AN
UNORTHODOX SOLDIER by Lieutenant-Colonel Tim Spicer, OBE
Synopsis
Tim Spicer has always led an exciting and controversial life. Once
one of Britain's leading battalion commanders and now head of Sandline
International, one of the world's foremost private military companies,
he has spent most of the last 25 years seeking action and adventure in
the British Army as an officer in one of its crack regiments, the Scots
Guards. Spicer served several tours in Northern Ireland, for which he was
awarded an OBE. During the Falklands War he was Operations Officer with
the Scots Guards. Before leaving the Army he served with the UN contingent
in Bosnia. In this fast-moving account of his life, Tim Spicer describes
all the events surrounding the catastrophe in Papua New Guinea, when he
was captured at gunpoint and held in captivity - and came away with his
life, his men ... and $36 million dollars. Here too is the full truth about
the notorious "Arms for Africa" affair -the Sandline Affair of 1996, which
tied Robin Cook, the Foreign Office and Customs and Excise in an almighty
knot over whether Sandline had broken a UN embargo on supplying arms to
the legitimate government-in-exile of Sierra Leone. Spicer's entertaining
account of modern soldiering looks at the creation of private military
companies - the modern legitimate version of the old mercenaries - and
concludes with Tim Spicer's troubled forecast about the dangerous world
that lies ahead in the new millennium. For a look at life as it is lived
in some of the world's trouble spots, and a glimpse of the intrigue that
lies behind the British political scene, this book is a must for every
thinking person's bookshelf.
Paperback from Trafalgar Square
Book Published: September, 2000
Corporate
Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry (Cornell Studies
in Security Affairs) by P.W.
Singer Book Description: In the groundbreaking new book, "Corporate
Warriors," Brookings Institution security analyst P. W. Singer explores
one of the most interesting, but little understood developments in modern
warfare. Over the last decade, a global trade in hired military services
has emerged. Known as "privatized military firms" (PMFs), these new businesses
range from small consulting firms, who sell the advice of retired generals,
to transnational corporations that lease out wings of fighter jets or battalions
of commandos.
Such firms number in the hundreds, have an estimated annual revenue
of over $100 billion, and presently operate in over fifty countries, including
in Afghanistan and Iraq. From recent events in Latin America (where a CMS
intelligence-gathering plane was recently lost to Colombian rebels) to
the Middle East (the Vinnell firm, which trains the Saudi military, was
just struck in the May 2003 Riyadh terrorist bombings), these firms appear
in all the world's hotspots and headlines again and again. Yet, until now,
no book has opened up this powerful new industry to the public eye.
Even the world’s most powerful military has become one
of the prime clients of the industry. From 1994-2002, the U.S. Defense
Department entered into over 3,000 contracts with U.S.-based firms, estimated
at a contract value of more than $300 billion. PMFs, such as Vice President
Cheney's old Halliburton and its Brown & Root division now provide
the logistics of every major U.S. military deployment. Other firms have
even taken over the ROTC programs at over two hundred American universities.
That is, private employees now train the U.S. military leaders of tomorrow.
With the recent purchase of MPRI (a PMF based in Virginia) by the Fortune-500
corporation L-3, many Americans unknowingly own slices of the industry
in their 401-K stock portfolios.
Perhaps no example better illustrates the industry's growing activity
than the recent war against Iraq. Private military employees handled everything
from feeding and housing U.S. troops to maintaining sophisticated weapons
systems like the B-2 stealth bomber, the F-117 stealth fighter, Global
Hawk UAV, U-2 reconnaissance aircraft, and numerous Navy ships.
Indeed, the ratio of private contractors to U.S. military personnel
in the Gulf was roughly 1 to 10 (10 times the ratio during the 1991 war).
The Economist magazine even termed the conflict "the first privatised war."
Private firms will likely play similar roles in the ensuing occupation
period. One recent example is the controversial Dyncorp firm, whose employees
were implicated in the sex and arms trade in the Balkans, being hired to
train the post-Saddam police force.
"Corporate Warriors" provides the first comprehensive analysis of the
private military industry. The book traces the firms’ historic
roots in the mercenary outfits of the past and the more recent underlying
causes that led to their emergence at the end of the Cold War. He then
examines how the industry is structured and these novel businesses operate.
In a series of detailed company portraits, Singer then describes the three
sectors within the industry. Military provider firms, like Executive Outcomes
(a South African company, made up of ex-Apartheid fighters), offer direct,
tactical military assistance, including serving in front-line combat. Military
consulting firms, like MPRI, draw primarily on retired senior officers
to provide strategic and training expertise for clients who are looking
for a step up in their military capabilities. Finally, military support
firms, like Halliburton-Brown & Root, carry out multi-billion contracts
that provide logistics, intelligence, and maintenance services to armed
forces, allowing them to concentrate their own energies on combat.
Singer then explores the many implications of this industry, ranging
from their impact on arms races to their possible roles in international
peacekeeping. He analyzes how the hopes for economy and efficiency can
duel with the risks that come from outsourcing the most essential of government
functions, that of national security. The privatization of military services
allows startling new capabilities and efficiencies in the way that war
is carried out. However, the mix of the profit motive with the fog of war
raises a series of troubling questions –for international
relations, for ethics, for management, for civil-military relations, for
international law, for human rights, and, ultimately, for democracy. In
other words, when it comes to military responsibilities, private companies’
good may not always be to the public good.
