Rule of Acquisition No. 34: “War is good for business.” Specifically, an American-staffed trainin... more Rule of Acquisition No. 34: “War is good for business.” Specifically, an American-staffed training and evacuation business called The Mozart Group. That is, before it folded up shop last week after nearly a year of operating in Ukraine.
Author David Isenberg is a senior research analyst with the British American Security Information... more Author David Isenberg is a senior research analyst with the British American Security Information Council (BASIC). He has been researching and writing on private military companies since the early 1990s. His 1997 monograph "Soldiers of Fortune Ltd.: A Profile of Today's Private Sector Corporate Mercenary Firms" and television episode "Conflict Inc." are acknowledged staples in the field. He has written on the subject for numerous periodicals, lectured at US military schools and overseas on the subject; and been a frequent commentator on numerous radio and television shows on PMC activities.
One might reasonably assume that in the over 20 years since the 9/11 attacks, the Pentagon would ... more One might reasonably assume that in the over 20 years since the 9/11 attacks, the Pentagon would have finally managed to figure out how to exercise effective supervision and control over its private military contractors.
You know, the hired guns in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere, many of whom bubbled up to our consciousness with notorious war scandals in places like Fallujah and Nisour Square. In other words, the government should have established some sort of oversight strategy by now.
Reasonable perhaps. But wrong, according to a July 29 report released by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, which said:
The Department of Defense (DOD) has been unable to comprehensively identify private security contractor (PSC) contracts and personnel supporting contingency, humanitarian, peacekeeping , or other similar operations.
Give credit where it is due. Erik Prince, co-founder of the Blackwater private security company, ... more Give credit where it is due. Erik Prince, co-founder of the Blackwater private security company, and the “Energizer Bunny” of the private military and security contracting industry, who just keeps going and going, has done it again. Prince has again been accused by the United Nations of plotting and launching a failed mercenary operation.
On February 19, the New York Times reported that a confidential United Nations report delivered to the U.N. Security Council detailed how Prince “violated a United Nations arms embargo on Libya, by sending weapons to a militia commander who was attempting to overthrow the internationally backed government.” And from a national perspective that also might be a violation of the U.S. Neutrality Acts.
That commander is Libyan-American warlord and one-time CIA asset General Khalifa Haftar.
According to the report, U.N. monitors said that they had “identified that Erik Prince made a proposal for the operation to Haftar in Cairo, Egypt on, or about, 14 April 2019.”
The report reveals how “Mr. Prince deployed a force of foreign mercenaries, armed with attack aircraft, gunboats, and cyberwarfare capabilities, to eastern Libya at the height of a major battle in 2019.”
According to a later report by Rolling Stone, Haftar “saw plans for an operation that would use two Cobra H1 attack helicopters, mounted with 20mm rotary machine guns and crewed by foreign mercenaries, to swoop down and kill or capture 11 of Haftar’s political enemies.”
Furthermore, the operation included a plan to form a hit squad to locate and assassinate commanders opposed to Haftar.
Let’s just pause and consider the implications. If true, Prince, was offering to provide the capability to kill people; like a modern version of Murder Inc. or any organized crime lord.
Last month, Rolling Stone reported that Erik Prince, co-founder of Blackwater Security — which wa... more Last month, Rolling Stone reported that Erik Prince, co-founder of Blackwater Security — which was sold in late 2010 to a group of investors — wants to bring the mercenary group back to its “glory days” of the Bush era.
A full-page ad in the January/February 2019 edition of Recoil magazine featured the old school Blackwater bear-paw logo of the controversial private security firm below the words, “We are coming.” Some observers thought this suggested a resurgent Blackwater might contract with the government to carry out a privatized war in Afghanistan. Others thought it a clever “campaign to draw attention to Blackwater Ammunition, a fledgling joint venture between Blackwater founder and CEO Erik Prince and Italian gun and ammunition designer Nicola Bandini and James Fenech in Malta.”
One should at least consider the possibility that Prince is serious, because if the passage of time tells us anything it is that Prince, long known as the Energizer Bunny of the private military and security contracting, or PMSC industry, just keeps going and going and going.
So, the question to ponder is, if Prince does reassume control of Blackwater and once again focuses on providing security contractors for conflict zones — and offers his services to the U.S. government — should the government accept?
The answer is an emphatic no. Why not? Because Prince cannot be trusted, for reasons beyond the infamous Nisour Square massacre in which Blackwater mercenaries killed 17 Iraqi civilians.
In Washington, the US military is routinely feted as the best equipped, the best trained, the mos... more In Washington, the US military is routinely feted as the best equipped, the best trained, the most lethal, indeed, the greatest force ever fielded. However, its dismal war record since 1945 suggests otherwise.
An uneasy draw in Korea was followed by humiliating withdrawals from South Vietnam, Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq – with dire consequences for US policy, interests and reputation. These disasters were counter-balanced only by small-scale successes – the invasions of Grenada and Panama – or limited-objective wins, such as the liberation of Kuwait in Gulf War I. The dailyReport Must-reads from across Asia - directly to your inbox
Indeed, a detailed 2015 briefing by the US Special Operations Command analyzing the last century of American overseas conflicts found nine losses, 43 ties and only 12 wins.
The United States, it seems, no longer knows how to win wars.
Erik Prince, a former Navy Seal and founder of private military contractor Blackwater USA, has be... more Erik Prince, a former Navy Seal and founder of private military contractor Blackwater USA, has been waiting to pitch his ideas to the US administration. Photo: AFP/Saul Loeb Although US President Donald Trump has announced a pullout of troops from Syria and a draw-down in Afghanistan, the fighting continues. Waiting to make a killing are the “Dogs of War” – men who fight not for flags, but for cash. As pullouts leave geopolitical vacuums that invite or intensify conflict, the business forecast looks upbeat for “private military contractors,” or PMCs – the polite corporate term for “mercenaries.” There is considerable speculation underway as to whether US PMCs – and the man who had led the American sector, Erik Prince of former blue-chip PMC Blackwater – will fill the vacuum created by Trump. However, the sector is in flux. American and other Western contractors in recent years have profited by operating on the margins of – and under the aegis provided by – coalition and NATO military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. That is not the case in Syria, nor is it likely to be the future case in Afghanistan. Moreover, Western PMCs face rising competition from market entrants with a more aggressive and risk-tolerant approach: Russian PMCs. While a war-weary West retreats from the Middle East, Russian mercenaries are benefitting from Moscow’s play in Syria. Unlike the support and security roles that are Western PMCs’ stock-in-trade, the Russians are engaging in direct action. With Moscow’s combat operations in Syria largely restricted to air and special forces missions, PMCs provide a proxy ground force that a casualty-averse Kremlin can keep “off the books” when it comes to body bags coming home.
