The Long Arm of Perception and Negative Publicity
Oct 25, 2009 Jake's Posts
As I noted earlier this week there has been a significant reduction in the coverage of private security in the mainstream media of late. This is most likely due to the fact that in the U.S. at least it’s all-hands-on-deck to cover the impending health care reform legislation. But, the lack of negative headlines can also be attributed in part to the general lack of incidents worthy of reporting as well. For that, everyone across the industry can take a piece of the credit. Well done.
An interesting story has developed recently outside of San Diego, California where a local college has decided to end their contract to utilize a local training facility owned by U.S. Training Center, formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide.
The college’s governing board voted unanimously to stop using the ‘Blackwater facility’ in direct response to public criticism, presumably of the facilities affiliation to Blackwater, now Xe. Local activists have protested at Southwestern College board meetings for months in an effort to halt the college’s arrangement with U.S. Training Center and it now appears that those efforts were successful in changing the minds of the governing board of directors.
Earlier this year Southwestern College had entered into an agreement which allowed U.S. Training Center to use rooms on their campus in exchange for time at the U.S. Training Center’s firearms ranges which are only a short distance away.
The question remains is the decision to cancel the agreement just politics and are the cadets of the police academy which Southwestern runs getting short shrift because of it? In other words what is best for the cadets who later go out into the world to enforce our laws?
I see this as a prime example of how a company’s brand is affected widely across sectors. Anyone in-the-know understands that Blackwater Worldwide’s international operations in support of the WPPS contract for the U.S. Department of State has nothing to do with their domestic firearms range businesses outside of their Moyock, North Carolina facility.
If a picture is worth a thousand words then an uninformed sound-byte must be worth ten-thousand in today’s culture. It’s a shame that the governing body has caved to political pressure instead of standing their ground on the merits of the original question and decision making processes which must have been: What facilities best prepare our cadets for a future in law enforcement? Unless a better location has magically materialized in recent months it now appears that cadets will receive inferior preparations all because the facility is ‘owned by’ Xe.
The lessons to be learned here for all PSCs is the importance of protecting your brand at all costs. What you do in one aspect of your business can easily negatively affect the public’s perception of you in other parts of your portfolio of services.
Tags: Affiliates, Blackwater, contracts, services, training
Mean Time Between Stupidity
Oct 20, 2009 Jake's Posts, Uncategorized
By Jake Allen
Is it just me or has there been very few security contractor related news stories over these past few weeks? I am not complaining mind you, actually it’s quite nice to have the industry off the front pages, the blogs, C-SPAN and the nightly news. It makes you wonder how long we can keep it that way.
Matt at Feral Jundi is often talking about the application of quality systems in a manufacturing environment and how they can be useful in our own industry. This got me to thinking about a tool called Mean Time Between Failures or MTBF. Basically it’s a way of measuring the time that transpires between a system failure. It’s useful when looking at machinery for example to measure how many hours, days or months transpire between breakdowns. An low MTBF is indicative of a system which is not functioning properly. Conversely, a high MTBF is good because it illustrates that you can have long runs between breakdowns.
Here’s how the calculation works: If for example you have a system that runs for 15 days then fails, runs again for 10 days…fails, 5 days…fails. Then you would have a mean (average) time between failures of 10 days. (15 + 10 + 5 = 30 divided by 3 =10).
It might be useful to see how long our industry can go without a significant event which draws a lot of negative attention. Of course we don’t live or work in isolation, and there is an active insurgency bent on attacking and killing our members, that of course we have little control over. But we do have control over our own self inflicted wounds such as the Danny Fitzsimons case.
Bottom line gang is keep up the good work, take it one day at a time and police each other. It only takes one stupid event to bring the heat down on everyone. Focus on the mission, provide a quality service and avoid you are likely to avoid any headlines. This is the recipe for longevity in this business.
The Difference Between Fault and Responsibility
Sep 16, 2009 Commentary, Jake's Posts
By Jake Allen
The more I read about our government in the mainstream media the more I realize how neither one seems to understand the differene between ‘fault’ and ‘resonsibility’. The ArmorGroup fiasco at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul is only the latest incident but I will use it here because it is fresh on everyone’s mind and it is particularly illustratrative.
