Private military firms, the American precedent, and the Arab Spring.

• Author: Michaels, Jon D.

INTRODUCTION

Among the important, but largely overlooked, developments arising out of the anti-government protests across the Arab world is the expanded role played by foreign military contractors. These contractors have reportedly endeavored to keep incumbent, autocratic regimes afloat. For instance, Colonel Gaddafi relied heavily on foreign military personnel in his ultimately unsuccessful effort to quell the rebel insurgency in Libya. (1) Bahrain's royals, beset by domestic uprisings of their own, have similarly turned to the marketplace, employing foreign security teams to take on a host military and police duties. (2) Moreover, the leadership of the United Arab Emirates has worked with Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater, to set up its own private special operations force. (3) That force might, too, be pressed into service in the event the undemocratic Emirates likewise experiences domestic unrest. (4)

Concerted efforts to import foreign soldiers-for-hire--reportedly less hesitant than domestic military and police forces to violently crack down on citizen-protestors (5)--warrant careful scrutiny. After all, with calls for regime change continuing to ring across the Maghreb, (6) the Levant, (7) the Persian Gulf, (8) and the Arabian Peninsula, (9) it is quite possible that Libya, Bahrain, and the UAE represent just the tip of the iceberg. To the extent there are new rounds of protests-particularly as promises of reform and liberalization offered to appease the first wave of Arab Spring protesters (10) go unfulfilled (11)---other regimes might (if they're not already doing so) follow suit. That is, they too will solicit outside help to deter and, if necessary, suppress dissent and rebellion.

These regimes' use of armed contractors no doubt invites comparison with recent U.S. experiences involving hundreds of thousands of private actors supporting the American military efforts in lraq and Afghanistan. (12) But contractors' involvement in the Arab Spring promises to deviate sharply from those American experiences. This contribution, part of the Stanford Journal of International Law's annual symposium, considers how the use of military contractors in bolstering the incumbent regimes across the Arab world raises distinct questions about (1) democratic legitimacy and (2) U.S. foreign policy. (13)

1. THE U.S. PRECEDENT: RESURRECTING THE USE OF PRIVATE MILITARY FORCES

   In light of the U.S. Government's extensive use of military contractors today, it might be hard to remember that not too long ago private armies were a dying breed. Long rendered irrelevant, or at least illegitimate, by the advent of modern citizen-armies, (14) the status of such privateers was, until quite recently, toxic. (15)

   Despite the international repudiation of privateers in the post-WWII era, (16) the industry expanded in the 1990s. The expansion was in large part a byproduct of the post-Cold War peace dividend. (17) The downsizing of national militaries increased the supply of soldiers-for-hire. Equally important, the end of the Cold War and dissolution of the Soviet Union did not bring about an end to international conflict. Forced to confront new, unfamiliar threats, nations that had downsized their militaries suddenly found themselves shorthanded. They needed to supplement their now-modest, in-house capabilities.

   In the 1990s, the United States employed private military personnel sparingly. Contractors aided U.S. counternarcotics efforts in Latin America. (18) They also served in the Balkans during the years of protracted civil strife surrounding Yugoslavia's breakup. (19) But it was not until the 2000s when American military contractors rose to far greater prominence. These contractors played a central role in U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. (20) Indeed, during the latter half of this past decade, the number of military contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan often rivaled, and at times exceeded, the number of U.S. troops dispatched to those countries. (21) (And, importantly, the number of armed military contractors in those countries was spiking just as President Obama made headlines by announcing his intention to order record numbers of U.S. servicemen and women home. (22)

   Along the way, military firms under contract with the United States have (either intentionally or serendipitously) helped presidents evade American and international law, including congressionally imposed troop caps and arms embargos. (23) Their presence has also freed both President Bush and Obama from having to make more politically costly decisions in pursuing their foreign-policy objectives. That is, without a ready supply of contractors, the presidents would have had to scale back our overseas engagements, press military personnel into longer and more frequent combat tours, seek to reinstitute a civilian draft, or solicit more substantial outside support from a broader coalition of willing international partners. (24) Evidently, none of these alternatives proved more attractive than continued reliance on private firms. Finally, because contractors lower the number of U.S. troops needed overseas (25) and because the government has not traditionally recorded and published contractor casualties (of which there are many) with the same precision that attaches to military injuries and fatalities, (26) the presence of contractors dilutes the apparent costs of war. The electorate, in turn, is lulled into a false sense of comfort, believing that the scope of the military conflicts and corresponding casualty numbers are more modest than is actually the case. (27)