Periodic media attention has focused on private military security companies in the past couple of... more Periodic media attention has focused on private military security companies in the past couple of years. Erik Prince has occasionally popped up from his underground warren to pitch his latest self-serving scheme to enrich himself. For instance, Prince and others offered to turn the war in Afghanistan over to private contractors. They also pushed a plan to establish a private global intelligence network answerable only to the CIA director and the president. Meanwhile, Russian companies like Wagner has been doing Putin’s fighting in Syria.
In the tradition of not seeing the forest for the trees, observers have neglected to notice a more disturbing reality. Significant amounts of present and future military combat operations have been outsourced to the private sector with little, if any, government control.
Revelations that data-consulting firm Cambridge Analytica used ill-gotten personal information fr... more Revelations that data-consulting firm Cambridge Analytica used ill-gotten personal information from Facebook for the Trump campaign masks the more scandalous reality that the company is firmly ensconced in the U.S. military-industrial complex. As The New York Review of Books notes, Cambridge Analytica is one of the " boutique companies specializing in data analysis and online influence that contract with government agencies. " So, it should come as no surprise then that the scandal has been linked to Erik Prince, co-founder of Blackwater and the Energizer Bunny of the world of private military and security contractors (PMSC). Having left the country years ago in a well-publicized huff for more comfortable, and
f you think the media has been saturated with news about Russia think again. While thoughts might... more f you think the media has been saturated with news about Russia think again. While thoughts might run to Robert Mueller's probe into possible Russian collusion with the Trump election campaign, I refer to something possibly far worse: the development and expansion of Russia's private military companies (PMC) and its implications for the global spread of armies for hire by great powers and multinational corporations alike. Before going further it is important to define exactly what I mean by PMC sector.
Question: What does a man worth billions of dollars want? Answer: More billions. Now such a descr... more Question: What does a man worth billions of dollars want? Answer: More billions. Now such a description could apply to more than a few people in the fields of finance, investing and technology, but in this case it applies to Erik Prince, the Energizer Bunny of the private military and security contracting (PMSC) industry. Despite past rebuffs, he just keeps going, and going, and going.
Prince, founder of the Blackwater private security company was in the news this past summer, with his plan to turn the U.S. war in Afghanistan over to the private sector, which I previously wrote about here and here.
Although it was not widely appreciated then, Prince was doing an excellent imitation of Milo Minderbinder, the legendary fictional war profiteer in Joseph Heller’s famed Catch-22 novel. Minderbinder essentially believed that all wars should be conducted by private enterprise—so long as the governments pick up the expenses. For him, the main business of the American public should be his business.
President Trump’s August 21 speech on Afghanistan endorsed an increase of several thousand U.S. s... more President Trump’s August 21 speech on Afghanistan endorsed an increase of several thousand U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. In so doing, Trump seemed to reject the plan pitched by Erik Prince and Stephen Feinberg to substantially rely on private contractors to do the fighting in Afghanistan.
In fact, however, Trump’s speech was long on rhetoric and light on details. As Heather Digby Parton noted in Salon:
Essentially Trump told us, “We have a plan, we won’t tell you the plan and the plan will cost a lot of money.” In other words: “Trust me.
Having attracted some mainstream support, Prince’s proposal is not yet dead. The “new” U.S. strategy, in its focus on counterterrorist operations against the Taliban, leaves a lot of room for the use of private contractors. The Pentagon’s lack of enthusiasm about their use doesn’t mean they won’t end up working for the CIA.
The future credibility of the private contractor proposal for Afghanistan depends a great deal on the credibility of the man behind the plan: Erik Prince.
According to a July 10 New York Times article, Steve Bannon has relied on advice from Erik Prince... more According to a July 10 New York Times article, Steve Bannon has relied on advice from Erik Prince, co-founder of storied private security firm Blackwater, and Stephen A. Feinberg, a private equity billionaire financier who owns the giant military contractor DynCorp International through his investment company Cerberus Capital Management. That the Trump administration would turn to Feinberg is not that surprising. Although Feinberg himself has no direct national security or warzone contracting experience, DynCorp has been a major private contractor player in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Like the old E.F. Hutton commercial, when DynCorp talks, the governments listen.
In 2014, retired Gen. James Mattis, now secretary of defense, reportedly referred to the United A... more In 2014, retired Gen. James Mattis, now secretary of defense, reportedly referred to the United Arab Emirates as " Little Sparta. " He was favorably comparing the UAE to the historic Greek city-state, known for its military prowess, especially against the Persians during the Greco-Persian Wars. Mattis presumably did so not only because of a strong politico-military alliance between the United States and the UAE, but also because the UAE has for years been working on strengthening its military capabilities.
An Associated Press story earlier this month regarding misconduct by employees of Sallyport turne... more An Associated Press story earlier this month regarding misconduct by employees of Sallyport turned a lot of heads in the world of private security contracting. The U.S. company has received nearly $700 million in federal contracts to secure Balad Air Base, home to a squadron of F-16 fighter jets participating in the U.S.-led coalition to annihilate the Islamic State,. According to the Associated Press, however, the employees were involved in sex trafficking and smuggling:
Given his reputation as an allegedly successful businessman before being elected president, it sh... more Given his reputation as an allegedly successful businessman before being elected president, it should come as no surprise that Donald Trump favors greater use of the private sector. Thus, those favoring privatizing and outsourcing activities previously done by the government are predictably elated by Trump's election. Various private security companies in particular are licking their chops. I previously wrote about the good times the private military and security contracting industry can expect in the Trump era.
Various private security companies in particular are licking their chops. I previously wrote about the good times the private military and security contracting industry can expect in the Trump era. But Iraq, Afghanistan, or Africa are not the only realms for private security contractors. Another venue for private contractors, both here at home and in many other parts of the world, is the one dealing with immigrant, refuges, and homeland security issues, and it’s about to get very big. You could call it PISS (Private Immigrant and Security System).
Written in the spirit of Sinclair Lewis’s It Can’t Happen Here
With the advantage of hindsight, ... more Written in the spirit of Sinclair Lewis’s It Can’t Happen Here
With the advantage of hindsight, we should have known what was coming when President elect Donald Trump announced his selection of Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education.