It’s critically important that we separate the terms fault and responsibilty. Some times a person or an entity is both ‘at fault’ and ‘responsible’ but the two are not synonyms. In other words there is room for ‘blame’ or ‘fault’ at both ArmorGroup and at the State Department but the ‘responsibility’ for what happened only comes down in one place.
There is little doubt that the antics being conducted primarily by C-shift on the expatriate guard force was nearly 100% the doing of immature and poorly supervised and lead ArmorGroup contractors. ArmorGroup is ‘at fault’ for hiring these low-end unprofessionals. They are also ‘at fault’ for not properly supervising some of the guard shift changes which left some stations undermanned for very brief periods of time. Much of the ‘blame’ for this rests with ArmorGroup itself since the contract and its execution was structurally flawed in a number of regards in terms of cost estimates, shift requirements, and the list goes on. ArmorGroup is at fault for all of this. From the original under estimates of the work to the poor management of a plan they themselves devised. Incompetence abounded, particularly at the beginning by ArmorGroup leadership in the U.S.
But ArmorGroup is not soley ‘at fault’. Similary, those as the State Department who were responsible for ’shopping’ for security services and a qualified security provider were equally clueless as to what they were actually shopping for. In the end they selected the lowest price offer simply for that reason…price. Firms like Blackwater, Triple Canopy and Dyncorp who had experience performing these services in Iraq were passed over because their prices were deemed to high. Clearly in retrospect their price estimates were much more in the ballpark than those submitted by Armor Group. Furthermore, one of State’s significant decision making criteria was whether or not any potential supplier was already working in Afghanistan and had relevant experience. ArmorGroup did not meet this requirement at the time but because their price was so attractively low a ‘waiver’ was issued so that the in-country experience requirement could be navigated around. So, from the very outset those at State must share the blame for the eventual calamity. And throughout the life of the contract State continued to hide their head in sand even when confronted with facts on the ground which to any reasonable observer would be clear alarm bells.
So if both sides are to blame then who is actually ‘responsible’? See here is the rub. Responsibility cannot be outsourced. Not by you, not by me, not by your town mayor, not your preacher, not a teacher, not your neighbor, not a police officer, not a fireman, not an electrician, not your boss and certainly not civil servants and bureacrats in our government. If you ‘have responsibility’ for something then you own it and cannot give it away. I am ‘responsible’ for ensuring that my kids get a good education. I might ‘rely’ on the local school district to make it happen but that does not abscond me of my responsibility. If they are not getting the education they need it remains my responsibility to take action.
The government of the United States of America and her Department of State are RESPONSIBLE for providing protection to our embassy staff abroad. (Take 5 seconds are read that sentence again…)
If State wants to do it themselves with DSS staff. Great.
If they want to ask the Department of Defense to ‘do me a favor and guard my embassy’. Fine.
If they decide to outsource the work to a private contractor, hey, I am all for it.
But never…ever…at any time or under any circumstances does the responsibility for embassy protection or the performance of those tasked to provide it shift away from the Department of State. Full stop. End of story. When the citizenry of our country begin to hold accountable our own government you will see dramatic improvement in the servce that government provides. Until then just watch the carousel go round and round.
Just follow this story now with this distinction between fault and responsibility in mind and notice how everyone will hold ArmorGroup ‘responsible’ when in truth they were really only partly to blame. You can shirk your tasks but never your responsibility. Wake the f’ up America!! If we don’t see the termination or resignation of about 6 DOS staff as a result of this debacle then you will have only yourself to blame for the next incident that occurs on your watch.
Boys Gone Wild!!! The Kabul Edition
Sep 4, 2009 Industry News, Jake's Posts
Recent allegations of misconduct, failing to meet contractual obligations, (to say nothing of just general stupidity and juvenile antics) by Armor Group staff at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul raises serious questions about leadership both at Armor Group and at the U.S. State Department.
