The Invisible Soldiers

Starred review from June 23, 2014
Journalist Hagedorn (Savage Peace) addresses the emergence of a new breed of soldier: the private military and security contractor. Unlike the historical mercenary, PMSCs offer a “vast range of services, armed and unarmed, from logistics support and intelligence analysis to diplomatic security, air transport, and police training.” PMSCs work almost exclusively for governments. They emerged in the Cold War’s aftermath, due to the preponderance of unemployed soldiers and inexpensive hardware, and burgeoning low-intensity warfare around the world. PMSCs supplemented an increasingly overstretched U.S. military in the Iraq War, acquiring a dubious reputation for creating “privatized mayhem.” Hagedorn’s work focuses on the rise of PMSCs and subsequent military efforts to effectively deploy them in open conflict. She lucidly describes the long-range challenges to democracy caused by the privatization of security. Agent: Alice Martell, Martell Agency.

September 1, 2014

Stretched thin by the global war on terrorism, the U.S. government has outsourced vital security and logistics to private military and security contractors (PMSCs)--gun-toting de facto mercenaries who operate largely without external oversight or accountability. Former Wall Street Journal staff writer Hagedorn (Savage Peace) documents the PMSC industry's explosive growth and murky practices. Aegis, the often renamed Blackwater, and other PMSCs guard embassies, repel pirates, interrogate detainees, operate drones, and train police. Contractors have become vital to America's ability to fight, deploying to Afghanistan and Iraq in numbers up to ten times greater than U.S. military personnel. Arguing for greater industry oversight and transparency, Hagedorn warns of the risk to democracy posed by armed contractors motivated by profit rather than patriotism. She tells of corruption scandals and of innocent Iraqis massacred with impunity. Yet, the author also acknowledges industry success stories and efforts to self-regulate. More neutrally toned, broadly appealing, and cursory than P.W. Singer's Corporate Warriors or Jeremy Scahill's Blackwater, this title is a fast-paced, critical introduction to the privatization of America's national security. VERDICT It breaks little new ground, but general readers are sure to appreciate Hagedorn's survey of the neo-mercenary landscape. [See Prepub Alert, 3/3/14.]--Michael Rodriguez, Hodges Univ. Lib., Naples, FL

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