nerals. This new "Privatized Military Industry" encompasses hundreds of companies, thousands of employees, and billions of dollars in revenue. Whether as proxies or suppliers, such firms have participated in wars in Africa, Asia, the Balkans, and Latin America. More recently, they have become a key element in U.S. military operations. Private corporations working for profit now sway the course of national and international conflict, but the consequences have been little explored. In this book, Singer provides the first account of the military services industry and its broader implications. Corporate Warriors includes a description of how the business works, as well as portraits of each of the basic types of companies: military providers that offer troops for tactical operations; military consultants that supply expert advice and training; and military support companies that sell logistics, intelligence, and engineering. The privatization of warfare allows startling new capabilities and efficiencies in the ways that war is carried out. At the same time, however, Singer finds that the entrance of the profit motive onto the battlefield raises a series of troubling questionsfor democracy, for ethics, for management, for human rights, and for national security.

Author Bio:P. W. Singer is National Security Fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program at the Brookings Institution and Director of the Brookings Project on U.S. Policy towards the Islamic World. He has served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the International Peace Academy. Singer has been featured in the Atlantic Monthly, the Boston Globe, the Financial Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the New York Times. He has also appeared as an expert commentator on ABC, BBC, CBS, CNN, the Discovery Channel, Fox, NBC, and NPR (including a feature interview on Fresh Air).

Synopsis

Ranging from small consulting firms employing retired generals to transnational corporations that lease out wings of fighter jets, privatized military firms have an estimated annual revenue of over $100 billion worldwide. In this study, security analyst Singer (The Brookings Institution) presents a series of detailed company portraits and describes how this industry is structured. He also considers the impact of the privatization of military services on such areas as international relations, human rights, and democracy. Annotation ©2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

From The Critics

Publisher's Weekly

A security analyst at the Brookings Institution, Singer raises disturbing new issues in this comprehensive analysis of a post-Cold War phenomenon: private companies offering specialized military services for hire. These organizations are nothing like the mercenary formations that flourished in post-independence Africa, whose behavior there earned them the nickname les affreux: "the frightful ones." Today's corporate war-making agencies are bought and sold by Fortune 500 firms. Even some UN peacekeeping experts, Singer reports, advocate their use on grounds of economy and efficiency. Governments see in them a means of saving money-and sometimes a way to use low-profile force to solve awkward, potentially embarrassing situations that develop on the fringes of policy. Singer describes three categories of privatized military systems. "Provider firms" (the best known being the now reorganized Executive Outcomes) offer direct, tactical military assistance ranging from training programs and staff services to front-line combat. "Consulting firms," like the U.S.-based Military Professional Resources Inc., draw primarily on retired senior officers to provide strategic and administrative expertise on a contract basis. The ties of such groups to their country of origin, Singer finds, can be expected to weaken as markets become more cosmopolitan. Finally, the overlooked "support firms," like Brown & Root, provide logistic and maintenance services to armed forces preferring (or constrained by budgetary factors) to concentrate their own energies on combat. Singer takes pains to establish the improvements in capability and effectiveness privatization allows, ranging from saving money to reducing human suffering by ending small-scale conflicts. He is, however, far more concerned with privatization's negative implications. Technical issues, like contract problems, may lead to an operation ending without regard to a military rationale. A much bigger problem is the risk of states losing control of military policy to militaries outside the state systems, responsible only to their clients, managers, and stockholders, Singer emphasizes. So far, private military organizations have behaved cautiously, but there is no guarantee will continue. Nor can the moralities of business firms be necessarily expected to accommodate such niceties as the laws of war. Singer recommends increased oversight as a first step in regulation, an eminently reasonable response to a still imperfectly understood development in war making. (July) Forecast: A long New York Times piece last October detailed the recent exploits of corporate forces, but didn't get much play in the run-up to war. Look for corporate forces to be a topic of discussion when "peacekeeping" becomes an issue in Iraq and elsewhere. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Large-scale wars may still be the sole provenance of sovereign governments, but many countries are now quietly outsourcing smaller-scale functions to privatized military firms (PMFs), which do not carry the same political weight as national troops. These firms might build camps, provide supplies, or furnish combat troops, technical assistance, or expert consultants for training programs. This is a new area for policymakers to debate and scholars to explore. Singer, a security analyst at the Brookings Institution, does not offer a history of these firms but instead attempts to integrate the available information so that theories may be formed to guide future research and decisions. In addition, he provides valuable appendixes, the first listing PMFs and their web addresses and the second providing the text of an actual government contract with a PMF. This portrait of the military services industry is well documented with many footnotes and a lengthy bibliography. Suitable for academic and specialized collections. (Index not seen.)-Daniel K. Blewett, Coll. of DuPage Lib., Glen Ellyn, IL Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

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