We’ve yet to hear anyone from Armor Group comment in detail on this case but I can just imagine the way it will sound when it comes out.
We take this very seriously…
we are investigating…
it’s an isolated incident…
we are getting it fixed…
Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater, when pressed on questions of contractor behavior of his Blackwater staff likes to say, “Listen, these guys are all patriots, military veterans and professionals.” As if being a patriot and a veteran meant no oversight is necessary? It’s another way of saying, “You’re an idiot for questioning us. We could not possibly do anything wrong.”
History contains any number of idiots who were military veterans and who viewed themselves as patriots yet clearly took actions which were against the interests of the U.S. One prime example is Timothy McVeigh, who was convicted and later executed for bombing the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. The point is that being a veteran does not mean you are faultless or that you don’t need oversight.
Listen, I served as an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps and I consider that organization to hold the highest standard in military professionalism. They are the consummate ‘professional’ but at no time are they ever devoid of oversight or the possibility of prosecution under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ).
The command structure, the rules, regulations, policies, guidelines and standing operating procedures which are normal in any military organization do not exist to any meaningful degree within the private security/military industry. At best you have a few companies who, relatively speaking, do better than most but even that’s a pretty low standard to meet.
Furthermore, the consequences for breaking rules (that is…the few rules that actually exist) is virtually non-existent. In the U.S. military the UCMJ governs service personnel and all soldiers, airmen and Marines know that failure to comply with any lawful order, law or rule or even policy or guideline runs the risk of prosecution non-judicial punishment (NJP), or court martial under the UCMJ. Again, nothing even close to this exists within the world of private security. There really is no accountability comparable to the UCMJ and NJP amounts only to dismissal from your current contract. And we all know that this is, in reality, no punishment at all since the offender often simply pop-ups somewhere else for another firm in a matter of weeks or months.
So, in short…no rules to follow at the industry level and no consequences for failing to follow any rules which may or may not exist. If these were the ingredients for today’s dinner I doubt if anyone would be eating it.
Now then. That takes care of the industry side of the equation. What about the client side? Increasingly it is coming to light that government clients, in contrast with private clients, are systemically inept at managing the procurement, selection and oversight of security contracts. I have personally worked on contracts which have both private clients and government clients and though neither do a very good job, the government side and in particular the U.S. State Department are painfully ill equipped to do this work. The reasons for this are puzzling, especially as at this stage, after 8 years of war in Afghanistan and 6+ years in Iraq there are literally hundreds of senior contractors with multiple years of operational management experience who could be hired by State in to sit on the ‘client side’ of the table during contract negotiations as well as during the later phases of contract execution.
For decades the U.S. State Department’s Diplomatic Security Services (DSS) program was always a sleepy little backwater in the security world. It was, and to some degree still is, full of lifelong government civil servants who, despite their hard work and good intentions, have not been able to adapt to the pace and complexity that operating in a war-zone imposed on them. They got pushed into a fast-paced and complex game that they were not prepared for.
But to date this has been like asking a local high school football coach, no matter good his record has been at that level, to jump into the NFL. Oh sure, on the surface there are many similarities, the field is the same dimensions, it’s still 11 vs. 11 players and the rules are mostly the same and certainly the concepts is the same in principle. But the speed, level of complexity and knowledge and experience to say nothing of the media attention necessary to perform at the highest level make it impossible for him to take go from High School to the NFL without a natural maturation process which usually involves a stop for many years at the university level.
The DSS small staff of only a couple thousand agents oversees (and I am using that term lightly) over 30′000 contract personnel in the protection of over 200 Embassies and consulates around the world. But, the problem is that your standard, run-of-the-mill, contract and mission to protect the Embassy in Berlin or even Kuala Lumpur or Mumbai is still about three solar-systems away from what is required to protect the Kabul embassy. Kabul and Baghdad are the big leagues and the DSS has not demonstrated anything near the capability of playing on that field. They certainly do not have a commanding position of respect or authority over the security firms they are supposed to supervise. At best they are perceived as an administrative nuisance which should be avoided at every opportunity.