The first clue was her last name. After all, Vos, in Dutch, means fox. And putting a privatizing, deregulating, fanatical charter school advocate like DeVos in charge of a $200 billion plus federal department is, perhaps, the ultimate example of the fox in the henhouse.
At first glance DeVos seemed a strange choice, as she is not a teacher, has not worked in education, and never had her children in public school.
But with just a little hindsight, she had all the credentials necessary for a Trump nominee. She has a net worth of $130 million, comes from a family of billionaires and was happy to pay to play in American politics. Since 1970, DeVos family members have invested at least $200 million in a host of right-wing causes.
Furthermore, she was put in charge of the department dedicated to public education, something she has a long record of wanting to destroy.
In short, she was rich, ideologically fanatical and dedicated to the destruction of the department she was charged with managing; a perfect Trump appointee.
But the most telling sign of what was to come was familial; her brother, Erik D. Prince, was cofounder of Blackwater, the storied, private security company which achieved so much notoriety in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The tip-off was her public speech after being confirmed when, after thanking President Trump for giving her the opportunity to make American schools classy again, she said that, just as her brother had successfully brought to bear the unique capabilities of the private sector to help support American warfighting, she intended to use the private sector to help make American education great again.
In 1953, President Dwight Eisenhower nominated former General Motors president Charles Erwin Wils... more In 1953, President Dwight Eisenhower nominated former General Motors president Charles Erwin Wilson as secretary of defense.
That sparked a controversy during his confirmation hearings based on his large stockholdings in General Motors. Reluctant to sell the stock, valued at the time at more than $2.5 million, Wilson only agreed to do so under committee pressure. During the hearings, when asked if he could make a decision that would be adverse to the interests of General Motors, Wilson answered affirmatively. But he added that he could not conceive of such a situation “because for years I thought what was good for our country was good for General Motors, and vice versa.” This statement has frequently been misquoted as “What’s good for General Motors is good for the country.”
Nearly 40 years later in 1989, Carlyle, the private equity firm, took off when it hired Frank Carlucci, a former defense secretary and deputy director of the CIA. Carlucci was able to open doors in Washington, allowing Carlyle to participate in many lucrative deals.
And now, 27 years later, Donald Tump has nominated retired Marine Corp general James Mattis, the former director of General Dynamics, as the next secretary of defense. For the military-industrial-congressional complex it doesn’t get much better than this.
n recent years, U.S. military operations in Africa have greatly expanded. Washington has establis... more n recent years, U.S. military operations in Africa have greatly expanded. Washington has established forward operating locations (FOL) and drone bases. It has helped various African countries, like Liberia, retrain their militaries. It has tried to track rebel groups like the Lord’s Resistance Army and the East African terrorist group like Al-Shabaab. The U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) has been involved in wide-ranging activities.
Thanks to the work of a very few journalists—like Nick Turse who has greatly enhanced our understanding of U.S. Special Operations Forces in Africa or Craig Whitlock of The Washington Post who has exposed problems at U.S. drone bases—there’s more information about these expanded operations.
But one aspect of U.S. military operations in Africa remains vastly under-covered and unappreciated: the role of private military and security contractors (PMSC).
Rule of Acquisition No. 34: “War is good for business.” Specifically, an American-staffed trainin... more Rule of Acquisition No. 34: “War is good for business.” Specifically, an American-staffed training and evacuation business called The Mozart Group. That is, before it folded up shop last week after nearly a year of operating in Ukraine.
Author David Isenberg is a senior research analyst with the British American Security Information... more Author David Isenberg is a senior research analyst with the British American Security Information Council (BASIC). He has been researching and writing on private military companies since the early 1990s. His 1997 monograph "Soldiers of Fortune Ltd.: A Profile of Today's Private Sector Corporate Mercenary Firms" and television episode "Conflict Inc." are acknowledged staples in the field. He has written on the subject for numerous periodicals, lectured at US military schools and overseas on the subject; and been a frequent commentator on numerous radio and television shows on PMC activities.
One might reasonably assume that in the over 20 years since the 9/11 attacks, the Pentagon would ... more One might reasonably assume that in the over 20 years since the 9/11 attacks, the Pentagon would have finally managed to figure out how to exercise effective supervision and control over its private military contractors.
You know, the hired guns in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere, many of whom bubbled up to our consciousness with notorious war scandals in places like Fallujah and Nisour Square. In other words, the government should have established some sort of oversight strategy by now.
Reasonable perhaps. But wrong, according to a July 29 report released by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, which said:
The Department of Defense (DOD) has been unable to comprehensively identify private security contractor (PSC) contracts and personnel supporting contingency, humanitarian, peacekeeping , or other similar operations.
Give credit where it is due. Erik Prince, co-founder of the Blackwater private security company, ... more Give credit where it is due. Erik Prince, co-founder of the Blackwater private security company, and the “Energizer Bunny” of the private military and security contracting industry, who just keeps going and going, has done it again. Prince has again been accused by the United Nations of plotting and launching a failed mercenary operation.
On February 19, the New York Times reported that a confidential United Nations report delivered to the U.N. Security Council detailed how Prince “violated a United Nations arms embargo on Libya, by sending weapons to a militia commander who was attempting to overthrow the internationally backed government.” And from a national perspective that also might be a violation of the U.S. Neutrality Acts.
That commander is Libyan-American warlord and one-time CIA asset General Khalifa Haftar.
According to the report, U.N. monitors said that they had “identified that Erik Prince made a proposal for the operation to Haftar in Cairo, Egypt on, or about, 14 April 2019.”
The report reveals how “Mr. Prince deployed a force of foreign mercenaries, armed with attack aircraft, gunboats, and cyberwarfare capabilities, to eastern Libya at the height of a major battle in 2019.”
According to a later report by Rolling Stone, Haftar “saw plans for an operation that would use two Cobra H1 attack helicopters, mounted with 20mm rotary machine guns and crewed by foreign mercenaries, to swoop down and kill or capture 11 of Haftar’s political enemies.”
Furthermore, the operation included a plan to form a hit squad to locate and assassinate commanders opposed to Haftar.
Let’s just pause and consider the implications. If true, Prince, was offering to provide the capability to kill people; like a modern version of Murder Inc. or any organized crime lord.
