ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates how Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs) across the sample, no matter whether they offers combat-related services or logistical support and equipment, whether they are specialized in the delivery of one task or offers services across whole spectrum, present themselves as ordinary business companies. Judging from their service repertoire, people would expect PMSCs to establish themselves primarily in military or security terms. As companies do so, but they construct their identity as ordinary businesses, akin to insurance companies or banks, through images, particularly the image a PMSC wishes to convey of itself. In addition to expounding on their competencies, PMSCs establish their business identities through their relationships with clients. Just as self-referential statements related to omnipotence highlight how PMSCs in seemingly unproblematic ways combine the different identities they appropriate – in this case the business and military identities – they mirror as well the degree to which their alleged superiority implies the devaluation of other security actors.
