YES/”They create influence on the cheap”
By Colonel Peer de Jong, former corps commander of the 3rd marine infantry regiment, aide-de-camp to François Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac, founder of the Themiis institute and author of the essay Act between the lines. Private military companies: Wagner, Blackwater, Mozart and others (Mareuil, 2023).
First, you should know that security and defense services companies are not made for combat. The “noble” part, war, is not their core business. But they can carry out protection missions, escorts, support, instruction, humanitarian work, training, intelligence, cyber… Then, you have to realize that the military resource has become rare, so dear. And the LPM in the Assembly is a catch-up law aimed at bridging the gap of recent years. Moreover, the administration finds it more and more difficult to recruit highly qualified people because some prefer to earn more money in the private sector. It is also more difficult to retain soldiers, especially younger ones.
These private military companies must be able to invest in new technologies, because we are facing a global competition in which the Russians, the Turks, the Americans and the British are well positioned. And so tomorrow, given the shortages, it is not unthinkable that the French army will call on foreign companies. The people who run these companies are often former generals, admirals or commissioners. They know the basics of the trades very well.
We considered, wrongly, that our influence was acquired until the end of time. We need to find a more discreet, less intrusive model of influence, a dotted model of manoeuvres, particularly in Africa. The military, on the other hand, is by nature very visible. With private military companies, we can make ourselves invisible… and perhaps more effective.
NO/ “An obvious risk of confidentiality”
By General Benoit Durieux, General of the Army Corps and Director of the Institute for Advanced National Defense Studies.
If it’s about providing logistical support, food, transport, I don’t see any drawbacks. On the other hand, as soon as recourse is had to the use of force, and in particular lethal force, which is a continuation of the political relationship, this cannot be entrusted to private companies. There is also an obvious risk of confidentiality of information and sharing of operational data. Also, I am not at all convinced that outsourcing more work is synonymous with savings, because these companies are expensive.
The “red” line is the use of weapons. You have to be very careful of deviations. When we see what happened in Iraq [NDLR : le 16 septembre 2007, des employés de la société militaire privée Blackwater sont impliqués dans une fusillade à Bagdad qui fait 17 morts et 20 blessés civils]in Afghanistan or today with Wagner in Ukraine or in Africa, it cannot be said that the use of these service providers was made for the benefit of local governments or populations, or even for the benefit of the sponsoring States.
I am not convinced that private military companies are a model for the future. I think that France must be able to convey an independent message aimed at rigorously supervising the generalization of this type of actor who was once called “mercenaries”. The new French system in Africa, which aims precisely to find another way of fulfilling the missions of the armies, of contributing to regional stability by having fewer postures of reconnaissance and direct presence in contact, would moreover be incompatible with the sending privates to use force. This would constitute a form of resignation.