Last month, Rolling Stone reported that Erik Prince, co-founder of Blackwater Security — which wa... more Last month, Rolling Stone reported that Erik Prince, co-founder of Blackwater Security — which was sold in late 2010 to a group of investors — wants to bring the mercenary group back to its “glory days” of the Bush era.
A full-page ad in the January/February 2019 edition of Recoil magazine featured the old school Blackwater bear-paw logo of the controversial private security firm below the words, “We are coming.” Some observers thought this suggested a resurgent Blackwater might contract with the government to carry out a privatized war in Afghanistan. Others thought it a clever “campaign to draw attention to Blackwater Ammunition, a fledgling joint venture between Blackwater founder and CEO Erik Prince and Italian gun and ammunition designer Nicola Bandini and James Fenech in Malta.”
One should at least consider the possibility that Prince is serious, because if the passage of time tells us anything it is that Prince, long known as the Energizer Bunny of the private military and security contracting, or PMSC industry, just keeps going and going and going.
So, the question to ponder is, if Prince does reassume control of Blackwater and once again focuses on providing security contractors for conflict zones — and offers his services to the U.S. government — should the government accept?
The answer is an emphatic no. Why not? Because Prince cannot be trusted, for reasons beyond the infamous Nisour Square massacre in which Blackwater mercenaries killed 17 Iraqi civilians.
In Washington, the US military is routinely feted as the best equipped, the best trained, the mos... more In Washington, the US military is routinely feted as the best equipped, the best trained, the most lethal, indeed, the greatest force ever fielded. However, its dismal war record since 1945 suggests otherwise.
An uneasy draw in Korea was followed by humiliating withdrawals from South Vietnam, Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq – with dire consequences for US policy, interests and reputation. These disasters were counter-balanced only by small-scale successes – the invasions of Grenada and Panama – or limited-objective wins, such as the liberation of Kuwait in Gulf War I. The dailyReport Must-reads from across Asia - directly to your inbox
Indeed, a detailed 2015 briefing by the US Special Operations Command analyzing the last century of American overseas conflicts found nine losses, 43 ties and only 12 wins.
The United States, it seems, no longer knows how to win wars.
Erik Prince, a former Navy Seal and founder of private military contractor Blackwater USA, has be... more Erik Prince, a former Navy Seal and founder of private military contractor Blackwater USA, has been waiting to pitch his ideas to the US administration. Photo: AFP/Saul Loeb Although US President Donald Trump has announced a pullout of troops from Syria and a draw-down in Afghanistan, the fighting continues. Waiting to make a killing are the “Dogs of War” – men who fight not for flags, but for cash. As pullouts leave geopolitical vacuums that invite or intensify conflict, the business forecast looks upbeat for “private military contractors,” or PMCs – the polite corporate term for “mercenaries.” There is considerable speculation underway as to whether US PMCs – and the man who had led the American sector, Erik Prince of former blue-chip PMC Blackwater – will fill the vacuum created by Trump. However, the sector is in flux. American and other Western contractors in recent years have profited by operating on the margins of – and under the aegis provided by – coalition and NATO military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. That is not the case in Syria, nor is it likely to be the future case in Afghanistan. Moreover, Western PMCs face rising competition from market entrants with a more aggressive and risk-tolerant approach: Russian PMCs. While a war-weary West retreats from the Middle East, Russian mercenaries are benefitting from Moscow’s play in Syria. Unlike the support and security roles that are Western PMCs’ stock-in-trade, the Russians are engaging in direct action. With Moscow’s combat operations in Syria largely restricted to air and special forces missions, PMCs provide a proxy ground force that a casualty-averse Kremlin can keep “off the books” when it comes to body bags coming home.
Periodic media attention has focused on private military security companies in the past couple of... more Periodic media attention has focused on private military security companies in the past couple of years. Erik Prince has occasionally popped up from his underground warren to pitch his latest self-serving scheme to enrich himself. For instance, Prince and others offered to turn the war in Afghanistan over to private contractors. They also pushed a plan to establish a private global intelligence network answerable only to the CIA director and the president. Meanwhile, Russian companies like Wagner has been doing Putin’s fighting in Syria.
In the tradition of not seeing the forest for the trees, observers have neglected to notice a more disturbing reality. Significant amounts of present and future military combat operations have been outsourced to the private sector with little, if any, government control.
Revelations that data-consulting firm Cambridge Analytica used ill-gotten personal information fr... more Revelations that data-consulting firm Cambridge Analytica used ill-gotten personal information from Facebook for the Trump campaign masks the more scandalous reality that the company is firmly ensconced in the U.S. military-industrial complex. As The New York Review of Books notes, Cambridge Analytica is one of the " boutique companies specializing in data analysis and online influence that contract with government agencies. " So, it should come as no surprise then that the scandal has been linked to Erik Prince, co-founder of Blackwater and the Energizer Bunny of the world of private military and security contractors (PMSC). Having left the country years ago in a well-publicized huff for more comfortable, and
f you think the media has been saturated with news about Russia think again. While thoughts might... more f you think the media has been saturated with news about Russia think again. While thoughts might run to Robert Mueller's probe into possible Russian collusion with the Trump election campaign, I refer to something possibly far worse: the development and expansion of Russia's private military companies (PMC) and its implications for the global spread of armies for hire by great powers and multinational corporations alike. Before going further it is important to define exactly what I mean by PMC sector.
Question: What does a man worth billions of dollars want? Answer: More billions. Now such a descr... more Question: What does a man worth billions of dollars want? Answer: More billions. Now such a description could apply to more than a few people in the fields of finance, investing and technology, but in this case it applies to Erik Prince, the Energizer Bunny of the private military and security contracting (PMSC) industry. Despite past rebuffs, he just keeps going, and going, and going.
Prince, founder of the Blackwater private security company was in the news this past summer, with his plan to turn the U.S. war in Afghanistan over to the private sector, which I previously wrote about here and here.
Although it was not widely appreciated then, Prince was doing an excellent imitation of Milo Minderbinder, the legendary fictional war profiteer in Joseph Heller’s famed Catch-22 novel. Minderbinder essentially believed that all wars should be conducted by private enterprise—so long as the governments pick up the expenses. For him, the main business of the American public should be his business.
President Trump’s August 21 speech on Afghanistan endorsed an increase of several thousand U.S. s... more President Trump’s August 21 speech on Afghanistan endorsed an increase of several thousand U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. In so doing, Trump seemed to reject the plan pitched by Erik Prince and Stephen Feinberg to substantially rely on private contractors to do the fighting in Afghanistan.
