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Peter Kopa, 10.9.17 – 286 words
The end of the cold war gave rise to the emergence of all kinds of protection and security companies, made up of retired military personnel, who have generally been placed in the service of the army of some country involved in, or intervening in, an armed conflict. Their territory of action is mainly Africa and the Middle East.
Thus, the military occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan gave work to hundreds of thousands of private employees, who on behalf of the US Ministry of Defence took over functions and tasks that the army was unwilling or unable to assume.
According to the G4S documentation of Great Britain, this sector currently has 585,000 employees in about 100 countries and deals with everything from sophisticated surveillance services to military training and armed protection of people. Military and non-military tasks are becoming less and less distinct. Private militarized companies are not subject to any democratic or judicial control, making it difficult to accuse them and hold them accountable when they commit human rights abuses. In other words, they operate in a certain grey area, in a legal vacuum, where it is difficult for a country’s police or judicial authorities to act. It is easy to imagine that here there will be all sorts of things like the big business of oil and arms trafficking, espionage etc. etc.
Russia today is probably the world power that operates most through its militarized organizations, even if, according to its laws, the mercenary cam is officially banned. And it knows how to commercialize war, for example, in Syria.
For more information on this subject, see the following abbreviations in Google: G4S and GRU in Russia.
