Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book argues that Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs) can have multiple identities: they can be ethical hero warriors, professional experts, and managers, but also do-gooders. It is concerned with PMSCs that operate transnationally – that is, companies that operate across borders and that have headquarters in either the United States or the United Kingdom. The book offers a general description of the identities that the authors, based on prior research as well as the literature, consider most relevant for PMSCs: the military, the business, and the humanitarian identities. It turns to the humanitarian identity that PMSCs exhibit increasingly in recent times as they are expanding their service repertoire and offering either directly, through humanitarian assistance to victims of conflict or natural disasters, or indirectly, by selling services to other actors involved in the delivery of humanitarian aid.