To some degree the State Department knows they are are in over their head and they have relied, far too heavily, on the professionalism (I use that term lightly as well…) of the private security sector to pull their bacon out of the fire. But, as I have alluded to before the professionalism they desire and frankly rely on generally just does not exist.
The State Department needs to ‘grow up’ and on-board a wave of professional staff to oversee these programs. Preferably former senior military officers with combat experience. I can guarantee that if these programs were run by retired Colonels who had on their staff retired Majors and recently separated Captains and a cadre of former Senior Staff NCOs who know how to act professionally and provide security at the same time they will be able to hold accountable any private firm who wins the contract. Having the, in-house know-how is the first step but State also needs to get a spine and have the guts to dismiss any firm who is not meeting their contractual obligations. A PSC should be pissing in their boots when a DSS officer is in his AO. But that only happens when the DSS officer knows what to look for and has the initiative and authority to do something when he sees something amiss.
What State seems to be missing is the fact that everyone in this industry wants the U.S. government as a client. The State Department is in the drivers seat here. They can have anything they want. They can drive a hard bargain and they can run roughshod over any service provider because the line outside for the privilege of winning the contract is long. You can’t perform? Next…
State’s problem is they don’t know what to ask for, how to ask for it or know what it should look like when it gets delivered.
Tags: Afghanistan, Blackwater, contractors, contracts, Iraq, Jobs, Marines, regulation, services, wanted
Podcast: Doug Brooks of IPOA discusses industry regulation
May 7, 2009 Industry News, Jake's Posts, Podcasts
This week on Combat Operator Radio I was joined once again by Doug Brooks the President of the International Peace Operations Association. In keeping with my past couple of posts here on the blog the topic was industry regulation. Doug shared some good insight into the challenges to regulation as well as provided some insight into the various actions that are already underway. I hope you enjoy the program.
Jake
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Tags: Doug Brooks, IPOA, regulation
PSC Regulation is not that hard…
May 4, 2009 Commentary, Jake's Posts
By Jake Allen
Last week I was ranting about the private security industry’s lack of movement along the self-regulation front. Industry regulation is not a new theme for me and the subject most recently came up due to the UK Foreign Office’s decision not to take action on regulation. Instead David Miliband, the British Secretary of State for Foreign & Commonwealth Affairs is calling on the private security industry to self-regulate by drafting a code of conduct and then encouraging industry participants to sign-on to it.
The problem with this model is that it is precisely what has been tried in the U.S. by the International Peacekeeping Operations Association, IPOA and their member Code of Conduct. The code itself is very comprehensive and IPOA are to be applauded for devoting so much time and energy to develop it. But, the motivation and the mechanics by which a PSC would sign-on and more importantly the authority such an agreement would have are severely lacking teeth and that lack of teeth leads to a lack of credibility.
Codes of conduct are the absolute bare minimum that a PSC should be adhering to. They are a moral floor, they are not the benchmark for industry performance. I encourage all PSCs to sign-up for IPOA membership and commit themselves to this global Code of Conduct but the fact that it is a voluntary effort can never be escaped. The whole point of this debate, in my estimation, is to develop a framework to regulate companies who themselves would likely not volunteer to be regulated.
Actually, self-regulation as such is something I have been calling for for years. But the term self-regulation is a misnomer for my purposes. I don’t any more believe that PSCs can self-regulate than can bankers or stock brokers or pharmaceutical firms or any other commercial segment of the global market. When I talk about self-regulation really what I mean to say is that the industry should show some self-leadership, particularly on the part of the biggest PSCs. These firms should step up and show some leadership and collaborate with government to identify ways in which the industry can be regulated and to take actions themselves and lead the effort in having other entities regulate them in an equitable manner. As it stands now it appears that the biggest players in the market are happy to have confounded governments in London and Washington.
What to do then?
Let me outline specifically how I think our industry should be regulated and the role that legitimate global firms should be taking to lead this effort. Many of these ideas are not uniquely my own but they are what I have been thinking about for a long time after having had a lot of discussions with colleagues as well as others, much smarter than me, who have commented on this subject.
