Country or Corporation???

Which military in the world has the most soldiers? Which is more resourceful? What is the strongest and most capable army? 

Is it a nation or a company?

Where it was created.

The creation of mercenaries has been as old as war has ever been. Since the Ancient era, the use of mercenaries was popularly used to supplement and sometimes replace regular armies out on campaigns or in the field.

In the mid-19th Century, Empires like Britain, France, and Prussia shifted their focus away from mercenaries and toward the development of their national armies and regular forces. 

In today's wars has been manufactured in a manner in which there has been a new demand for Soldiers of Fortune. A PMC, or Private Military Company is an independent corporation that trades military services through a wide range of opportunities they have due to their corporate nature. 

The idea for PMCs (Private Military Contractors) being formed was founded in 1965 by former SAS members who were under the leadership of two of the founders of the SAS, Sir David Sterling and John Woodhouse who had created the private company, WatchGuard International, which was in service for security and military reasons until Sterling ceased to partake for active service in the company and Woodhouse resigned as Director of Operations in 1972.

So as one could imagine, the idea was revolutionised from a British creation and the UK has taken the lead in privatizing both the security division and modern warfare.

In December 1989, the United Nations adopted an international convention against the recruitment, use, and training of the Mercenaries Treaty and made it into force on October 20th, 2001. The main gain of this was to suppress access to mercenary services. This defined a Mercenary as any person who is "recruited locally or abroad to take on a combat role for the desire for private gain". This does not apply to a Mercenary as part of a National or the military personnel of the parties to the conflict and does not send him on an official state military duty.

Many enterprising professionals would carry on to form Private Military Contractors which gives just enough difference from a mercenary definition to maintain legality and to circumvent the UN's rules.

While a Mercenary engages in combat, a PMC claims to act in self-defense. 

While a Mercenary gets deployed,  a PMC conducts routine security. 

Providing security guards for supermarkets, houses, riot control, airports, and VIPs is one of the key roles in which PMCs are involved. Private Security is only the starting point for the countless job roles that are advertised in the Private Sector. The majority of jobs require previous military or law enforcement experience for the changing modern world of mercenaries which becomes more popular for ex-military members to enlist.

What is a PMC?

A Private Military Company is a private company that offers services and expertise that take on the roles of military and intelligence agencies. These roles are very similar to national government security which is broader and more resourceful. There are several reasons for war and why they're fought. It can be based on the resources of a country, a sense of freedom, justice, liberty, or most of all, politics. 

PMCs often work as international firms that provide military and political entities services such as…

• Combat Assistance 
• Military Training 
• Risk Assessment 
• Logistics 
• Intelligence 
• Security 

Companies like these are useful for world powers as the discrete connection between the client and the PMC. This allows for a client’s involvement by proxy into conflicts as unofficial belligerence permitting them to exercise geopolitical and military influence without suffering any casualties or logistical concerns of a national army. 

It's essentially a way of combat that's done for either the Americans, British, Russians, Chinese, etc... If you're talking about conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, or even Ukraine, a percentage of the forces that are sent on the field are Private Forces. 

Business from warfare can be so good for companies like Aegis Defence Services, Northrop Grumman, DynCorp, Control Risks, Triple Canopy, and Executive Outcomes, that the global market for Private Security Services has reached trillions by 2022 and it will continue to grow. As more and more aspects of modern war and security are outsourced to PMCs, these companies are poised to grow even larger. Cost-saving is the subject when it comes to outsourcing. It's about looking up the number of available contracts that are not included in your National Guard or Army Reservists that are cheaper for taking on the job roles. 

Examples of PMC Intervention 

A death, an injury, or the capture of a PMC does not resound in the political world of warfare in the same way as it does for somebody who belongs to a national military. 

Companies that have made contracts for retired and disabled military officers, veterans, and staff to take on jobs like…

• Operating in war-torn countries like Iraq. 
• Counter-piracy off the coast of Somalia.
• British companies doing weapons purchasing in Bulgaria and Libya. 
• Chinese Private security conducting operations in Africa and Tibet. 
• Russia has hired private contractors and mercenaries from Wagner Group during their Crimea operation or in a bid to assassinate Ukraine's leadership and continue to fight in Ukraine, even after their leaders failed in rebellion against Russia. 