In fact, however, Trump’s speech was long on rhetoric and light on details. As Heather Digby Parton noted in Salon:
Essentially Trump told us, “We have a plan, we won’t tell you the plan and the plan will cost a lot of money.” In other words: “Trust me.
Having attracted some mainstream support, Prince’s proposal is not yet dead. The “new” U.S. strategy, in its focus on counterterrorist operations against the Taliban, leaves a lot of room for the use of private contractors. The Pentagon’s lack of enthusiasm about their use doesn’t mean they won’t end up working for the CIA.
The future credibility of the private contractor proposal for Afghanistan depends a great deal on the credibility of the man behind the plan: Erik Prince.
According to a July 10 New York Times article, Steve Bannon has relied on advice from Erik Prince... more According to a July 10 New York Times article, Steve Bannon has relied on advice from Erik Prince, co-founder of storied private security firm Blackwater, and Stephen A. Feinberg, a private equity billionaire financier who owns the giant military contractor DynCorp International through his investment company Cerberus Capital Management. That the Trump administration would turn to Feinberg is not that surprising. Although Feinberg himself has no direct national security or warzone contracting experience, DynCorp has been a major private contractor player in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Like the old E.F. Hutton commercial, when DynCorp talks, the governments listen.
In 2014, retired Gen. James Mattis, now secretary of defense, reportedly referred to the United A... more In 2014, retired Gen. James Mattis, now secretary of defense, reportedly referred to the United Arab Emirates as " Little Sparta. " He was favorably comparing the UAE to the historic Greek city-state, known for its military prowess, especially against the Persians during the Greco-Persian Wars. Mattis presumably did so not only because of a strong politico-military alliance between the United States and the UAE, but also because the UAE has for years been working on strengthening its military capabilities.
An Associated Press story earlier this month regarding misconduct by employees of Sallyport turne... more An Associated Press story earlier this month regarding misconduct by employees of Sallyport turned a lot of heads in the world of private security contracting. The U.S. company has received nearly $700 million in federal contracts to secure Balad Air Base, home to a squadron of F-16 fighter jets participating in the U.S.-led coalition to annihilate the Islamic State,. According to the Associated Press, however, the employees were involved in sex trafficking and smuggling:
Given his reputation as an allegedly successful businessman before being elected president, it sh... more Given his reputation as an allegedly successful businessman before being elected president, it should come as no surprise that Donald Trump favors greater use of the private sector. Thus, those favoring privatizing and outsourcing activities previously done by the government are predictably elated by Trump's election. Various private security companies in particular are licking their chops. I previously wrote about the good times the private military and security contracting industry can expect in the Trump era.
Various private security companies in particular are licking their chops. I previously wrote about the good times the private military and security contracting industry can expect in the Trump era. But Iraq, Afghanistan, or Africa are not the only realms for private security contractors. Another venue for private contractors, both here at home and in many other parts of the world, is the one dealing with immigrant, refuges, and homeland security issues, and it’s about to get very big. You could call it PISS (Private Immigrant and Security System).
Written in the spirit of Sinclair Lewis’s It Can’t Happen Here
With the advantage of hindsight, ... more Written in the spirit of Sinclair Lewis’s It Can’t Happen Here
With the advantage of hindsight, we should have known what was coming when President elect Donald Trump announced his selection of Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education.
The first clue was her last name. After all, Vos, in Dutch, means fox. And putting a privatizing, deregulating, fanatical charter school advocate like DeVos in charge of a $200 billion plus federal department is, perhaps, the ultimate example of the fox in the henhouse.
At first glance DeVos seemed a strange choice, as she is not a teacher, has not worked in education, and never had her children in public school.
But with just a little hindsight, she had all the credentials necessary for a Trump nominee. She has a net worth of $130 million, comes from a family of billionaires and was happy to pay to play in American politics. Since 1970, DeVos family members have invested at least $200 million in a host of right-wing causes.
Furthermore, she was put in charge of the department dedicated to public education, something she has a long record of wanting to destroy.
In short, she was rich, ideologically fanatical and dedicated to the destruction of the department she was charged with managing; a perfect Trump appointee.
But the most telling sign of what was to come was familial; her brother, Erik D. Prince, was cofounder of Blackwater, the storied, private security company which achieved so much notoriety in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The tip-off was her public speech after being confirmed when, after thanking President Trump for giving her the opportunity to make American schools classy again, she said that, just as her brother had successfully brought to bear the unique capabilities of the private sector to help support American warfighting, she intended to use the private sector to help make American education great again.
In 1953, President Dwight Eisenhower nominated former General Motors president Charles Erwin Wils... more In 1953, President Dwight Eisenhower nominated former General Motors president Charles Erwin Wilson as secretary of defense.
That sparked a controversy during his confirmation hearings based on his large stockholdings in General Motors. Reluctant to sell the stock, valued at the time at more than $2.5 million, Wilson only agreed to do so under committee pressure. During the hearings, when asked if he could make a decision that would be adverse to the interests of General Motors, Wilson answered affirmatively. But he added that he could not conceive of such a situation “because for years I thought what was good for our country was good for General Motors, and vice versa.” This statement has frequently been misquoted as “What’s good for General Motors is good for the country.”
Nearly 40 years later in 1989, Carlyle, the private equity firm, took off when it hired Frank Carlucci, a former defense secretary and deputy director of the CIA. Carlucci was able to open doors in Washington, allowing Carlyle to participate in many lucrative deals.
And now, 27 years later, Donald Tump has nominated retired Marine Corp general James Mattis, the former director of General Dynamics, as the next secretary of defense. For the military-industrial-congressional complex it doesn’t get much better than this.
n recent years, U.S. military operations in Africa have greatly expanded. Washington has establis... more n recent years, U.S. military operations in Africa have greatly expanded. Washington has established forward operating locations (FOL) and drone bases. It has helped various African countries, like Liberia, retrain their militaries. It has tried to track rebel groups like the Lord’s Resistance Army and the East African terrorist group like Al-Shabaab. The U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) has been involved in wide-ranging activities.
Thanks to the work of a very few journalists—like Nick Turse who has greatly enhanced our understanding of U.S. Special Operations Forces in Africa or Craig Whitlock of The Washington Post who has exposed problems at U.S. drone bases—there’s more information about these expanded operations.
But one aspect of U.S. military operations in Africa remains vastly under-covered and unappreciated: the role of private military and security contractors (PMSC).
