Moral and ethical aspects of the activities of private military companies. Part 2.

Sokolov Roman ORCID: 0000-0002-8626-5629 Student, Research assistant, International Interdisciplinary Research Laboratory "Study of global and Regional socio-political processes", Nizhny Novgorod State Linguistic University named after N.A. Dobrolyubov. 603095, Russia, Nizhegorodskaya oblast', g. Nizhnii Novgorod, ul. Minina, 31a romasokolov777@gmail.com Other publications by this author     Melnikov Anton ORCID: 0000-0002-9906-1887 Student of Foreign Regional Studies (Chinese), Department of International Relations and World Politics, Nizhny Novgorod State Linguistic University named after N. A. Dobrolyubova 603000, Russia, Nizhny Novgorod region, Nizhny Novgorod, 31a Minina str., office 1411 antonmelnikov2003@gmail.com Ryzhov Igor' Doctor of History Associate Professor, Head of the Department of History and Politics of Russia, N.I. Lobachevsky National Research Nizhny Novgorod State University; Senior Researcher, International Interdisciplinary Research Laboratory "Study of World and Socio-Political Processes", Nizhny Novgorod State Linguistic University named after N.A. Dobrolyubov (NGLU) 603155, Russia, Nizhegorodskaya oblast', g. Nizhnii Novgorod, ul. Ul. Ul'yanova, 2 ivr@fmo.unn.ru Other publications by this author

Rogozhina Evgeniya Mikhailovna ORCID: 0000-0003-3515-2699 PhD in Politics Associate Professor, Department of International Relations and World Political Processes, Nizhny Novgorod State Linguistic University named after N.A. Dobrolyubov 603155, Russia, Nizhegorodskaya oblast', g. Nizhnii Novgorod, ul. Minina, 31a evgenia-amiga@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

Introduction

 Private military companies (PMCs)  They exist not only on the battlefields, but also in the public space. Many PMCs actively blog on social networks, articles about their activities are published in military magazines and the media. The recent example of the activities of PMCs Wagner in Ukraine as part of a special military operation of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation clearly proves how changing rhetoric from the media can change the track of the company's development and seriously affect the decision of potential customers. In the private military industry, the attitude of society towards each particular company plays a role more than in any other field, because reputation is what determines the availability of new orders and, consequently, the survival of a company in a highly competitive military services market.  Only the "gray sector" of military services is not so demanding of a neutral or positive perception of society, since their pool of clients consists of non-legitimate actors ^[1], however, even for such private military companies, reputation has weight. 

            What shapes the image of private military companies, and therefore determines their development? external factors certainly include their operational activities, which are actively published in the media and on social media accounts, but in addition internal factors also play an important role. The authors identify two main factors:   Characteristics of Employees of Private military companies and clients of PMCs. 

         Employees of Private military companies represent the general mass of former military personnel, military specialists of the active army, who are attracted as consultants or banally outbid with higher salaries, and in recent years the number of criminals, including the military, as well as former child soldiers, has been increasing. ^[2]

            As for customers, the private military industry has one of the privileges that nation states do not have — to choose their customers. Whether it is the supply of weapons or the conduct of an armed operation, PMCs can, based on international corporate law, as well as on national legislation, accept or refuse customers. This situation makes the customer factor internal to the PMCs, since the final decision in conditions of a shortage of supply in the market of private military services^[3] is made by the management of a private military company. At the same time, the clients themselves can put forward certain requirements for the methods and methods of conducting military operations, but the final decision for their application still lies with the command staff of the PMCs.  Note that if the relationship between the quality of PMCs' workforce and media publications about their activities seems obvious (although not proven), then the choice of customers and the opinion of society about a particular company is not directly dependent. 

         Based on the above, the authors formulate the purpose of the study as follows: to systematize the internal factors of the activities of private military companies and establish a correspondence between them and the public opinion formed under their influence towards PMCs and the industry as a whole.