   The strategic, political, and operational benefits that these contractors provide apparently are more than enough to overcome the fact that their at-times undisciplined, even abusive, behavior (28) has complicated the U.S. Government's counterinsurgency efforts, (29) alienating (if not radicalizing) local communities and infuriating our ostensible partners in Baghdad and Kabul. (30)

2. THE AMERICAN PRECEDENT AS PROLOGUE

   Regardless what one thinks of the United States' decision to employ private military outfits, presumably leaders across the Arab world facing domestic opposition and possibly rebellion are at least attracted to the idea of having such firms at their disposal. Their engagement of private military outfits raises, at the very least, two sets of questions. First, how does their use of contractors affect grass-roots democratization efforts? And, second, how does their use of military contractors affect U.S. foreign policy, both in the Arab world and more generally?

   1. Military Contractors, National Armies, and Democratic Upheaval in the Arab World

      Gaddafi imported foreign personnel in part on the assumption that he could not count on Libyan soldiers to fire on fellow citizens. (31) Reports confirmed Gaddafi's suspicions. Contingents of the Libyan military abandoned their posts. Others went a step further, joining the rebel insurgency. (32)

      Similar accounts played out across the Arab world. Reports out of Tunis concluded that the Tunisian army's refusal "to fire on protesters" was "decisive in the fall of [then-President] Ben Ali." (33) In Yemen, then-President Saleh's grip on power eroded in part because many soldiers (including top military commanders) refused to shoot protesters. (34) Instead, sizable numbers defected. (35)

      Egypt, in turn, suggests two reasons why contractors might be especially prized. First, as in Tunisia and Yemen, one of apparent reasons for President Mubarak's relatively quick resignation was the Egyptian army's reluctance to fire on protestors. (36) And, second, given what transpired in the wake of that resignation--namely, that the army seized the reins of government and has since demonstrated a reluctance to relinquish that authority--contractors serve as a counterweight to the military leadership, possibly deterring the military from staging its own coup. (37)

      The situation in the Persian Gulf, though to date not nearly as volatile as in North Africa or Yemen, is also potentially explosive. There is much popular unrest in Bahrain, so much so that in 2011 both the Saudi military and UAE police forces intervened on behalf of the threatened monarchy. (38) It is therefore not surprising that Bahrain and its UAE neighbors alike are contracting with private military outfits to, among other things, help protect the ruling regimes. (39)

      Whereas the United States could be viewed as using contractors in a way that undermines democratic engagement and accountability at home, (40) the employment of private security forces by the likes of Libya, Bahrain, and the UAE represents a more overt affront to popular sovereignty. Throughout the Arab world, many citizen-soldiers have refused to fire on protesters. Some have gone a step further, defecting to the rebels' side. Their doing so sets them apart from foreign contractors, who've shown no such divided loyalties. Unlike the foreign contractors, these dissenting citizen soldiers are more likely to harbor grievances against the government not dissimilar to those that precipitated the civilian protests. They are also more likely to count friends and family among those protesting. In short, by engaging in acts of civil disobedience and outright insurrection, citizen-soldiers provide an important, independent check on autocratic government power.

      I do not mean to uncritically extol these citizen-armies as paragons of democracy and human rights. They might well be channeling the democratic zeitgeist of the Arab Spring. But they might simply be exploiting an opportunity to weaken the government and seize the reins of power for themselves. (41) My claim, therefore, is much more modest. I am suggesting that citizen-armies are stakeholders in the future of their countries in a way that cannot be said about foreign military contractors. Contractors are less likely to identify with or concern themselves with the street...