 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(January 2012) |
The following is a list of notable private military contractors and companies.
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(January 2012) |
The following is a list of notable private military contractors and companies.
| Name | HQ | Portfolio | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| AirScan | Titusville, FL | US Department of Defense, United States Air Force, and a number of private companies | |
| Academi | McLean, VA | Consulting. Formerly known as Blackwater and Xe and it is part of the Constellis Group. | |
| American International Security Corp | Woburn, MA | Dissolved | |
| Custer Battles | McLean, VA | Iraq and oil sector (at present, have ceased operations in Iraq) | Dissolved |
| Jorge Scientific Corporation | Arlington, VA | Consulting | |
| KBR | Houston, TX | Formerly a Division of Halliburton | |
| MAG Aerospace | Fairfax, VA | ||
| MPRI, Inc. | Alexandria, VA | ||
| MVM, Inc. | Vienna, VA | CIA and NSA contractor | |
| Northbridge Services Group | Lexington, KY | Advisory, Training, Operational Support, etc. | |
| Northrop Grumman | Falls Church, VA | ||
| Raytheon | Arlington, VA | ||
| Titan Corporation | San Diego, CA | Sold to L3 Communications in 2005 | |
| Triple Canopy | Herndon, VA | South America, Iraq, Syria | It is part of the Constellis Group. |
| Vinnell Corporation | Fairfax, VA | Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iraq |
| Name | HQ | Portfolio | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aegis Defence Services | London | Iraq, Afghanistan, and others | Contracted by the U.S. department of Defense during the most recent War in Iraq. Aegis Defence Services Ltd was acquired by GardaWorld International Protective Services. [5] |
| Erinys International | Dubai | A joint South African-British private security company registered in the British Virgin Islands. | |
| G4S [6] [7] | London | ||
| Rubicon International Services | London | Ex commonwealth SF. Acquired by Aegis Defence Services on 28 October 2005. | |
| International Intelligence Limited | Eastington, Stroud | Specialist contracts. Operates in the security and intelligence sectors. | |
| Sandline International | London | Ceased operations on April 16, 2004 |
A mercenary, also called a merc, soldier of fortune, or hired gun, is a private individual who joins an armed conflict for personal profit, is otherwise an outsider to the conflict, and is not a member of any other official military. Mercenaries fight for money or other forms of payment rather than for political interests.
DynCorp, formally DynCorp International, was an American private military contractor. Started as an aviation company, the company also provided flight operations support, training and mentoring, international development, intelligence training and support, contingency operations, security, and operations and maintenance of land vehicles. DynCorp received more than 96% of its more than $3 billion in annual revenue from the U.S. federal government. The corporate headquarters were in an unincorporated part of Fairfax County near Falls Church, Virginia, while the company's contracts were managed from its office at Alliance Airport in Fort Worth, Texas. DynCorp provided services for the U.S. military in several theaters, including Bolivia, Bosnia, Somalia, Angola, Haiti, Colombia, Kosovo and Kuwait. It also provided much of the security for Afghan president Hamid Karzai's presidential guard and trained much of the police forces of Iraq and Afghanistan. DynCorp was also hired to assist recovery in Louisiana and neighboring areas after Hurricane Katrina. The company held one contract on every round of competition since receiving the first Contract Field Teams contract in 1951.
A private military company (PMC) or private military and security company (PMSC) is a private company providing armed combat or security services for financial gain. PMCs refer to their personnel as "security contractors" or "private military contractors".
China United Network Communications Group is a Chinese state-owned telecommunications operator. Started as a wireless paging and GSM mobile operator, it currently provides a range of services including mobile network, long-distance, local calling, data communication, Internet services, and IP telephony. China Unicom is the third-largest wireless carrier in China and the sixth largest mobile provider in the world as of 2022.
Academi, formerly known as Blackwater, is an American private military contractor founded on December 26, 1996, by former Navy SEAL officer Erik Prince. It was renamed Xe Services in 2009, and was again renamed to Academi in 2011, after it was acquired by a group of private investors. In 2014, Academi merged with Triple Canopy to form Constellis Holdings.
Executive Outcomes is a private military company (PMC) founded in South Africa in 1989 by Eeben Barlow, a former lieutenant-colonel of the South African Defence Force. It later became part of the South African-based holding company Strategic Resource Corporation. The company was reestablished in 2020.
Simon Francis Mann is a British mercenary and former officer in the SAS. He trained to be an officer at Sandhurst and was commissioned into the Scots Guards. He later became a member of the SAS. On leaving the military, he co-founded Sandline International with fellow ex-Scots Guards Colonel Tim Spicer in 1996. Sandline operated mostly in Angola and Sierra Leone, but a contract with the government of Papua New Guinea attracted a significant amount of negative publicity in what became known as the Sandline affair.
China North Industries Group Corporation Limited, doing business internationally as Norinco Group, and known within China as China Ordnance Industries Group Corporation Limited, is a Chinese state-owned defense corporation that manufactures commercial and military products. Norinco Group is one of the world's largest defense contractors.
Aegis Defence Services is a British private military and private security company with overseas offices in Afghanistan, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Somalia and Mozambique. It is part of the Aegis Group of companies, which includes Aegis LLC, which is based in the United States. It was founded in 2002 by Tim Spicer, who was previously CEO of the private military company Sandline International; Jeffrey Day, an entrepreneur; and Mark Bullough and Dominic Armstrong, former investment bankers.
