Outsourcing war

The private military and security industry has shifted and changed in the decades since the end of the Cold War. In view of the developments in the provision of private force, Amy E. Eckert unpicks some of the challenges posed by the industry to understandings of armed conflict. In Outsourcing war, Eckert specifically explores the relevance, or otherwise, of just war principles to the ongoing use of the private military and security industry. Although Eckert's work centres on an empirical study of private military companies (PMCs), her theoretical claims provide the book's most crucial insights. Eckert concludes that just war theory can evolve to engage and address shifting political dynamics, including the roles of PMCs in conflict. Early in the book, Eckert establishes that although statist assumptions shape many approaches to just war theory, the principles that underpin moral debates around war are not inherently tied to the modern state. While the state remains undeniably significant, severing the just war tradition from its state-based constraints allows for a focus on a range of actors, including PMCs. The just war tradition has been shaped by the connection between political authority and prevailing forms of force; Eckert examines the history of the tradition and its relationship to the state's consolidation of the monopoly over the legitimate use of force. The recent ‘reprivatization of force’ (p. 13), Eckert suggests, marks an erosion of the state's monopoly over the use of force. This erosion prompts Eckert's exploration of the place of PMCs within the just war tradition, and, she argues, necessitates a reconsideration of just war principles as currently understood. In an international political system where private actors play various roles, the strength of Eckert's work lies in her claims around the potential of just war theory to evolve to address such actors

Consolidation (business · Economics · Law and economics · Market economy · Monopoly · Outsourcing · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · State (computer science · Finance · Global Peace and Security Dynamics · Law · Military and Defense Studies · War, Ethics, and Justification