         To achieve this goal, the authors apply a wide range of methodological tools: a systematic approach is used to study the structure of the personnel of private military companies and establish the relationship between the operational activities of PMCs and the state of personnel. General scientific methods of analysis and synthesis helped the authors to form a list of criteria relevant to the selection of an employee in the PMCs mission. The historical method and methods of event analysis in the context of internal factors made it possible to determine in many ways the reasons for the participation of PMCs in various missions, as well as the social and political consequences of such participation for private military companies.

Employees of Private military companies

            Within the framework of this study, the authors analyze the characteristics of the workforce of private military companies, formulate criteria for their selection, analyze the interdependence between the activities of PMCs employees, their past and biography, the pattern of military operations and how PMCs are perceived by society through the prism of mass media and publications on social networks. For the purposes of this study, the authors conducted their own study of public opinion among young people and middle-aged people, the results of which correlate with national and global trends and patterns of evaluation of PMCs in the media ^[14]. Thanks to the work carried out, it becomes possible to determine which events and features of the biography of PMCs employees have the most negative impact on the public's perception of the company's activities, however, at the beginning, it is necessary to establish which characteristics of a potential candidate are most in demand for companies in the military sector themselves. 

         The authors analyzed more than 300 profiles of employees of private military companies affiliated with Russia and Western countries, and also used data from open sources in the form of reports from the United Nations and other international organizations in order to form an image of an ideal candidate for service in a Private military company. Note that depending on the specialization of the PMCs, key military skills vary, but it is possible to make a general, average portrait. 

            Separately, we will make a reservation that in this study the authors focused their attention on ordinary employees of PMCs, without considering the top management staff, as well as administrative staff. These employees rarely have a significant impact on the public perception of individual PMCs, since their names are protected by corporate secrecy and, as practice has shown, they practically do not initiate the commission of war crimes or other serious violations of international law in the field of warfare and the circulation of weapons. Military contractors of the white and gray zones prefer to work in a legal or semi-legal legal field. For them, violations of IHL are a deviation from the rules and a serious blow to their reputation, which the command staff does not intend to allow. The authors have not established reliable data on systematic and deliberate crimes against human rights by major market players. This is due to the fact that in conditions of armed conflict, access to the media and military specialists is limited, the objectivity of their data raises questions, and the original information is classified in the archives of the States parties to the conflict (albeit indirectly).^[4]

            The operational staff of the PMCs are precisely those people who determine the image of the company in the mass consciousness, since it is their actions that are evaluated by society, their photos are published in the media and social networks. networks. They are the focus of this study.  

         As a result of the analysis of the profile of operational employees of Private military companies, the authors identified the most frequent and sought-after characteristics that determine the hiring of a potential candidate:  

1) experience in conducting military operations - for both command staff and operatives, experience plays a key role. Knowledge of warfare tactics, adaptability to discipline and drill, knowledge of weapons—all this reduces the cost of PMCs for training, which means maximizes profits and increases the efficiency of the unit. 

2)          Low cost of services - after the collapse of the USSR, many commanders and soldiers joined the PMCs or organized their own. The cost of services provided by former Soviet citizens is much lower than that of US Army soldiers. ^[3] Given the active activity of the USSR in Afghanistan, such candidates have more than enough combat experience.  

3)          The presence of specific knowledge - experience in counter-terrorism activities, knowledge of the area of the operation, the ability to repair and maintain certain types of weapons, especially old Soviet equipment - skills that are extremely in demand in the market of private military services. They not only reduce the cost of the mission, but also allow you to offer exclusive services. 

4)          Effectiveness. Regardless of the past, piece specialists are highly valued in the labor market of the military industry. The more effectively a person is able to perform combat missions, the more in demand and highly paid he is. It is more profitable for PMCs to keep expensive professionals than to spend time and money on the selection of low-skilled personnel, who most likely will not be able to serve even a year. 

Thus, the portrait of an ideal candidate for a job in PMCs looks like this: a man over 18 years old, athletic, with combat experience or with a sought-after military specialty, single or has adult children, does not have stable social attachments, is not afraid of poor social conditions, is able to use weapons to achieve their goals. 