The basic premise of my proposal centers around the creation of a ‘legimate’ market for qualified armed security service providers. By creating a regulated and legitimate market you are simultaneously creating an illegitimate or ‘black market’ for those same services. This then leaves consumers (mostly governments or private firms spending government grants) to decide if they want to purchase from the legitimate market or not. Similarly, it drives PSCs to consider whether or not they want to compete in the legitimate market or not.
Writing the Standard
The UK Foreign Office took a pass on regulating PSCs principally because by their estimation it is too difficult. I am not joking. David Miliband in his open letter for consultation says nearly point blank that regulating PSCs is difficult due to the global nature of the industry and the difficulty any single government would face in enforcing any standards, laws or penalties. Ah yes, the old ‘too hard basket’. When all other logical reasoning fails you can always just throw up your hands and say, “it’s just too hard” let’s talk about something else. Not exactly a shining moment in governmental leadership and certainly not the kind of response to a challenge you’d expect from a global leader.
In point of fact qualifying a PSC would not be that difficult. I propose to have a standard drafted in less than 24 months which would cover the majority of armed security services in the market today. It would take an additional 12 months to initially certify any UK based PSCs or any global PSCs wishing to take payment derived from UK taxpayers, most notably MoD or DFID.
How would I do it? I would form a standards committee made up of UK PSCs such as Aegis Defence, Armor Group, Control Risks Group and others. I would include representatives from other stakeholder communities in government as well as organizations such as Human Rights Watch and/or the ICRC. I would also bring in some standards drafting experts from the British Standards Institute or the United Kingdom Accreditation Society to facilitate the drafting of the standard to ensure that best practices were being applied.
I would then facilitate a series of recurring workshops where the committee members would work with existing standards such as the ISO-9001 Quality Management Standard and other general relevant international standards. I would also use the recently published Montreux Document as well as IPOA’s Code of Conduct and other relevant documents from across the PSC industry.
Look, there is any number of examples of where global industries have solved this problem or made great inroads to standardizing the level of service. The automotive sector which is also global, also deals with life-and-death consequences for poor quality and also has a very diverse and fragmented supply chain network was able to draft the TS-16949 standard. But it was done because the major automotive manufacturers took the lead in collaborating on it.
Certifying Companies
Regardless of how the standard is reached in order to ‘certify’ a PSC as conforming to the standard two separate functions must be employed; assessors and accreditation bodies.
Assessors, also referred to as auditors must be completely independent of the PSCs they are auditing as well as any other PSC in the global market. Through a mixture documentation analysis and on-site physical assessing the auditor will make a determination as to whether or not the PSC is conformant to the requirements contained in the standard. If they are then they are issued a certificate stating as much and placed on a periodic monitoring program and a recertification date in 3 years time. If the PSC is not conformant then a report is issued identifying any major or minor nonconformities and the PSC is given a period of time to take the necessary corrective actions.
Ah but who is checking the checkers you ask? That is the role of the accreditation body or society. The accreditation body issues authority to conduct audits and issue certificates of conformity to the auditing firms.
Leverage Existing Infrastructure
It sounds a little confusing but believe me this is a well beaten path with expertise all over the place which could easily be brought to bear. All of this infrastructure exists already in every country on the planet and could easily be applied to PSCs.
The International Standards Organization (ISO) in Switzerland already authors, issues and in some cases simply adopts external standards through an active committee process. The same could be done in the case of PSCs.
Global auditing firms such as the British Standards Institute (BSI), Det Norsk Veritas (DNV), Securite Generale Surveillance (SGS) in Switzerland and Bureau Veritas in France each have offices in over 80 countries and conduct hundreds of thousand of audits of other types every year. It would not be difficult for organizations such as these to get their hands on a standard and quickly come online with auditing capability.
Lastly every country already has accreditation bodies similar to UKAS the United Kingdom Accreditation Service who issue accreditation rights to the auditing firms for audits conducted on companies in operation in their jurisdiction.
