“Private Security Companies Are Mercenaries”

No. The term “mercenary” describes a wide variety of military activities, many of which bear little resemblance to those of today's private security companies. The mercenary activity associated with entities such as the British East India Company came about when nation-states chartered companies to establish colonies and engage in long-distance trade. Mercenary units that fought in the American Revolution were effectively leased to the British Army by the Hessians. The soldiers of fortune that ran riot over the African continent in the 1960s were individuals or small ex-military groups that operated in the shadows.

Modern contractors most resemble the military enterprisers of the late Middle Ages. Before the rise of the nation-state, nearly all force was contracted. From the 12th century through the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, military contractors often employed soldiers trained within feudal structures, sending them to whomever could pay, from Italian city-states to the Vatican. Fighting wars, maintaining order, and collecting taxes were among the various political tasks filled by these military enterprises. Some historians link the rise of contracted forces in the late Middle Ages to the inability of the feudal system to address the increasingly complex needs of a modernizing society, such as the protection of trade routes for merchants. Similar reasons exist today: The market pressures, technology, and social change of a globalized world create multiple demands that national militaries have difficulty meeting.

Today's private security companies are corporate endeavors that perform logistics support, training, security, intelligence work, risk analysis, and much more. They operate in an...