In 2007, over 180’000 Private Contractors from over 20 companies were operating in Iraq with around 25% engaged in combat operations. 

In the 1990s, the South African PMC Executive Outcomes had over 3’000 troops and 500 military officers operating across 10 countries in Africa. A number of those contractors were from the South African Special Forces and the British SAS. Anti-Mercenary legislation eventually allowed South Africa to shut down Executive Outcomes in 1998. It remained shutdown until 2020 when the company was re-established and still operates today.

A primary example of modern PMCs is Blackwater which was renamed Xe Services and then renamed Academi before finally merging with its rival company Triple Canopy to become Constellis Holdings. It was founded in 1996 by ex-Navy SEAL officer Erik Prince, his involvement in the U.S. Navy ended in 1995 and he created Blackwater as his part of staying connected and personally financed its foundation. In his words, he said "It really bothered me. It made me realize you can't sit back and pontificate. You have to act." Most of the time, Blackwater was characterized as "out of control mercenaries" and it was made up of American Veterans who were taken or retired out of live service in the Armed Forces and joined up with the company to serve again to get paid at a competitively bid contract.

Most of the missions that Blackwater was given to do by the U.S. government wanted them to do when they were deployed to Iraq they claimed were done well. Despite this, Blackwater is still most notable for its involvement in shooting incidents. 

The time when Blackwater’s recklessness would lead to their undoing was during the Nisour Square Massacre on September 16th, 2007 where four employees of Blackwater opened fire on a crowd of Iraqi civilians, killing 17 and injuring 20 while they were escorting a U.S. embassy convoy. The aftermath of this would see lawsuits getting filed on Blackwater which have led to prosecutions and Blackwater would be officially removed from the country altogether. 

3 Blackwater members were tried guilty of voluntary manslaughter and a fourth of first-degree murder. Throughout the hearings, Erik Prince defended Blackwater and the members involved in the incident. Erik Prince would eventually leave the company and that was where Blackwater would legally change its name.

Under Constellis, many PMCs still operate across the Middle East. Prince would continue to serve as the Head of Frontier Services Group. A PMC heavily invested in by China and positioned throughout Africa. 

“What is it like to be a Soldier of Fortune?”

In the Czech Republic, there’s a former military base called the “Anti-Terror Academy” which is One of the most popular security training facilities in Europe. People there find out what it’s like to be a “soldier for hire”. Even though that facility allows Beginners to train freely, a large majority of the people who train there are ex-military staff. The main goal of a facility like that is to take the elite skills these soldiers have in offensive combat And reshape them into providing defensive, special forces level security and protection. 

But most of the soldiers’ drills were done much more than on a regular defensive level and even offensive. They don’t just learn to provide additional security and protection, they learn to become their own army. 

Nobody knows what it’s like to have Private Armies for hire than the world-famous mercenary Simon Mann. After serving the British special forces, he spent nearly 20 years in the PMC Industry until 2004 when he spent five years in prison in Equatorial Guinea in attempting to help stage a coup. 

To him, a private military company is a company that is prepared to carry out offensive military operations under a contract. In English. “You pay a competitive price for the company and they will help win your war”. 

The con with this is that men in the private sector do combat operations in a manner that’s in their own jurisdiction. There are certain things that national armies have to do and a way of doing them that should not be in the private sector. Contractors are not loyal to a flag a country the state or patriotism or any set of ideals. It’s really a fight for money. 

The line between defensive and offensive starts to get quite blurred rather quickly so in that sense, any decent soldier will think “Instead of staying waiting to be shot, why not we go out there, nab and bag the bad guys before they get a chance to shoot at us?” And that’s when the rules start to get bent. 

The PMC service for defensive security is only one aspect of their capabilities. Since 9/11, Washington has spent more than 14 trillion dollars with one-third to one-half of the total going on Private Military Contractors. And all that money doesn’t just buy the world’s effective and efficient soldiers, it gives access to the latest weapons arsenals and other related hardware from around the world. 