"Corporate Warriors" is a hard-hitting analysis that provides a fascinating
first look inside this exciting, but potentially dangerous new industry.
Easily accessible and highly informative, it provides a critical but balanced
look at the businesses behind the headlines. With the continued expansion
and growth of this industry in the coming years, "Corporate Warriors" will
be the essential sourcebook for understanding how the private military
industry works and how governments must respond. In the words of one leading
expert, it is a "must read" for anyone who cares about politics and warfare.
Paperback from Cornell University Press
Book Published: 31 March, 2004
The
Devil Soldier : The American Soldier of Fortune Who Became a God in China by Caleb Carr
A courageous leader who became the first American mandarin, Frederick
Townsend Ward won crucial victories for the Emperor of China during the
Taiping Rebellion, history's bloodiest civil war. Carr's skills as historian
and storyteller come to the fore in this thrilling account of the kind
of adventurer the world no longer sees.
Paperback - 366 pages Reissue edition (April 1995)
Random House
(Paper); ISBN: 0679761284
The Banana Men : American Mercenaries and Entrepreneurs in Central
America, 1880-1930 by Lester D. Langley
Listed under Central America
Fortune's
Warriors: Private Armies and the New World Order by James R. David, James R. Davis
Book Description: From West Africa to the former Yugoslavia,
in every global hot spot a private army waits, ready to step into the fray.
Professional soldiers of fortune have always existed--but now they're on
the brink of playing a new role in world affairs. A former mercenary takes
a hard look at the conflicts presently raging, contrasting the success
of these armies in achieving peace with the often inept and confused actions
of the United Nations. A sure-to-be controversial account.
Paperback from Douglas & McIntyre
Book Published: May, 2002
Medieval
Mercenaries : The Great Companies by Kenneth Alan Fowler
Focusing on France and Spain, this book includes detailed information
on the likes of Sir John Hawkwood, better known as Giovanni Acuto. Db. Hardcover - 400 pages Vol 1 (January 2001)
Blackwell Pub; ISBN: 0631158863
Hired Swords: The Rise of Private Warrior Power in Early Japan by Karl F. Friday
Listed under Samurai Battles & Warriors
Mercenary
Companies and the Decline of Siena (Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science,
116th Ser., 1.)
by William Caferro
Among the most dramatic problems faced on the Italian peninsula in
the fourteenth century were the raids of marauding mercenary companies.
These companies, known locally as Companies of Adventure and more generally
as "free companies," were private armies, composed of professional soldiers
and adventurers from throughout Europe. They sold their services to the
highest bidder in times of war and staged ruinous raids in times of peace.
Hardcover - 264 pages (May 1998)
Johns Hopkins Univ Pr; ISBN: 0801857880
Private
Warriors by Ken
Silverstein, Daniel
Burton-Rose Journalist Ken Silverstein delivers a broadside against the modern
military-industrial complex in Private Warriors. In the post-cold-war world
of rising defense budgets and arms proliferation, Silverstein finds plenty
to worry about: "Former Defense Department officials serve as consultants
to the arms industry, helping lobby for needless Cold War-era weapons systems
and promoting greater arms sales to foreign regimes. Retired generals form
private corporations that train the armies of foreign nations and encourage
U.S. entanglements abroad. Arms dealers linked to U.S. intelligence agencies
still trot the globe hawking their wares, sometimes in support of government
operations, sometimes acting strictly as private businessmen. Intellectuals
who gained their names by hyping the Soviet threat still counsel our political
leaders. The advice they offered during the Cold War was of dubious value,
and it has decidedly less merit today." Silverstein wisely populates his
book with real-life characters such as German arms dealer Ernst Werner
Glatt, Nixon- and Reagan-administration veteran Alexander Haig, and missile-defense
advocate Frank Gaffney. He also has an eye for vivid anecdotes: the B-2
bomber, he notes, literally "costs more than its weight in gold." Silverstein's
on-the-scene reporting includes visits to a weapons bazaar in Rio de Janeiro
and a Soldier of Fortune convention in Las Vegas. At bottom, however, Private
Warriors is a polemic rather than a piece of journalism; it aims to make
a forceful argument against transplanting the mindset of a cold-war hawk
into the security policies of the 21st century. Not everyone will be convinced--attitudes
on this subject are famously inflexible--but Silverstein's portrait of
the industry and people who profit from military buildups will give pause
to all its readers. --John J. Miller
Paperback from Verso
Book Published: August, 2001
Bloodsong!: An Account of Executive Outcomes in Angola by Jim Hooper
Paperback from HarperCollins UK
Book Published: July, 2003
Out of Print - Try Used
Books
Manual of the Mercenary Soldier : A Guide to Mercenary War, Money,
and Adventure by Paul Balor
Paperback: 320 pages
Paladin Press; ISBN: 0873644743; (July 1988)
Out of Print - Try Used
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