Adverse Forces vs Private Military-Security Companies

The motivation to expand PrivateMilitary.org to incorporate a segment focusing on Adverse Private Forces (APFs) originates in a key argument put forward in Dr. C Ortiz’s book Private Armed Forces and Global Security. The author, a well-known commentator on the Private Military/Security Companies (PMCs/PSCs) subject, argues that a dichotomy in the private realm has emerged and implies that PMCs/PSCs now legitimately and formally collaborate with state and multilateral forces. In particular, these “security partnerships” are established with the aim of deterring or counteracting the predatory advances of APFs. As in the cited book, the types of APFs covered by this new segment of PrivateMilitary.org are terrorist organizations, rebels and insurgents, mafias, drug trafficking organizations, and maritime pirates. In addition to terrorism, insurgency and rebellion, organized crime, drug trafficking, and maritime piracy, our new APFs segment also covers emergent security issues such as the emerging South China Sea conflict, exploration and exploitation of the Arctic region, insurgency in particular regions, food security, cyber crime and cyber warfare. As it is our tradition, this segment will remain a free resource, growing organically and based on your feedback.

 The first stage of this large project has been completed: upgrading the templates and creating the master directories. Guided by the many unfolding events in which APFs and security partnerships are becoming the key conflict players, for example the hostage crisis in Algeria and the descent of Mali into chaos, we are currently populating all the sections.

Unlike other online resources overloaded with pop up ads and jargon, we are pleased to offer you a straight-forward search logic (by region or the name of the particular APF covered). Be your project a college paper, professional research, or simply fostering your knowledge on critical global security issues, we hope you will find this new segment useful and informative.

 We have many other plans for the APFs segment. We are thinking that perhaps it might be useful to list PMCs and PSCs offering particular services alongside particular types or APFs or security issues. However, this next step will be based on your feedback. So please be patience while we complete the work throughout 2013, but do please visit the new sections and give us your opinion.