Lt-Col. Eeben Barlow is a former member of the apartheid-era South African Defence Force and was the second-in-command of its elite special forces 32 Battalion Reconnaissance Wing. He later served in Military Intelligence as an agent handler and later as an operative and region commander in the ultra-secret Civil Cooperation Bureau (CCB), a covert division of Special Forces. He founded the private military contractor (PMC) Executive Outcomes (EO) in 1989, and was involved in providing counter-insurgency as well as peacekeeping forces in Africa and Asia. Barlow resigned from Executive Outcomes in July 1997 and the company closed its doors on 31 December 1998. Barlow is the former chairman of STTEP, but also lectures on military matters at defence colleges and universities. Some consider Eeben Barlow the grandfather of modern private military companies as the founder of Executive Outcomes. Shannon Sedgwick Davis stated in her book about an alliance to stop the atrocities of the Joseph Kony of the Lord's Resistance Army, "Eeben Barlow and the trainers, your sweat and sacrifice translated to lives saved, thank you."
Anthony Leslie Rowland "Tony" Buckingham is a former North Sea oil-rig diver and is currently an oil industry executive with a significant shareholding in Heritage Oil Corporation. Heritage is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange since 1999. In 2008, Heritage was listed on the London Stock Exchange. Buckingham's direct and indirect shareholding is estimated to represent 33% of Heritage. This share was reduced in November 2007 via a share placement made through JP Morgan and Canaccord.
Unit 8200 is an Israeli Intelligence Corps unit of the Israel Defense Forces responsible for clandestine operation, collecting signal intelligence (SIGINT) and code decryption, counterintelligence, cyberwarfare, military intelligence, and surveillance. Military publications include references to Unit 8200 as the Central Collection Unit of the Intelligence Corps, and it is sometimes referred to as Israeli SIGINT National Unit (ISNU). It is subordinate to Aman, the military intelligence directorate.
Erik Dean Prince is an American businessman, former U.S. Navy SEAL officer, and the founder of the private military company Blackwater. He served as Blackwater's CEO until 2009 and as its chairman until its sale to a group of investors in 2010. Prince heads the private equity firm Frontier Resource Group and was chairman of the Hong Kong-listed Frontier Services Group until 2021. Prince is the son of engineer and businessman Edgar Prince, and the brother of former U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos.
The South African Civil Cooperation Bureau (CCB), was a government-sponsored death squad, during the apartheid era. The CCB, operated under the authority of Defence Minister General Magnus Malan. The Truth and Reconciliation Committee pronounced the CCB guilty of numerous killings, and suspected more killings.
Palantir Technologies Inc. is a public American company that specializes in software platforms for big data analytics. Headquartered in Denver, Colorado, it was founded by Peter Thiel, Nathan Gettings, Joe Lonsdale, Stephen Cohen, and Alex Karp in 2003. The company's name is derived from The Lord of the Rings where the magical palantíri were "seeing-stones," described as indestructible balls of crystal used for communication and to see events in other parts of the world.
The Puntland Maritime Police Force (PMPF) is a security force based in Puntland, an autonomous region in northeastern Somalia. As of March 2012, the PMPF had around 500 personnel. The force is eventually expected to comprise 10,000 personnel.
The Wagner Group, officially known as PMC Wagner is a Russian state-funded private military company (PMC) controlled until 2023 by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a former close ally of Russia's president Vladimir Putin. The Wagner Group has used infrastructure of the Russian Armed Forces. Evidence suggests that Wagner has been used as a proxy by the Russian government, allowing it to have plausible deniability for military operations abroad, and hiding the true casualties of Russia's foreign interventions.
The Battle of Palma or the Battle for Palma was fought during late March and early April 2021 over control of the city of Palma in Mozambique, between the Mozambique Defence Armed Forces, other Mozambican security forces and private military contractors on one side, and Islamist rebels reportedly associated with the Islamic State (IS) on another side. The Islamists invaded the city, killing dozens of people before Mozambique regained control days later. Palma was left destroyed, and a major oil and gas company decided to suspend all operations in the area due to the battle. Researchers have described the battle as an overall success for the insurgents. The rebels also maintained their presence in the town's surroundings, and continued to raid Palma in the following weeks. The battle was part of the insurgency in Cabo Delgado, which started in 2017 and has resulted in the deaths of thousands of people, mainly local civilians.
Mercenaries have played a vital role in the modern history of Africa from the independent movements of the 1960s up until the 2020s. Broadly the mercenary actions can be broken into two types of related actors, which can then be examined regionally. Mercenaries have been used to both influence conflicts in order to support or attack governments friendly to various foreign governments, notably the United States, Russia, France, the United Kingdom, Belgium, and many other foreign actors. This is mainly done to maintain spheres of influence, and create friendly governments. This was most prevalent during the Cold War era, but continues to this day, notably with the Russian Wagner Group. The second group of actions are mercenaries working on behalf of large multinational corporations, helping to secure resource extraction areas. Oftentimes the support of mercenary groups to keep a leader or government in power comes at a large cost, that the government is unable to pay, who then offers the mercenary company or Private Military Company (PMC) rights to resource extraction areas such as diamond mines, oil fields or other valuable natural resource to pay for the services of the mercenary company. This has notably happened in Sierra Leone. Legislation has been adopted by the OAU as well as the IRCC, and various African governments to attempt to regulate or ban the use and creation of mercenary companies. This legislation has been mostly unsuccessful largely because world powers such as the United States and Russia continue to condone the use of mercenaries as a tool of state craft. Many modern scholars consider the use of mercenaries in Africa to be a form of neocolonialism.
The Mozart Group is a defunct private military company that operated in Ukraine during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Mozart Group was composed of Western volunteers with military experience and provided military training, civilian evacuations and rescue, and humanitarian aid distribution.