Give it a rest Leafy
In 2010, private military companies (PMCs) invoices accounted for more than $50,000,000,000 annually, or about a third of the US defense budget for military personnel[2]. Blackwater, the employer of the four Fallujah victims, is the most successful security contractor to have been in existence, but also also the most controversial. Its story teaches us more about the economic and political benefits and pitfalls of outsourcing security than any other company. At the peak of its activity in the late 2000s, Blackwater ran thriving operations in the US, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq, offering a wide array of services ranging from close-quarter combat training to personal protection of US Diplomats and airlift support for the Department of Defense. The company also provided security services at fixed locations for some of the CIA’s most sensitive, and sold security intelligence and risk management services to government agencies and corporations alike.
The background and philosophy of Blackwater rests almost entirely on a man who, in the late 90s, had made it his mission to pursue aggressive and lucrative private-sector solutions to some of the world’s stickiest problems. His name is Erik Prince. In his 20s, Prince trained and served in the elite US Navy SEALs. The corps had been conceived by President John F. Kennedy in the 60s in response to the changing nature of warfare that called for increasingly unconventional solutions to replace traditional large-army military operations. Inspired by this principle and his own experience with the armed forces, Prince left the SEALs at age 29 when his father died and left his family a $1.35 billion inheritance. He started to work on his own company, and in 1997 incorporated Blackwater[3].
Prince used his military connections both to staff his new start-up and also to win the government contracts that would become the foundation of the business. The company initially operated a state-of-the art training facility for military and law enforcement. The September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the ensuing War on Terror, however, soon afforded the growing business much more lucrative opportunities in the field of private security contracting.
Prince’s strategy was for Blackwater to be to the Pentagon what FedEx was to the Postal Service, and save everyone money and time by providing one-stop shopping solutions to whatever issues the US armed forces and diplomacy would encounter in unfamiliar, high-risk territories. And Prince may have had a point. In 2005, Blackwater was called upon to assist with humanitarian and crowd control efforts after Hurricane Katrina had struck New Orleans. The Blackwater personnel arrived two days before FEMA.
The CIA-led operation in Afghanistan that launched in late 2001 was in dire need of protective security details for its staff and operations, and Prince was ready to look through Blackwater’s Rolodex of some 40,000 former elite military forces and law enforcement personnel to find the right men in a matter of days.
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