Outsourcing War and Peace: Preserving Public Values in a World of Privatized Foreign Affairs.

• Author: Baylis, Elena
• Position: Book review

Laura A Dickinson, Outsourcing War and Peace: Preserving Public Values in a World of Privatized Foreign Affairs(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011).

The scandals are notorious. Dyncorp employees trafficked girls and women into brothels while carrying out US government contracts in Bosnia (115). (1) Blackwater security personnel accompanying a US State Department convoy in Baghdad were accused of killing seventeen civilians by firing their weapons in the midst of a crowded square (1). (2) Abu Ghraib prisoners allege CACI International and Titan contractors abused them while working on behalf of the US government in Iraq (40). (3)

Several converging phenomena have contributed to these military contractor scandals. The first is the nature of the situation in which military contractors operate. The implementation of US foreign policy in conflict and post-conflict zones is incredibly complex. Multiple US agencies (the Department of Defense, the Department of State, and USAID, among others) share responsibility for American activities, which intersect imperfectly with the work of the counterpart agencies of other governments, the United Nations and other international organizations, and numerous nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Interagency and international relationships are riddled with overlapping responsibilities and conflicting interests, and turf wars are not uncommon. On the ground in conflict and post-conflict areas, staff turnover tends to be high and continuity low, and the socio-political situation is chaotic and often dangerous.

In addition, there has been a sweeping and fundamental shift towards the use of private contractors to implement US foreign policy, to the extent that private contractors have for several years outnumbered US troops in Afghanistan, for example (3). (4) Each agency has its own contracts with its own contractors, which may have their own subcontractors, and new contractors and subcontractors may be hired when each contract period ends, further complicating the web of interagency and international relationships on the ground.

Finally, the legal and institutional frameworks meant to implement and oversee American interventions abroad were not designed for private contractors, while the frameworks meant for implementing and overseeing private contracting were not designed for contracts for these sorts of complex services. Neither regime has kept up with the transition to contractor-dominated military...