So, again, developing the standard is doable and so is the execution of the audits and the eventual company certifications. We are slowly running out of excuses.
Market Conditions
In order for a system like this to work it requires that the market demand be created by states and state collective organizations such the United Nations, the African Union, the Arab League, etc, etc. This can take a long time to achieve as the decision making process in these organizations can be painfully slow and fraught with political blind-alleys. But just because it is difficult does not mean it should be shelved.
States must enact policy and legislation mandating that armed security services be purchased on the open market in an open bid process from not less than 2 qualified service providers. This is critical to the initial success of the program as it will first create demand for the certification and second add a level of transparency to the procurement process which has thus far been lacking. In the end only those possessing the certification will be rewarded by gaining access to potential revenues precluded from non-certified companies.
Major governments like the U.S. and the UK have made a strategic decision to outsource armed security in many instances. The least they can do it provide a meaningful watchdog function and ensure the their funding is spent with firms who are qualified and regulated.
A grace period
Following the successful pilot program a grace period of say 12 to 24 months should be extended to the entire market. This give PSCs enough time to get their hands on the standard, understand its implications, make any necessary changes to ensure conformity, schedule the audit and either remediate the process or receive the certificate.
Penalties must be in effect at the witching hour for companies who have not managed to conform to the standard. This is another role that governments can play in providing oversight and if necessary the enforcement in the form of financial penalties and if necessary the shutting down of companies who refuse or incapable of conformance.
The argument about the global nature being too difficult to regulate is only superficially correct. There is any number of instances where various industries have worked with governments to build cross-border regulation. And even in instances such as in financial services where both the U.S. and the UK authorities have maintained rightful autonomy there have always been a close working partnership and knowledge of what the other one is doing.
The bottom line
The bottom line here is that regulation is a subject the industry’s leaders should take active leadership in. If for no other reason than leaving it entirely to the politicians will most certainly result in an environment that is fraught with over-reaching restrictions and penalties where the good-guys end up paying the freight for the cowboy’s mistakes even more than they are already doing today.
Self-regulation is not going to fly. We’ve seen that from IPOA’s Code of Conduct. Despite IPOA’s good efforts and the quality of the content in their Code the bottom line is that it lacks wide ranging credibility because it is a voluntary exercise pre-incident and post-incident there are no financially negative consequences for simply taking your name off the signatory list.
The future of our industry is what we make it to be. If we believe that we are adding value and contributing positively to the implementation of governmental foreign policy then we must legitimize our existence by standardizing our services. In doing so we will take large step forward in minimizing the negative occurrences which though rare, reflect poorly on the entire industry.
Drafting a standard for PSCs is not difficult. What apparently is difficult to do is to marshal the political will to do have a crack at it.
Tags: Montreux
Self Regulation? Wouldn’t that be nice…
Apr 27, 2009 Commentary, Jake's Posts
By Jake Allen
The UK government last week issued a statement encouraging PSCs to ‘self regulate.’ In doing so government officials have, I my opinion, missed a huge opportunity to help us advance the cause of legitimizing our work as security contractors. Perhaps that is their long-term aim? I am not against self regulation, who could be? But it’s hardly sufficient, at this stage, to achieve legitimacy and sustainability as an industry. And, to be quite honest self regulation is such a minimum threshold standard to abide by that it should, though it apparently does not, go without saying.
On the one hand I have to commend the government for stopping short of actually doing anything like interfering in something they clearly have no clue about. The only thing worse than doing nothing would be to jump into the fray and start implementing moronic legislation that is unworkable and only serves to hamstring both companies and governments and thus leaving in the lurch the very people who most need protection. Since the authorities in the UK clearly don’t have a plan the best thing to do would have been nothing, and that includes not commenting at all on the subject since that only draws attention to themselves as not being willing or prepared to take or recommend real constructive action.
The concept of self-regulation is so primitive and basic that PMCs should view this as a condescending slap in the face. It’s like being told you need to learn how to wipe your own ass. Apparently they don’t even think we are capable of that lest we would have done it already. I am starting to wonder if they are correct. Perhaps they are observing, as I increasingly am, that the term Private Military Company is a big misnomer since very few PSC/PMCs adopt the discipline inherent in our uniformed military cousins.