Last month news broke that Erik Prince, the co-founder of Blackwater, moved into the cyber sector... more Last month news broke that Erik Prince, the co-founder of Blackwater, moved into the cyber sector with two new companies, one focused in secure communications and the other in cyber intelligence. This follows the news from last summer when Prince was promoting "Unplugged, a smartphone startup promising "free speech, privacy, and security" untethered from dominant tech giants like Apple and Google. Technology Review reported that, "Unplugged's day-today technology operations are run by Eran Karpen, a former employee of CommuniTake, the Israeli startup that gave rise to the now infamous hacker-for-hire firm NSO Group.
On July 19, 2015 I filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the U.S. Defense Intelligence ... more On July 19, 2015 I filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) requesting three unclassified publications. They were student papers published by the National Defense Intelligence College, now called the National Intelligence University.
• Training the enemy: Terrorist Exploitation of Privately Owned Third-Party Paramilitary Training Courses in the United States, August 9. 2007
• Use of Private Security Companies by Diplomatic Security in Support of Operation Iraqi Freedom: Lessons Learned, July 12, 2006
• Rationing the IC: The Impact of Private American Citizens on the Intelligence Community, June 23, 2010
On December 9, 2021 the DIA sent me the first two papers.
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Papers by David Isenberg
You know, the hired guns in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere, many of whom bubbled up to our consciousness with notorious war scandals in places like Fallujah and Nisour Square. In other words, the government should have established some sort of oversight strategy by now.
Reasonable perhaps. But wrong, according to a July 29 report released by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, which said:
The Department of Defense (DOD) has been unable to comprehensively identify private security contractor (PSC) contracts and personnel supporting contingency, humanitarian, peacekeeping , or other similar operations.
On February 19, the New York Times reported that a confidential United Nations report delivered to the U.N. Security Council detailed how Prince “violated a United Nations arms embargo on Libya, by sending weapons to a militia commander who was attempting to overthrow the internationally backed government.” And from a national perspective that also might be a violation of the U.S. Neutrality Acts.
That commander is Libyan-American warlord and one-time CIA asset General Khalifa Haftar.
According to the report, U.N. monitors said that they had “identified that Erik Prince made a proposal for the operation to Haftar in Cairo, Egypt on, or about, 14 April 2019.”
The report reveals how “Mr. Prince deployed a force of foreign mercenaries, armed with attack aircraft, gunboats, and cyberwarfare capabilities, to eastern Libya at the height of a major battle in 2019.”
According to a later report by Rolling Stone, Haftar “saw plans for an operation that would use two Cobra H1 attack helicopters, mounted with 20mm rotary machine guns and crewed by foreign mercenaries, to swoop down and kill or capture 11 of Haftar’s political enemies.”
Furthermore, the operation included a plan to form a hit squad to locate and assassinate commanders opposed to Haftar.
Let’s just pause and consider the implications. If true, Prince, was offering to provide the capability to kill people; like a modern version of Murder Inc. or any organized crime lord.
A full-page ad in the January/February 2019 edition of Recoil magazine featured the old school Blackwater bear-paw logo of the controversial private security firm below the words, “We are coming.” Some observers thought this suggested a resurgent Blackwater might contract with the government to carry out a privatized war in Afghanistan. Others thought it a clever “campaign to draw attention to Blackwater Ammunition, a fledgling joint venture between Blackwater founder and CEO Erik Prince and Italian gun and ammunition designer Nicola Bandini and James Fenech in Malta.”
One should at least consider the possibility that Prince is serious, because if the passage of time tells us anything it is that Prince, long known as the Energizer Bunny of the private military and security contracting, or PMSC industry, just keeps going and going and going.
So, the question to ponder is, if Prince does reassume control of Blackwater and once again focuses on providing security contractors for conflict zones — and offers his services to the U.S. government — should the government accept?
The answer is an emphatic no. Why not? Because Prince cannot be trusted, for reasons beyond the infamous Nisour Square massacre in which Blackwater mercenaries killed 17 Iraqi civilians.
An uneasy draw in Korea was followed by humiliating withdrawals from South Vietnam, Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq – with dire consequences for US policy, interests and reputation. These disasters were counter-balanced only by small-scale successes – the invasions of Grenada and Panama – or limited-objective wins, such as the liberation of Kuwait in Gulf War I.
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Indeed, a detailed 2015 briefing by the US Special Operations Command analyzing the last century of American overseas conflicts found nine losses, 43 ties and only 12 wins.
The United States, it seems, no longer knows how to win wars.
Although US President Donald Trump has announced a pullout of troops from Syria and a draw-down in Afghanistan, the fighting continues.
Waiting to make a killing are the “Dogs of War” – men who fight not for flags, but for cash. As pullouts leave geopolitical vacuums that invite or intensify conflict, the business forecast looks upbeat for “private military contractors,” or PMCs – the polite corporate term for “mercenaries.”
There is considerable speculation underway as to whether US PMCs – and the man who had led the American sector, Erik Prince of former blue-chip PMC Blackwater – will fill the vacuum created by Trump. However, the sector is in flux.
American and other Western contractors in recent years have profited by operating on the margins of – and under the aegis provided by – coalition and NATO military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. That is not the case in Syria, nor is it likely to be the future case in Afghanistan.
Moreover, Western PMCs face rising competition from market entrants with a more aggressive and risk-tolerant approach: Russian PMCs. While a war-weary West retreats from the Middle East, Russian mercenaries are benefitting from Moscow’s play in Syria.
Unlike the support and security roles that are Western PMCs’ stock-in-trade, the Russians are engaging in direct action. With Moscow’s combat operations in Syria largely restricted to air and special forces missions, PMCs provide a proxy ground force that a casualty-averse Kremlin can keep “off the books” when it comes to body bags coming home.
In the tradition of not seeing the forest for the trees, observers have neglected to notice a more disturbing reality. Significant amounts of present and future military combat operations have been outsourced to the private sector with little, if any, government control.
Prince, founder of the Blackwater private security company was in the news this past summer, with his plan to turn the U.S. war in Afghanistan over to the private sector, which I previously wrote about here and here.
Although it was not widely appreciated then, Prince was doing an excellent imitation of Milo Minderbinder, the legendary fictional war profiteer in Joseph Heller’s famed Catch-22 novel. Minderbinder essentially believed that all wars should be conducted by private enterprise—so long as the governments pick up the expenses. For him, the main business of the American public should be his business.
