resolve a dispute, the Canadian statesman Lester B. Pearson conceived the concept of peacekeeping in the 1950s as a method of using soldiers to enforce peace, not fight wars.

Unfortunately, peacekeeping has been a complete strategic failure. From the first disastrous mission in the Congo in 1961 through to the present, the "Blue Helmets" have yet to end a war. In the Congo, the U.N. backed the wrong side and within a week of leaving their man was executed by his own government and a return to war ensued. In the Golan Heights and Lebanon no lasting peace has yet been reached. In Cyprus, both the Greeks and the Turks have been unable to resolve their dispute and will in all likelihood fall upon each other the moment the peacekeepers depart. In Croatia and Bosnia,the horror of the U.N. "Safe Haven" of Srebenica cannot soon be forgotten. NATO eventually had to replace the failed peacekeepers when the U.N. finally admitted defeat.

In Rwanda, the U.N. had over a month's advance notice of the Hutu extremist-planned genocide and the resources were on the ground to stop it, yet they did nothing. In Haiti, there are more murders and cases of torture reported per week now than before the U.N. intervention. Angola has been a total failure, as were Vietnam, Somalia, and Cambodia.

Why have the UN. peacekeepers been so uniformly unsuccessful? Because history has shown us quite clearly that soldiers and armies can win battles and defeat their enemies, but they cannot end wars. That must be a political function. A battlefield victory may lead to an end in fighting, but that is not the same as peace. A surrender must be negotiated, a new government must be created or a reorganization of power must be decided. These are not the mandate of the soldier, especially in a democracy. These are matters of politics, negotiation, and government-to-government diplomacy.

There has been a distinctive lack of success in the United Nations to negotiate the end to conflicts - especially Third World conflicts. Why? Most people tend to forget that while the U.N. Secretary-General may plead for the world to respond to a crisis in Asia or Africa, the power to decide any action lies in the Security Council, which is controlled by the "Big Five." If Britain, France, Russia, the United States, or China does not have an interest in these areas, there will be no U.N. intervention. Why is all this important to the question of the international security industry? Well, the facts are that at the beginning of the twenty-first century there are no fewer wars and violent struggles being conducted around the world than there were during the last century. The U.N., though trying valiantly, has not proven capable of resolving these conflicts.

For small, Third World nations with no powerful western benefactor, the odds are that, because of the fashion in which the Security Council is organized, they will probably not receive any support unless their plight is popularizes with prime-time reports. Where else can these embattled nations turn when there is no one else other than the private security industry?

The services they desire may simply be the provision of enough security to make international corporations comfortable in investing in their economies. They may want help training their own police and military forces to provide their own internal security. They may want help in defeating rebel forces that plague the nation and refuse to accept democracy as the only acceptable method for social change.

Here lies the critical factor. Mercenaries, private military companies, and military security companies cannot end conflicts. Like any military force or soldier-related activity, they can only provide the conditions necessary for a political settlement. Their critics are therefore missing the critical point here. Mercenaries are simply a tool for achieving a battlefield victory when no other resource is available. Due to their cost, they are rarely used when there is any other less costly alternative, such as negotiation. They are a means of last resort. If a war is not resolved in the aftermath of that victory, blaming the intervention of a professional private military company is like cutting the tail off of the Hydra and leaving its many snarling heads intact.

In Angola, UNITA was given opportunity after opportunity to decide the fate of the nation through democratic elections. Certainly this was the focus of the Lusaka Accord. The true desire of the people of Angola to choose between Jonas Savimbi and Jose dos Santos should have been decided by ballot, not bullet. When no other recourse was available to the government of Angola to stop the war, they turned to the mercenary services of Executive Outcomes. Within a year, UNITA agreed to end the fighting and sign the Lusaka Accord, paving the way for the first elections that nation had ever seen.

In Sierra Leone, when no other country, not even the United Nations, would raise a finger to. stop the fighting, EO mercenaries ended the war and protected democratic elections. That nation then saw its first properly elected government since its independence.

The failure of peace to take hold in these nations after a mercenary battlefield victory cannot be blamed on the mercenaries. In both cases, the United Nations and political intervention were to blame. In Angola, the first demand of Jonas Savimbi after his defeat and forced arrival at the bargaining table was that EO must leave as a condition for peace. The United Nations, the OAU, and even US. President Bill Clinton took up this demand. Shortly after EO's departure, Savimbi ignored the election results, and the Lusaka Accord, which he had signed, and returned to the bush to carry on his struggle.

In Sierra Leone, after winning the war, protecting the elections and guarding NGOS as they delivered aid around the country, international political and financial pressure forced the new Sierra Leone government to send EO packing. Within four months, the rebels and the criminally minded army overthrew the elected government and returned the country to war and anarchy. All for a matter of $20 million. That price is less than what the UN. would spend in a month in Yugoslavia.

Professional soldiers are a valuable commodity to the world at large. Much like Lester B. Pearson first envisioned, they can be used to end wars, not to start them. Executive Outcome ended two wars in a professional manner that didn't target civilians and caused as little collateral damage as possible. It also did it without the supervision of global bodies such as the United Nations. If the opinions of EO's critics are to be believed, we should be hearing thousands of tales of looting, pillage, and rape by the mercenaries. Yet that has not happened. EoO's men were professionals with a job to do, and they did it with elan.

For the military security service companies, their market allows nations that haven't collapsed into conflict to build the skills necessary to survive and prosper in a western model. The security services companies allow the global economy to enter confidently challenging new markets where the risks are high but the rewards are worth it. These investments are a cornerstone for building strong economies that can prevent wars from arising in the first place.

The shadow professionals are truly what they appear to be: soldiers who have made a life out of a trade that goes back through all the ages of modern man. Sometimes their work involved fighting. More often it involved presenting enough of a deterrent to avoid conflict. Occasionally, they advised and trained. The expertise they gained in the service of their nations became a valuable commodity in the larger world.

If you were to go back into our various national histories and pick out the great achievers, you would find that many of them were military veterans. Presidents, statesmen, kings, inventors, explorers, and poets all come from the ranks of military service. The self-discipline and confidence gained in uniform served them well in their chosen careers. That a few continued in military service as mercenaries should not divide them from the ranks of their peers, but should instead justify their existence.

In the end, probably the best thing you can say about these men is that, when the situation is desperate and the rest of the world can only write reports and make comforting noises, they are the ones who wade in and take action. Their job is dangerous, often bloody, and occasionally brutal. They witness things that most people cannot imagine from the safety of their First World homes. Sometimes they do a noble job. On other occasions they fail miserably. On still fewer they make matters worse rather than better. Yet, for better or worse, they are the ones who are on the ground trying to make a difference.

Some say they do it just for the money. However, I challenge anyone to find me a mercenary who has retired wealthy and content to grow old and die a quiet death in his bed. Most do it because that is what they are good at. Soldiering can be a rewarding and challenging profession. Especially mercenary service. They are professionals in one of the world's oldest professions: the mercenary soldier.

James R. Davis. . Douglas & McIntyre. 2000.

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