Contemporary Security and Private Security Companies: Privatization of Security and Consequences

With the end of the Cold War and the corresponding shift in military doctrine, the structure and deployment of national armed forces, as well as the core change in comprehension of (inter-)/national security and (inter-)/national security threats, the role of private security providers gained a new momentum. The increased involvement of private military security companies in the provision of private, national and international security created a new field of study and opened up several important on-going debates over the purpose and scope of private security within the traditional state-domain setting. As the recent military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan confirmed, the use of private security enterprise in completing certain aspects of public interest became an indispensable tool for achieving the overall goals, even for the most advanced and powerful nation states.