Asking PMCs to self regulate is like asking Wall Street banks to self-regulate. We are long past self-regulation. We’ve had ample opportunity to do that in the past decade and we could have done it if we had had real visionary industry leadership as opposed to self-centred corporate greed out to make only fast money at the expense of long-term sustainable revenues. What other fledgling industry can you think of that from day one is already filled with talent rich people who are pre-trained to work in a universally structured and disciplined way? Security contractors are for the most part former military. They by design are already comfortable with rules, regulations, reward, punishment, discipline…structure. This industry and all its participants would expect to fall directly into an environment built on training and accountability. Yet the moment they take off their green uniforms and put on their 5.11s all pretense for responsibility for our actions goes out the window. I ask you, what is that if it not a failure of leadership?
Would’ve…could’ve…should’ve
Sure we could have held ourselves up as a shining example of self-regulation. We could right now be showing the world how we created an industry standard for and how we all signed on to it and how we agreed to be audited by independent parties. Sure we could have run out of town some of the fly-by-night outfits that popped up in Iraq with nothing more than a box of AK’s and website to their name. But no, we turned a blind eye to that kind of self-policing a long time ago and because of our failure to act then we have no credibility to stand on in doing it ourselves now. The only chapter left in this story to write will be when we look back on the period between 2003 and 2009 and we say, “Gee whiz fellas, why didn’t we clean up our own act. We could have built a legitimate, sustainable, dare I say even respectable business model.” No, we will look back on these days as the missed opportunity they really are. A time when former military men, now corporate CEOs got out-foxed and beaten to the punch by a bunch of fat, balding politicians eager to show their constituents that they put an end to our existence.
If discipline is defined as doing what is right in the ABSENCE of supervision we are far from a disciplined force. More of a rag-tag band of carnies traveling the world and burning every bridge when we leave town. Undisciplined forces are untrustworthy and entities that are untrustworthy will not be called on in the future to participate in the actions of our age. We certainly will never be given latitude to operate independently in support of a failing foreign state in the way what Executive Outcomes was able to do. To be honest, right now 9 out of 10 PSCs in business today could not carry the water for EO and should never be given the responsibility they had because they are not capable of achieving even a portion of their success.
Perhaps what we need now is to feel the Corporals lash that will come in the form of heavy-handed government regulation designed in our absence and forced upon us without our input. The only thing preventing that today is the fact that the Brown and Obama administrations are too busy focusing on the economy to deal with the pesky issue of unregulated PSCs. Rest assured our day will come. We are on the government ‘to do’ list. We will receive our summons in due time. The question is what will our recent record be when we are called onto the carpet to give an accounting of ourselves? Will we have a recent record of productive and constructive contribution to the ‘big picture’? Will we have in place a set of governing principles by which we hold ourselves accountable in a meaningful way. Or will we continue to be perceived only as vultures who grow fat and on the carnage created by war?
Though our revenues may increase in proximity to armed conflict that alone does not inherently make us a negative as it is governments themselves who set into motion these conflicts through actions or inaction of their own. For our part we have total control over how our participation is viewed.
Perception is reality
PSC actions in support of combat operations and reconstruction projects is a fact not lost on our enemies or non-combatants present in the combat zone. Non-combatants in particular do not distinguish between U.S. companies, South African companies, British companies or teams from anywhere else. In the case of Iraq anyone not ID’d as being Iraqi is immediately and permanently associated with ‘the Americans’ or ‘the occupiers’. Our behaviour affects ourselves as it affect our brothers in uniform, and vice versa. In short this means that all PSC are, like it or not, for good or for bad, representing U.S. foreign policy. Our actions will reflect well or poorly on the coalition governments and the entire effort to rebuild the country into an ally that we can trade with and perhaps one day put faith into.