            In general, the portrait of a PMCs employee in the mass consciousness of Western countries, as well as in Russia before the start of the SVO, looked about the same way. Despite the active propaganda of the PMCs' activities in the Western media in a negative way (in the early 1990s, the image of a "stupid man with a gun in his hands, ready at any moment to plunder a settlement or commit violence against the local population"^[1]"), PMCs operatives are not perceived by society as something unambiguously "bad". On the contrary, when analyzing the German and American media, in the context before and after the SVO, the authors found that PMCs operatives are an army in the service of states that helps to cope with the "bad guys" in the Middle East, in Iran. They train Ukrainian soldiers because Western countries cannot provide direct support.^[16] These judgments, however, relate directly to the players of the "white" market of military services. 

            If we consider the gray market of military services, then the situation is diametrically opposite. PMCs working with illegitimate regimes are criticized for their activities, their connection with "incomprehensible personalities", and the main argument for criticism is the participation of former child soldiers, war criminals and people from recent conflicts, whose history and biography is not a role model. 

            In summary, the assessment of the activities of a Private Military Company depends directly on the context in which these companies exist and fulfill their contracts. Society tends not to perceive negatively the participation of certain persons in conducting a military operation when it comes to protecting the national interests of the country (provided that PMCs operatives are not directly or indirectly involved in illegal activities), however, in the case of controversial situations or existence in the gray zone of the market, the past of operatives determines the attitude of society to a military company and hence her reputation. 

Considering that often those who, for some reason, can no longer carry out public service go to PMCs. The reasons may be different in the spectrum from excessive service (by length of service) before war crimes and betrayal.^[4] This dependence is not surprising. 

The authors quote Doug Brooks, the leader of the PMCs lobbyist group in the US Congress: "The best PMCs employees are often not the nicest guys, absolutely not the ones your sister should marry."^[5]

         Indicative in this regard is the analysis of the public opinion of Russian citizens regarding the company PMCs Wagner in the context of a Special Military Operation of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation on the territory of Ukraine. At first, the employees of the Wagner PMCs in the official media and social networks were called natives of the former Soviet republics with extensive combat experience on the African continent. Since PMC Wagner was on the side of the Russian Armed Forces, the public did not have a negative attitude towards their activities. According to the author's public opinion research, only 7% of respondents (the sample consisted of about 450 people, mainly with higher education, middle age and youth), believed that the role of PMCs Wagner in achieving its goals was insignificant, and the company's activities were interpreted by respondents in a negative way. With the introduction of the program for concluding contracts between Wagner and convicts, including for serious crimes, the indicator of negative attitude towards PMCs increased to 35%, however, due to the correct interpretation in the media, which consists in the fact that criminals compensate in this way for their offenses to society (especially in the context of mobilization, which caused a feeling of fear among a significant part of the young population), the level of negative attitude of the company has stabilized at around 11%. Further developments, namely the demarche of the operatives of the Wagner PMCs, caused mass discontent in society, condemnation of the involvement of convicts in this company, which became one of the catalysts of outrage. Thus, 75% of respondents already had a negative attitude towards this PMCs. The authors do not consider it possible to extrapolate this study to all Russian citizens, since the sample is not large enough. It should be noted, however, that it clearly demonstrates the relationship between the operational staff of the PMCs and the perception of the company in society. 

            This case demonstrates another line of relationship—the relationship between the image of PMCs and the customer. Since PMC Wagner acted on the side of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation before its demarche, the state media system was able to competently explain to the public the reasons for the presence of such a group of operatives as former convicts. Moreover, the active disclosure of the details of PMC Wagner's activities in the media contributed to the formation of a positive perception of the Company in society and the prospects for cooperation with it.

            Thus, the authors move on to the second facet of the internal state of PMCs as clients. 

Customers of private military services.

         One of the business problems of private military companies from the point of view of public opinion is the clients of private military companies. 

