On Private Military Companies and Hybrid Warfare

De Castro, Norman

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/113633 Copy

Description

Title

On Private Military Companies and Hybrid Warfare

Author(s)

De Castro, Norman

Issue Date

2021

Keyword(s)

• Private Military Companies
• Hybrid Warfare

Abstract

This paper analyses how the growing role of Private Military Companies PMCs has flown largely under the radar of the international community, even as dangerous legal loopholes and ambiguities come to light. From a strategic point of view, PMCs in general offer both benefits and new forms of risk for individual actors and international organizations. This paper focuses on two main aspects related to Private Military Companies: how they are the newest and most versatile tool in the “hybrid war” and shadow-war arsenal and how they are the byproduct of decades of misguided and ill-fated proxy warfare. We also discuss one of the most controversial PMCs: the Wagner Group, the technically inexistent but actually Russian state-backed military organization. Hybrid warfare, as employed in modern grand-strategy, is an ever-evolving concept with borders as shadowy and grey as the actors used to deploy this type of strategy.Through the prism of the private military world, we will see how the new shape of our conflicts has solidified the waging of war as a business, a lesser-known but equally significant precedent. Furthermore, as we see warfare taken out of the public spotlight and away from congressional oversight, the need for clear and strict legal frameworks to the world of warfare becomes even more apparent

Publisher

Program in Arms Control & Domestic and International Security

Type of Resource

text

Language

en

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/113633

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2021 Norman De Castro

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