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What
is a Private Military Company (contractor, firm) or PMC? |
| What are Private Military Companies (contractors, firms) or PMCs? |
| What is a Private Security Company (contractor, firm) or PSC? |
| What are Private Security Companies (contractors, firms) or PSCs? |
| What are Private Military and Security Companies or PMSCs? (a recent addition to the list) |
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Private Military Companies or PMCs can be defined as
legally established international firms offering services that involve the potential to exercise force in a systematic way and by military or paramilitary means, as well as the enhancement, the transfer, the facilitation, the deterrence, or the defusing of this potential, or the knowledge required to implement it, to clients. (*)
The "potential" to exercise force can materialize when rendering, for example, armed protection services in climates of instability (on land and sea). Transfer or enhancement occurs when delivering expert military training and other services such as logistics support, risk assessment, and intelligence gathering. Defusing is patent when private military personnel engage in UXO disposal and mine clearance. Further explanation of this definition is found in the cited book:
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Cited in Ortiz, Carlos, Private Armed Forces and Global Security: A Reference Handbook (Praeger, forthcoming, March 31, 2010), p. 48. |
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The alternative terms used to designate this type of private service providers would ordinarily suggest that PMCs are intrinsically different from PSCs or PMSCs. Ambiguities will remain. However, all these terms commonly refer to the same type of firms. Use the menu
on the left to explore the variable articulation of the private military industry as well as its intersection with the defense sector and other adjacent corporate fields.
(*) Earlier versions of this definition are found in Ortiz, Carlos, "The Private Military Company: An Entity at the Center of Overlapping Spheres of Commercial Activity and Responsibility" (PDF), in Jäger, Thomas and Kümmel, Gerhard (eds). Private Military and Security Companies. Chances, Problems, Pitfalls and Prospects, Vs Verlag, 2007, pp. 60-1. > PDFs: page 60, page 61; and "Regulating Private Military Companies: States and the Expanding Business of Commercial Security Provision," in L. Assassi, D. Wigan and K. van der Pijl (eds). Global Regulation. Managing Crises After the Imperial Turn. Houndmills / New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, p. 206.
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