The Morals of the PMC

There are some contractors though who have managed to make a choice over the jobs they’ve managed to pick. Like any businessman who applies himself for a job in the real world, they can choose which contracts are morally appropriate with the right description and the best salary. If any exceptional jobs are found, you can always say ‘no thanks’ in favor of another contract offer. 

But when you really come down to it, morality is really down to the individual and down to the companies themselves. There are always people who are ugly in a moral sense. You’ll always come across contractors with a ‘cowboy mentality’. But it’s not just the moral question about who these contractors might work for that makes people uneasy. 

Journalists who have witnessed the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan firsthand have reported their concerns about their willingness to blur the lines if it serves their purposes. 

PMCs have been thriving by paying off from global instability. Out of the eight largest employers in the world, the third of which is a private military company most people never heard of the company G4S which currently employs around 533’000 staff across 85 countries. Many private militaries have set a name for themselves. The question that remains is; What happens when the company you pay to protect you gets a better offer?

Companies and governments have opposing goals. They don’t always synchronize. The companies say that their security, but in some cases, it’s more likely to keep themselves secure. It’s more up to the public to decide whether the use of force by a non-state official is essential. 

When you consider that these companies act even above the law, even while employed by the US government. The question for politicians is what happens when PMCs go working outside the jurisdiction of the US itself. 

The major concern that both journalism and political parties have raised is the question of allegiance. Their political instrumentation to help prop up a government is when you begin to ask the questions: 

• “Does this corporation have a foreign policy of its own?”
• “And if so, is it in sync or different from national foreign policy?”
• “Is it truly national or international?”
• “Who are they working for?”

It’s safe to say that the news light of this has recently shifted towards Russia thanks to its recent conflicts in Syria and Ukraine both involving the infamous Wagner Group. 

The personnel in Wagner Group, mainly consisted of Russian ex-military operatives and more conventional elements like contractors who ranged from foreign volunteers like the Nìǒhöggr Unit, and Serbian Unit, to specialized volunteers from the Rusich Unit. 

As one of Russia’s largest PMCs, Wagner has been instrumental in Russia’s quest to gain geopolitical influence and footholds around the world without any need to send actual troops into international conflicts. 

Even though Wagner has supplied Russian influence and a foothold in Crimea and a sizeable amount of gas and mining holds across Africa, their anti-government rebellion has been raised by its contractors and their leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin who was not afraid to convey his anger with Russia and complained about their lack of ammunition, high casualties, and poor strategy in Ukraine. He even foreshadowed the possibility of revolution in Moscow.

They marched on Moscow to find out why the country was in such chaos. They only called off their attack and returned to base after the Belarusian president brokered a settlement with Prigozhin who in turn agreed to end the rebellion. 

On August 23rd, Prigozhin died in a plane crash while over Russia (although personally, I and a few others would say that was Putin’s doing). 

Some basic aspects of International Law regulate the employment of PMCs with some respect. Certain functions are excluded from being transferred to non-state actors or must at least be exercised under the control of state organs. But while they are bound to respect the norms of International Law, the Geneva Conventions do not mention anything explicit about Private Contractors. Those who own them like Human Rights groups, Environmental groups, Drug Cartels, and Terrorist groups cover the entire moral spectrum.

References in Pop Culture 

Here are a few known examples of films, TV shows, anime shows, and video games where Private Military Contractors have been referred to and how they have been involved in the storylines.

Anime & Manga

• Full Metal Panic!: The organization Mithril is one of these, and a large proportion of the show's characters, including one of the two main characters, are members. 
• Jormungand: Several PMCs make an appearance. Koko's bodyguards are on the books as employees of a PMC owned by H&C Logistics Incorporated. The Chinese PMC Daxinghai are the primary antagonists of the first season, and HCLI gets into a fight with the British PMC called "Excalibur" in Perfect Order. 

