Ultimately
my interest comes from my own academic research and a widespread frustration
at the poor quality and low rate of success that plagues current international peace operations.
While Western nations have been willing to authorize and fund much needed peace
operations, they rarely send their own high-quality soldiers, leading to the
phenomenon of 'Westernless' peacekeeping. In Westernless peacekeeping the
the actual military peacekeeping operations are shamefully left to
militaries from the poorest countries in the world - militaries without the
resources, training or equipment that is common to NATO-class armies.
But peacekeeping can succeed. In my own research in and around the Balkans,
Cambodia, Congo, Sierra Leone, Iraq and elsewhere I was astonished by
the critical role played by the private sector in holding
chaotic international peace operations together. Indeed these private firms
are making peace operations far more successful.
It is the private sector that is ably filling the gap left
by the absent Western militaries, and these unique companies are doing their
indispensable work in the most chaotic and dangerous conditions imaginable.
Private companies are providing everything from demining to tactical rotary-wing
transportation to armed security to logistics to medical services - all with
a remarkably high level of professionalism and ethics.