In fact, however, Trump’s speech was long on rhetoric and light on details. As Heather Digby Parton noted in Salon:
Essentially Trump told us, “We have a plan, we won’t tell you the plan and the plan will cost a lot of money.” In other words: “Trust me.
Having attracted some mainstream support, Prince’s proposal is not yet dead. The “new” U.S. strategy, in its focus on counterterrorist operations against the Taliban, leaves a lot of room for the use of private contractors. The Pentagon’s lack of enthusiasm about their use doesn’t mean they won’t end up working for the CIA.
The future credibility of the private contractor proposal for Afghanistan depends a great deal on the credibility of the man behind the plan: Erik Prince.
Various private security companies in particular are licking their chops. I previously wrote about the good times the private military and security contracting industry can expect in the Trump era. But Iraq, Afghanistan, or Africa are not the only realms for private security contractors. Another venue for private contractors, both here at home and in many other parts of the world, is the one dealing with immigrant, refuges, and homeland security issues, and it’s about to get very big. You could call it PISS (Private Immigrant and Security System).
With the advantage of hindsight, we should have known what was coming when President elect Donald Trump announced his selection of Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education.
The first clue was her last name. After all, Vos, in Dutch, means fox. And putting a privatizing, deregulating, fanatical charter school advocate like DeVos in charge of a $200 billion plus federal department is, perhaps, the ultimate example of the fox in the henhouse.
At first glance DeVos seemed a strange choice, as she is not a teacher, has not worked in education, and never had her children in public school.
But with just a little hindsight, she had all the credentials necessary for a Trump nominee. She has a net worth of $130 million, comes from a family of billionaires and was happy to pay to play in American politics. Since 1970, DeVos family members have invested at least $200 million in a host of right-wing causes.
Furthermore, she was put in charge of the department dedicated to public education, something she has a long record of wanting to destroy.
In short, she was rich, ideologically fanatical and dedicated to the destruction of the department she was charged with managing; a perfect Trump appointee.
But the most telling sign of what was to come was familial; her brother, Erik D. Prince, was cofounder of Blackwater, the storied, private security company which achieved so much notoriety in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The tip-off was her public speech after being confirmed when, after thanking President Trump for giving her the opportunity to make American schools classy again, she said that, just as her brother had successfully brought to bear the unique capabilities of the private sector to help support American warfighting, she intended to use the private sector to help make American education great again.
That sparked a controversy during his confirmation hearings based on his large stockholdings in General Motors. Reluctant to sell the stock, valued at the time at more than $2.5 million, Wilson only agreed to do so under committee pressure. During the hearings, when asked if he could make a decision that would be adverse to the interests of General Motors, Wilson answered affirmatively. But he added that he could not conceive of such a situation “because for years I thought what was good for our country was good for General Motors, and vice versa.” This statement has frequently been misquoted as “What’s good for General Motors is good for the country.”
Nearly 40 years later in 1989, Carlyle, the private equity firm, took off when it hired Frank Carlucci, a former defense secretary and deputy director of the CIA. Carlucci was able to open doors in Washington, allowing Carlyle to participate in many lucrative deals.
And now, 27 years later, Donald Tump has nominated retired Marine Corp general James Mattis, the former director of General Dynamics, as the next secretary of defense. For the military-industrial-congressional complex it doesn’t get much better than this.
Thanks to the work of a very few journalists—like Nick Turse who has greatly enhanced our understanding of U.S. Special Operations Forces in Africa or Craig Whitlock of The Washington Post who has exposed problems at U.S. drone bases—there’s more information about these expanded operations.
But one aspect of U.S. military operations in Africa remains vastly under-covered and unappreciated: the role of private military and security contractors (PMSC).
You know, the hired guns in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere, many of whom bubbled up to our consciousness with notorious war scandals in places like Fallujah and Nisour Square. In other words, the government should have established some sort of oversight strategy by now.
Reasonable perhaps. But wrong, according to a July 29 report released by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, which said:
The Department of Defense (DOD) has been unable to comprehensively identify private security contractor (PSC) contracts and personnel supporting contingency, humanitarian, peacekeeping , or other similar operations.
On February 19, the New York Times reported that a confidential United Nations report delivered to the U.N. Security Council detailed how Prince “violated a United Nations arms embargo on Libya, by sending weapons to a militia commander who was attempting to overthrow the internationally backed government.” And from a national perspective that also might be a violation of the U.S. Neutrality Acts.
That commander is Libyan-American warlord and one-time CIA asset General Khalifa Haftar.
According to the report, U.N. monitors said that they had “identified that Erik Prince made a proposal for the operation to Haftar in Cairo, Egypt on, or about, 14 April 2019.”
The report reveals how “Mr. Prince deployed a force of foreign mercenaries, armed with attack aircraft, gunboats, and cyberwarfare capabilities, to eastern Libya at the height of a major battle in 2019.”
According to a later report by Rolling Stone, Haftar “saw plans for an operation that would use two Cobra H1 attack helicopters, mounted with 20mm rotary machine guns and crewed by foreign mercenaries, to swoop down and kill or capture 11 of Haftar’s political enemies.”
Furthermore, the operation included a plan to form a hit squad to locate and assassinate commanders opposed to Haftar.
Let’s just pause and consider the implications. If true, Prince, was offering to provide the capability to kill people; like a modern version of Murder Inc. or any organized crime lord.
A full-page ad in the January/February 2019 edition of Recoil magazine featured the old school Blackwater bear-paw logo of the controversial private security firm below the words, “We are coming.” Some observers thought this suggested a resurgent Blackwater might contract with the government to carry out a privatized war in Afghanistan. Others thought it a clever “campaign to draw attention to Blackwater Ammunition, a fledgling joint venture between Blackwater founder and CEO Erik Prince and Italian gun and ammunition designer Nicola Bandini and James Fenech in Malta.”
One should at least consider the possibility that Prince is serious, because if the passage of time tells us anything it is that Prince, long known as the Energizer Bunny of the private military and security contracting, or PMSC industry, just keeps going and going and going.
So, the question to ponder is, if Prince does reassume control of Blackwater and once again focuses on providing security contractors for conflict zones — and offers his services to the U.S. government — should the government accept?
The answer is an emphatic no. Why not? Because Prince cannot be trusted, for reasons beyond the infamous Nisour Square massacre in which Blackwater mercenaries killed 17 Iraqi civilians.