Film

• 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi: Based on a true story, the story focuses on six Ex-Military Tier-1 operators who are all employed by the CIA in the same Private Defence contract. GRS (Global Response Staff).
• Avatar: All the human soldiers and pilots, even though they are meant to represent the US military, are actually Ex-Military and Marines now working for the RDA Corporation's mining operation on Pandora. The Security Operations (SecOps) in which they work is probably the best-equipped PMC on this list, due to all the cutting-edge tech and weaponry.
• Blood Diamond: Leonardo DiCaprio plays a former Rhodesian Mercenary turned diamond smuggler who works for a Private Military Contract army that has jumbo jets and Mi-24 Hind gunships - a thinly disguised expy of Executive Outcomes. 
• The Contractor: A discharged US Special Forces Sergeant, James Harper (Chris Pine) is facing a financial wreck. He contacts his friend Mike (Ben Foster) and they risk everything for his family when he joins to work for a Private Military Company commanded by fellow veteran Rusty Jennings (Kiefer Sutherland). 
• District 9: MNU (Multi-National United) is an organization that is the second largest weapons manufacturer in the world and was put in charge by the South African government to contain the aliens (Prawns).
• MNU operates its own Private Military Contractors, the strength of which appears to rival the might and equipment of the armed forces of the most developed nations. The PMCs are split into two groups: 
• The primary body which shares the same name as its owner, is MNU Security Force.
• The secondary subgroup is an elite unit of contractors equipped with state-of-the-art weaponry to deal with the aliens through lethal force. The First Reaction Battalion. (According to Neill Blomkamp in his commentary on the DVD of the movie, the First Reaction Battalion was inspired by South African PMC Executive Outcomes.)
• Elysium: The main antagonists of the film are Agent Kruger (Sharlto Copley) and his 'Boys'. They're On-Earth special agent contractors of the Elysium station.
• Extraction: The film centers around Tyler Rake, a former Australian Army SASR operator turned black ops mercenary who is recruited by his partner and fellow mercenary to take on a mission to save an Indian drug lord's kidnapped son in Bangladesh.
• The film also features Nik Khan, a mercenary and Tyler's partner who gains the support of other mercenaries indicating that she and Rake are both employed by the same Private Company that goes completely unnamed. 
• It also features Saju Rav, a former Indian Special Forces Lieutenant Colonel and the head of the Indian Drug lord's security. This could also indicate the Drug Lord required hired support from a PMC working in India which makes sense since Drug Cartels also gain security from PMCs.
• Extraction 2: Upon retiring from his work as a mercenary, Tyler Rake is re-hired to help his ex-wife's sister and her family from an abusive Georgian mafia crime lord. 
• Guardians of the Galaxy: The Guardians themselves like Rocket and Groot start their part of the film as bounty hunters who are looking for a payment. You could also say that Peter Quill himself became a soldier of fortune as well after he was abducted by the Ravagers. The Ravagers, led by Youndu Udunta, act in the capacity of a Private Military when Ronan the Accuser attacks Xandar, defending the planet while the Nova Corp engages Ronan's ship in orbit. 
• The Hurt Locker: In one scene, the US Army EOD Team which Jeremy Renner is part of runs across a unit of British PMCs who captured two Iraq insurgents for the bounty.
• Jurassic Park Franchise: InGen, the science engineering company that makes the dinosaurs employs a security division to protect the park.
• Jurassic World: Following the escape of the Indominus Rex, InGen Chief of Security, Vic Hoskins contracts private military troops to contain the artificial dinosaur, and in doing so, Hoskins plans to use Velociraptors with his containment plan. But because the Indominus Rex has the same DNA as the Raptors, they turn on the humans. 
• Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom: Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell) hires mercenaries to aid the Dinosaur Protection Group in rescuing eleven species of dinosaurs from the island of Isla Nublar which is about to suffer a volcanic eruption. In reality, the mercenaries actually took their orders from Lockwood's aide Eli Mills to capture them for auctioning at Lockwood's Manor to fund the Indoraptor project.
• Outpost: The film is based on a group of mercenaries under the same contract who are tasked with investigating an eponymous installation. Their resumes are an Ex-Royal Marine (the commander), an Ex-US Marine (his second), an IRA guerilla who joined the Paras, a UN Peacekeeper, a French Foreign Legionnaire, a Russian Alpha Group soldier, and a Yugoslavian man whose unit is unnamed. 
• Predators: Our main character Royce (Adrien Brody) is a former US Special Forces soldier turned mercenary due to his Blood Knight views. He starts the film totally selfish and ruthless but evolves throughout the story.
• The Dark Knight Rises: The League of Shadows is made up of a group of mercenaries under Bane's command. 
• Triple Frontier: A group of Former Delta Force Operators who reunite to plan a heist from a South American Drug Lord. 
• The Wild Geese: This depicts the recruitment of a mercenary force to free an imprisoned African leader, only for the force to be abandoned when their sponsors strike a deal with the current rules of the country. 

