ABSTRACT
At the present time, the military forces of most nations cannot undertake operations of any sort, for any purpose whatsoever, either individually or in coalition exercises, without the support and active participation of “private military contractors” (PMCs). This rapidly growing dependency of many of the world’s national militaries on the private sector has developed over the past two decades, since the end of the Cold War. In North America, one could argue that colonial powers availed themselves of this kind of private service from the time of Miles Standish and John Smith (both of whom were private security contractors). 1 Nevertheless, the enormous growth in this kind of contracting began to occur only during and after the so-called “First Gulf War” of 1991, in the effort by U.S.-led UN coalition forces to repel an invasion of the nation of Kuwait by the government of Saddam Hussein, then President of Iraq.