An uneasy draw in Korea was followed by humiliating withdrawals from South Vietnam, Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq – with dire consequences for US policy, interests and reputation. These disasters were counter-balanced only by small-scale successes – the invasions of Grenada and Panama – or limited-objective wins, such as the liberation of Kuwait in Gulf War I.
The dailyReport
Must-reads from across Asia - directly to your inbox
Indeed, a detailed 2015 briefing by the US Special Operations Command analyzing the last century of American overseas conflicts found nine losses, 43 ties and only 12 wins.
The United States, it seems, no longer knows how to win wars.
Although US President Donald Trump has announced a pullout of troops from Syria and a draw-down in Afghanistan, the fighting continues.
Waiting to make a killing are the “Dogs of War” – men who fight not for flags, but for cash. As pullouts leave geopolitical vacuums that invite or intensify conflict, the business forecast looks upbeat for “private military contractors,” or PMCs – the polite corporate term for “mercenaries.”
There is considerable speculation underway as to whether US PMCs – and the man who had led the American sector, Erik Prince of former blue-chip PMC Blackwater – will fill the vacuum created by Trump. However, the sector is in flux.
American and other Western contractors in recent years have profited by operating on the margins of – and under the aegis provided by – coalition and NATO military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. That is not the case in Syria, nor is it likely to be the future case in Afghanistan.
Moreover, Western PMCs face rising competition from market entrants with a more aggressive and risk-tolerant approach: Russian PMCs. While a war-weary West retreats from the Middle East, Russian mercenaries are benefitting from Moscow’s play in Syria.
Unlike the support and security roles that are Western PMCs’ stock-in-trade, the Russians are engaging in direct action. With Moscow’s combat operations in Syria largely restricted to air and special forces missions, PMCs provide a proxy ground force that a casualty-averse Kremlin can keep “off the books” when it comes to body bags coming home.
In the tradition of not seeing the forest for the trees, observers have neglected to notice a more disturbing reality. Significant amounts of present and future military combat operations have been outsourced to the private sector with little, if any, government control.
Prince, founder of the Blackwater private security company was in the news this past summer, with his plan to turn the U.S. war in Afghanistan over to the private sector, which I previously wrote about here and here.
Although it was not widely appreciated then, Prince was doing an excellent imitation of Milo Minderbinder, the legendary fictional war profiteer in Joseph Heller’s famed Catch-22 novel. Minderbinder essentially believed that all wars should be conducted by private enterprise—so long as the governments pick up the expenses. For him, the main business of the American public should be his business.
In fact, however, Trump’s speech was long on rhetoric and light on details. As Heather Digby Parton noted in Salon:
Essentially Trump told us, “We have a plan, we won’t tell you the plan and the plan will cost a lot of money.” In other words: “Trust me.
Having attracted some mainstream support, Prince’s proposal is not yet dead. The “new” U.S. strategy, in its focus on counterterrorist operations against the Taliban, leaves a lot of room for the use of private contractors. The Pentagon’s lack of enthusiasm about their use doesn’t mean they won’t end up working for the CIA.
The future credibility of the private contractor proposal for Afghanistan depends a great deal on the credibility of the man behind the plan: Erik Prince.
Various private security companies in particular are licking their chops. I previously wrote about the good times the private military and security contracting industry can expect in the Trump era. But Iraq, Afghanistan, or Africa are not the only realms for private security contractors. Another venue for private contractors, both here at home and in many other parts of the world, is the one dealing with immigrant, refuges, and homeland security issues, and it’s about to get very big. You could call it PISS (Private Immigrant and Security System).
With the advantage of hindsight, we should have known what was coming when President elect Donald Trump announced his selection of Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education.
The first clue was her last name. After all, Vos, in Dutch, means fox. And putting a privatizing, deregulating, fanatical charter school advocate like DeVos in charge of a $200 billion plus federal department is, perhaps, the ultimate example of the fox in the henhouse.
At first glance DeVos seemed a strange choice, as she is not a teacher, has not worked in education, and never had her children in public school.
But with just a little hindsight, she had all the credentials necessary for a Trump nominee. She has a net worth of $130 million, comes from a family of billionaires and was happy to pay to play in American politics. Since 1970, DeVos family members have invested at least $200 million in a host of right-wing causes.
Furthermore, she was put in charge of the department dedicated to public education, something she has a long record of wanting to destroy.
In short, she was rich, ideologically fanatical and dedicated to the destruction of the department she was charged with managing; a perfect Trump appointee.
But the most telling sign of what was to come was familial; her brother, Erik D. Prince, was cofounder of Blackwater, the storied, private security company which achieved so much notoriety in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The tip-off was her public speech after being confirmed when, after thanking President Trump for giving her the opportunity to make American schools classy again, she said that, just as her brother had successfully brought to bear the unique capabilities of the private sector to help support American warfighting, she intended to use the private sector to help make American education great again.
That sparked a controversy during his confirmation hearings based on his large stockholdings in General Motors. Reluctant to sell the stock, valued at the time at more than $2.5 million, Wilson only agreed to do so under committee pressure. During the hearings, when asked if he could make a decision that would be adverse to the interests of General Motors, Wilson answered affirmatively. But he added that he could not conceive of such a situation “because for years I thought what was good for our country was good for General Motors, and vice versa.” This statement has frequently been misquoted as “What’s good for General Motors is good for the country.”
Nearly 40 years later in 1989, Carlyle, the private equity firm, took off when it hired Frank Carlucci, a former defense secretary and deputy director of the CIA. Carlucci was able to open doors in Washington, allowing Carlyle to participate in many lucrative deals.
And now, 27 years later, Donald Tump has nominated retired Marine Corp general James Mattis, the former director of General Dynamics, as the next secretary of defense. For the military-industrial-congressional complex it doesn’t get much better than this.
Thanks to the work of a very few journalists—like Nick Turse who has greatly enhanced our understanding of U.S. Special Operations Forces in Africa or Craig Whitlock of The Washington Post who has exposed problems at U.S. drone bases—there’s more information about these expanded operations.
But one aspect of U.S. military operations in Africa remains vastly under-covered and unappreciated: the role of private military and security contractors (PMSC).
• Training the enemy: Terrorist Exploitation of Privately Owned Third-Party Paramilitary Training Courses in the United States, August 9. 2007
• Use of Private Security Companies by Diplomatic Security in Support of Operation Iraqi Freedom: Lessons Learned, July 12, 2006
• Rationing the IC: The Impact of Private American Citizens on the Intelligence Community, June 23, 2010
On December 9, 2021 the DIA sent me the first two papers.