Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry and Its Ramifications for International Security

Abstract

Peter Singer of the Brookings Institution examines the emergence and growing influence of “privatized military firms” (PMFs), defined as “profit-driven organizations that trade in professional services intricately linked to warfare.” Singer finds that not only are PMFs changing the makeup of the modern battlefield and how states conduct war, but they are breaking the monopoly of the state over violence. In addition, these “corporate warriors” are giving nonstate actors–including drug cartels and warlords–unbridled access to the instruments of war.