Live-Action TV

• 24: 
• Season 7: This has the Starkwood Corporation, who, among other things, give weapons to genocidal African rebels in exchange for permission to use innocent villagers for weapons testing and plan attacks on American soil to get Senate investigations off their backs.
• Slow Horses:
• Series 3: Real Tigers: Lamb (Gary Oldman) discovers that Catherine Standish's kidnappers at Slough House are in fact contractors working for a Private Security firm named "Chieftain" which employs Donovan and a "tiger team" hired by Home Secretary Peter Judd to demonstrate weaknesses in MI5's Security.
• The Terminal List: The story includes the involvement of an American PMC called "Capstone Industries". A pharmaceutical company with limitless government contractors and unlimited potential. The CEO, Steven Horn is trying to negotiate a deal with another company to merge with Nubellum with the main goal of marketing a revolutionary drug to eliminate PTSD in soldiers called RD-4895. So much so that Horn quit successful animal trials and made a deal to run a blind experiment. Unfortunately for everyone involved, things go very badly wrong.

Video Games

• Call of Duty:
• Call of Duty Advanced Warfare: The campaign backstory focuses on a massive terrorist attack, the world's use of PMC forces rose sharply as the government-fielded militaries had proven ineffective. Atlas Corporation is what has the single largest standing in the world, governmental or otherwise. 
• Call of Duty Black Ops II: Raul Menendez's troops in 2025 are composed of PMCs which are made of former Cuban militia and Special Forces who turned mercenary.
• Modern Warfare 2 & MWII: General Shepherd relies on Shadow Company which has most of the trappings of PMCs, though the SOCOM emblems they wear make their true nature somewhat difficult to discern.
• Modern Warfare 3: In the first half of the campaign, a Russian Loyalist faction assists Price, Soap, and Yuri. In the multiplayer, they're just called "PMC", where they're matched up against African Militiamen.
• Grand Theft Auto V: There's a PMC called Merryweather. It's essentially a Blackwater expy and it's mentioned that it's been cleared some time before the events of the game to operate on American soil.
• Haze: Mantel is described as a Private Military Company, though in the game itself, it's acting on its own and hasn't been hired. 
• Metal Gear: Mercenary organizations play a big role in this game series.
• The PMCs are used as a callback to the original Metal Gear, where Big Boss builds Outer Heaven as a refuge where disillusioned and disavowed soldiers can go, effectively becoming mercenaries or a sort-of proto-PMC. His goal of creating a world where soldiers are always needed is essentially fulfilled by the War Economy, and the parent company that owns the five major PMCs is actually named "Outer Heaven".
• Resident Evil: 
• The Umbrella Corporation's "Security" seems to have the military strength of a small country. Specifically, the Umbrella Biohazard Countermeasure Service is explicitly staffed with mercenaries.

Conclusion 

While the use of mercenaries can be seen as lucrative and discreet, it’s more and more clear that these contracts are not without issues. No matter the country of origin, the enterprising nature of Private Military Companies means they will value the bottom line of their company and employees over the concerns of any client or setting that they’re contracted to. 

Though they are volatile, morally repugnant, and self-serving, Military Contractors and Mercenaries remain popular instruments of modern warfare. We have still yet to see them in wars yet to come.

Which leads you to wonder. When the best and the brightest from armies around the world are now working for PMCs with the latest weaponry, highly trained soldiers, billions of dollars from national instability, and few regulations, you have to wonder if the newest global superpower will not be a country or a government, but a corporation….