Comparing direct and indirect action PMCs : case studies in regulated and unregulated environments, with a focus on western Ukraine

Abstract

Blackwater, Executive Outcomes, and the Wagner Group are the names of at least a few institutes foremost in the global community’s perception of the private military company (PMC) pantheon. Mired in controversy from their conception, PMCs and their mercenary forebearers have borne and continue to bear the pressure of massive public scrutiny, particularly relating to the ethics and morality of their at least semi-soldiers-for-hire operating philosophy. Yet, as an institution, despite waves of change throughout the centuries, the PMC, in whatever format it happens to take at the time, remains an influential, if occasionally blacklisted, force in both domestic and international relations. With the perennial challenges they face on the moral and ethical front, how can this be the case, particularly bearing - as they do in modern times unlike any other - the brunt of international scrutiny and condemnation, especially by particularly vociferous members of the Liberal International Order (LIO)? The answer is simple: private military companies have managed to remain relevant and effective. They will continue to remain a steadfast institution in the global system because they are an effective tool wielded by state and non-state actors alike to address otherwise unmanageable problems and scenarios using a unique set of skills and capabilities. In what this work terms non-Western, unregulated scenarios, the Direct Action PMC remains the format of choice by employers primarily due to the lack of backlash their use is likely to entail. By contrast, since the 1990s, Western rules-based democratic countries, as states particularly vulnerable to such negative public pressure, have gradually moved towards a new approach: the Indirect Action PMC. Today, the difference between the two approaches is stark. In the battlefields of Ukraine, Direct Action PMCs have traded blows, with the result that Moscow’s companies remain standing and Kyiv’s have crumbled. Ill-adapted to the regulated environment of Western Ukraine, Kyiv’s DAPMCs are essentially a spent force. However, the future of IAPMCs is bright, and their integration into Kyiv’s battle plans may prove a decisive step in securing Ukraine’s victory.