         The private military industry is practically not limited by legislation in the field of customer choice. However, there is a practice of "cooperation" with the governments of the PMCs registration states, and refusal to provide services to those customers who threaten these governments. 

In some States:  The United States and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland require a special government license to fulfill orders in the interests of non-state actors. 

In practice, this does not prevent openly or secretly supplying armed opposition groups with intelligence and technical means of conducting military operations. Formal and non-formal control over the actions of PMCs by the country of registration, coupled with existing market laws, should, according to industry lobbyists, reduce the level of irresponsible behavior of PMCs, ensure the unity of state policy and PMCs.

         Reality shows us a different trend . Sandline's intention to sign a contract to work in the interests of the Kosovo Liberation Army (an Albanian militant group that was subsequently involved in a number of crimes against human rights) led to consultations with the British government and calls from the British Foreign Office, which managed to disrupt contract negotiations.  This event was actively discussed in the media, thanks to which Sandline's reputation as a white PMCs was undermined. Another example is the request for a license to organize military assistance to a crumbling regime   Mobutu Sese Seko^[8] by MPRI in 1997, which they were denied by the US State Department. ^[8] Developed independent media also had a hand in destroying the reputation of MPRI, which led to its reorganization in the early 00s.

         On the one hand, PMCs are completely private companies, even if they are engaged in work traditionally associated with the activities of states. PMCs may not be required to adhere to a uniform policy with the State unless this is provided for by the laws of the country of registration or the terms of the contract. 

The moral and ethical side of the issue of helping the "enemies" or "enemies" of the state is quite relevant, which should lead to the prohibition of such "gray" activities. There are some problems with this: how and how to create a blacklist of customers in the private military services market? Will this be a worldwide list? how to oblige PMCs not to cooperate with such customers, provided that there are several dozen countries in Asia, Africa and Oceania that are ready to accept any PMCs, wanting only to receive tax deductions?

         The question of the legality of some groups raises questions. There is no globally recognized list of terrorist/extremist groups, because various non-State armed actors are classified differently in different countries. One of the striking examples is the Hamas movement, with whose representative in Moscow a high-level meeting was held on March 2, 2020.^[9] This movement does not belong to rebel, terrorist or extremist formations in Russia, but is classified as such in the State of Israel. There are many examples of different attitudes of States towards some armed groups, which raises a logical question. If PMCs legislatively restrict the ability to work with those non-state actors that are classified by the country of registration as a threat to national and world security (such as terrorist and quasi-terrorist organizations, extremist groups, dictatorial regimes and states that systematically violate human rights and international humanitarian law in general, etc.)^[10], then what can become an obstacle to the change of jurisdiction by a private military company by opening a subsidiary, branch, re-registration? In this case, the laws of the country of the first registration will no longer have effect on PMCs and a lucrative contract, even with a less "kind" customer, can be obtained and executed. The laws in this case turn out to be ineffective.

         Airscan and Ronco sent military goods, including military equipment and ammunition to the Sudan People's Liberation Army and the Patriotic Front of Rwanda, in direct violation of U.S. laws prohibiting any assistance to these non-state armed authors. The NFD company provided armed support to the governments of both Libya and Sudan, although legislation still in force prohibiting support to these governments both in the Republic of South Africa (the place of registration of the NFD company) and in the United States. ^[5] Spearhead LTD. She worked for drug cartels in Colombia, which was exactly at odds with Israel's political line.At the same time, the president of this company was an active lieutenant colonel of the Israeli Army in reserve.^[9]

         Nevertheless, the Governments of the member States of PMCs often make concessions, especially in the regions of their national interest. The example of the MPRI company in Equatorial Guinea is illustrative. It took the company 2 years of lobbying to obtain a license from the US government to conduct a military operation in Guinea, and the decisive argument was the fear of the American government that the giant of the industry, the American PMCs, would lose the contract in the area of American interests. In this case, the open work of an American firm for the infamous dictatorship associated with the enemies of the American state turned out to be a lesser evil compared to the work of a non-American private military contractor in the region. Another way to avoid restrictions in the country of registration is to create subsidiaries in the country of operation, which technically isolates the contractual process from the jurisdiction of the country of registration. ^[10]

