UN Use of Private Military and Security Companies

Although subject to little discussion, the UN has increasingly paid private military and security companies (PMSCs) for a range of services in the areas of humanitarian affairs, peacebuilding and development. However, this practice has rarely translated into coherent policies or guidelines that could guide the UN in setting standards or ensuring responsible contracting procedures. This paper explores UN demand for PMSCs and identifies the need for a more proactive, sensitive and deliberate political approach in order to avoid potential pitfalls associated with involving PMSCs in the delivery of UN tasks

Bridging the Atlantic. A Norwegian contribution to US Sealift

There is currently considerable concern with US capacity to muster the acquired number of sealift vessels needed to swiftly deploy forces overseas. Norway for its part has a large, modern, and versatile merchant fleet that could be militarily useful in case of NATO operations to reinforce Europe. This brief suggest a bilateral agreement be signed between Norway and the US that obliges Norway to muster a significant number of Norwegian-controlled ships to support transatlantic US sealift operations. Norway, along with most other European NATO member states, relies on US reinforcements for its national security. These reinforcements arrive by sea. Therefore, an agreement such as the one suggested in this brief serves the security interests of the US, Norway, and the rest of the European NATO states

The political agency of private military and security companies: Govenors in the making

This thesis studies the political agency of private military and security companies (PMSCs) and, in particular, the legitimation of their authority. Four case studies provide four inroads into the manner in which these companies form part of a wider organization of risk managers, and in different ways function habitually within the established confinements of international security governance. The thesis argues that commercial security providers are increasingly becoming part of established responses to insecurity and that they are increasingly accepted as such. The dissertation, thus, essentially aims to increase understandings of how PMSCs participate in the making of security policy, how their power to do so is acquired, and how their authority is conditioned by legitimacy and legitimation processes. The thesis attacks the research question from two angles. Firstly, it studies how the industry itself works strategically to produce perceptions of legitimacy. In order to do that, the first article analyses how PMSC legitimacy may be construed and presents a multidimensional conception of legitimacy. Second, the last three articles study how PMSCs act politically within hybrid constellations or networks of security governors, and what the implications are for governance in each particular context. They argue that not only do PMSCs have political influence within these constellations, but that their increasing establishment in the spheres of security professionalism reinforces their political authority and contributes to align them within security governance, or put differently, to legitimize their agency within the governance of transnational security. The different articles find that the agency of PMSCs has important implications in the contexts discussed. One common consequence of this type of governance is that there is poor transparency into who governs and accordingly little awareness of the role that private military and security companies actually play. The thesis employs four cases studies to study the political agency of private military and security companies. These studies build upon theoretical achievements within the existing PMSCs literature and those within the broader governance literature to advance a theoretical understanding of the legitimation processes. The thesis uses a variety of interviews, communication and documents, along with a wide variety of secondary sources, to detail how commercial military and security companies increasingly function as legitimate governors within global security constellations. The thesis consists of an introductory chapter providing the theoretical and methodological foundation for the study, followed by four articles

Outsourcing Peace? The United Nations' Use of Private Security and Military Companies

Private companies provide security and military services to states, international organizations, international non-governmental organizations, and individuals. This thesis addresses the United Nation’s use of private security and military companies. The study looks into the characteristics of this practice and subsequently provides some explanations for the pattern and rationale thereof. The systematization of compiled data on 32 contracts between the UN and private security and military companies (PSCs and PMCs) reveals that three main categories of services are supplied; Security services, logistic and support services, and what is here collectively termed expert services. The analytical framework deployed focuses both on enhanced need on part of the UN, and on enhanced offer from the private sector. The role of the private security and military industry has evolved substantially since the beginning of the 1990s when the phenomenon was first paid attention to in academic writing. In order to explain the UN’s use of these companies, both the UN organization and the industry as such is subject to examination. A twofold analytical framework is thus presented. Interviews and official documents are used to examine the validity of five propositions derived from the analytical framework. The propositions regarding UN demand suggest both radicalized external operating environments and internal organizational capacities have contributed to the UN deploying PSCs and PMCs. On the supply side, the last set of propositions indicate that comprehensive image refinement efforts on part of the industry have added to the UN deploying these companies, while quantitative expansion of the industry does not appear to influence UN PSC/PMC contracting in a direct manner. This thesis thus argues that the UN’s use of PSCs and PMCs can be explained by the UN simultaneously facing more difficult premises for its operations, enhanced expectations for action, and proportionally deteriorated internal capacity. The private security and military industry on its part has detected the UN potential market and strive to accommodate to the demands of this potentially very profitable market

UN Use of Private Military and Security Companies

Although subject to little discussion, the UN has increasingly paid private military and security companies (PMSCs) for a range of services in the areas of humanitarian affairs, peacebuilding and development. However, this practice has rarely translated into coherent policies or guidelines that could guide the UN in setting standards or ensuring responsible contracting procedures. This paper explores UN demand for PMSCs and identifies the need for a more proactive, sensitive and deliberate political approach in order to avoid potential pitfalls associated with involving PMSCs in the delivery of UN tasks

The Emergence of Russian Private Military Companies: A New Tool of Clandestine Warfare

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Building on strength. Proposals for US-Norwegian cooperation on the operational and tactical level

This paper suggests that the existing practice of deploying United States Marine Core (USMC) units from Marine Corps Prepositioning Program-Norway (MCPP-N) facilities in Trøndelag to other parts of Norway during crisis and war needs to be rethought. The operational- and tactical-level threats in this area are changing rapidly, and there is a high level of risk inherent in existing practice. We propose a concept based on the use of parts of the Norwegian offshore fleet for both operational and tactical transport and supply of the USMC

Bridging the Atlantic. A Norwegian contribution to US Sealift

There is currently considerable concern with US capacity to muster the acquired number of sealift vessels needed to swiftly deploy forces overseas. Norway for its part has a large, modern, and versatile merchant fleet that could be militarily useful in case of NATO operations to reinforce Europe. This brief suggest a bilateral agreement be signed between Norway and the US that obliges Norway to muster a significant number of Norwegian-controlled ships to support transatlantic US sealift operations. Norway, along with most other European NATO member states, relies on US reinforcements for its national security. These reinforcements arrive by sea. Therefore, an agreement such as the one suggested in this brief serves the security interests of the US, Norway, and the rest of the European NATO states