         Another mechanism for regulating the activities of PMCs is the conditions and laws of the private military services market.  PMCs refute working for customers of the "gray" market of private military services, such as governments of fragile states, terrorist and rebel groups, deliberate prolongation of military operations in order to increase their profits, cooperation with both sides of the conflict and the commission of crimes against human rights, since these actions contradict the principles and laws of the industry market. ^[7] The basic law of the industry can be formulated as follows: Any firm operating outside international humanitarian law, directly or indirectly violating human rights and other national/international laws, will suffer more reputational and financial losses in the long term than it can gain from illegal activities. Thus, PMCs automatically avoid such contracts.^[4] An example of such a trend is the repeated refusal of Control Risks to cooperate with the Military Dictatorship of Burma, as this would cause a huge public outcry and destroy the reputation of the company. ^[12]

                  Given the huge financial resources of organized crime, dictatorships and terrorist organizations, there is a reliable probability that a short-term contract for such a customer will more than cover all possible potential losses in the future.^[13] At the same time, no one can forbid PMCs to carry out such contracts covertly, disguising and redirecting how many times arms supplies, redirecting financial flows, thus keeping cooperation by customers from the "gray" market of private military services secret. 

            As a result, only public reaction at this stage is a deterrent in controlling the relationship between PMCs and their potential customers. Given the complexity of the private military services market, there are no other effective levers of influence besides public pressure. Laws make it possible to punish a company for working with unreliable actors, however, when it comes to national interest, the governments of countries turn a blind eye to some contracts. Reputation is the only important thing for companies in the white sector of military services (white contracts are often the most profitable in the long run) and the inclusion of PMCs in the list of unreliable ones can destroy the company. The disclosure of details of work from former employees of PMCs, journalistic investigations that make society think about the reliability and legality of the activities of individual PMCs determine their fate. A vivid example of this is the company's activities Academy, which was forced to change its name and registration three times due to a wave of public condemnation. The downside of a bad reputation is also that the company is losing a lot of potential high-quality operatives. Personnel starvation leads to a decrease in the quality of services, as well as the "uniqueness" of the service, which, in the conditions of a hypercompetitive military services market, turns out to be fatal for companies. 

         In conclusion, we note that regardless of the aspirations to comply with the norms of legislation on the part of the leadership of the PMCs, regardless of the desire of individual states to bring the activities of such companies into line with the norms of legislation, conscience and morality, the specifics of the activities of military companies are in the gray zone of public perception. On the one hand, in conditions of armed conflict, the blunders of state armies, which lead to the death of soldiers, cause a huge public outcry, and the mistakes of private companies affect society even more. Society has a persistent prejudice against PMCs, because the work of the media, public and private coverage of their activities can either destroy a company or make it a savior. Public opinion determines reputation, and reputation determines the survival of PMCs. To overcome the negative predisposition of society, PMCs must be extremely scrupulous about both the selection of operatives and the choice of clients, since any mistake leads to public discontent and, as a result, to the rupture of promising state. Contracts. 

The conditions of the armed conflict are replete with unforeseen situations in which the operational management of the PMCs is able to make decisions that are irrational from the point of view of morality and law, the actual lack of legal responsibility of the company for such incidents further unties the operatives' hands. The ore market is not formed thanks to PMCs, but rather for them. Former soldiers who have lost their reputations in their national armies or former rebels are willing to enter the private military industry in search of food. Their knowledge and experience are appreciated, but the reputational losses from their hiring far outweigh their practical benefits. PMCs have something to lose, namely reputation, future contracts, licenses. Therefore, the choice of unreliable customers is not a problem per se, the only question is to choose the company's further development strategy. 

         Bringing international legislation in the field of regulating the activities of Private military companies into line, establishing responsibility for non-conventional behavior at the corporate level can eliminate the negative impact of internal factors of PMCs on their image, as well as on the humanitarian and political aspects of life in conflicts where these companies operate.