There is no status-quo in combat operations. You are either gaining or losing tactical advantage. We as PSCs are either helping or hurting the war and reconstruction effort. To the extent that ‘self regulation’ helps our country advance its foreign policy aims I can support it. But if our recent performance is any indication of industry leadership I keep my expectations very low.
Similarly there is no status quo in public perception of what PSCs do. We are either contributing positively or negatively to the greater effort. That perception is within our control. It starts by running a disciplined team, site, contract and company. It builds by having the disciplined companies forming an alliance to build a framework for what security services are and what that standard is. We can take the lead and do it ourselves in collaboration with other key stakeholders or we can continue to do nothing and then wait for the hammer to one day fall. The choice is ours.
Radio: T. Christian Miller
Apr 20, 2009 Jake's Posts, Podcasts, Radio
This week on COR the guest was T. Christian Miller of ProPublica.org. ‘T’ is a veteran investigative journalist who spent over a decade working for the LA Times in a number of tough AOs including Colombia and Iraq with a particular emphasis on the excesses of wartime contracting. He’s also the author of Blood Money: Wasted Billions, Lost Lives and Corporate Greed in Iraq. T recently joined ProPublica.org where he has written a series of articles about the tough time many injured contractors are facing upon their return home. Check out those articles here.
I hope you enjoy the program.
Jake
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PMCs and anti-piracy, where is the fit? Part I
Apr 16, 2009 Commentary, Jake's Posts, Piracy, Somalia
By Jake Allen
With so much news about piracy lately in the coming weeks I plan to take a look at 3 of the ways that private security firms can find a productive role to play in the counter-piracy effort off the coast of Somalia. The three areas I will be taking a closer look at are:
- Security Guards Aboard/Armed with Lethal Weapons
- Security Guards Aboard/Unarmed or using Less-than-lethal weapons
- Security Guards Adjacent/ Escort Vessels
Security Guards Aboard/Armed with Lethal Weapons
Benefits: The primary benefit of having armed guards on board is that their visual presence alone can serve as a deterrent to an attack. Armed vessels represent what is called a ‘hard target’. In other words, given the choice of attacking a unarmed vessel or an armed vessel the unarmed vessel represents a ‘softer target’ comparatively speaking. Though is not possible to calculate how many attacks were avoided due to a more defensive posture the hard/soft target is widely accepted in most all other criminal circumstances and there is no reason to believe it would not also apply on the high seas. However, many experts counter this argument by stating that the number of attacks do not actually drop they are simply diverted to other ships which appear as easier targets. Yet even if this is so it adds a level of complexity to the pirates planning and execution that he has thus far not needed to account for and over time this can have an effect.
In the event of an attack the armed guards’ presence at the point-of-attack offers considerable tactical advantage and is by far the most likely method for successfully deterring an attack. Especially when compared to an unarmed guard approach or a escort vessel method of security. The physical ’high ground’ afforded by ship’s decks as well as the limited cover and concealment offers significant advantages tactically during a fire fight should one occur.
4 to 6 qualified marksmen armed with weapons that are effective at point-targets out to a distance of 800 meters would be all that is required to successfully repel a coordinated pirate attack. This use of force must be only applied within the framework of Rules of Engagement which are well defined and commonly interpreted.
Challenges/Limitations: The difficulty in executing the ’armed guard’ scenario are a mix of logistics and legal. The area where armed guards may be necessary in relation to the overall distance travelled on most journeys is relatively short. The typical westbound journey which originates Asia bound for a European port could take between 3 and 4 weeks. During that time armed guards may only be necessary for less than 5 days. In the case of the Horn of Africa region the shipping carrier has no need for armed guards prior to reaching the western Indian Ocean and would no longer need the guards once it entered the Red Sea and would most certainly no longer need them as it approached Suez. This leaves the carrier rightfully unwilling to pay for the guards when they are not necessary.
From the security company’s perspective getting their guards onboard when needed and off when not presents a real logistical challenge requiring a footprint somewhere along the northern shore between Oman and Saudi Arabia or on the southern shore between Somalia and the Sudan. A simple map reconnaissance and knowledge of the region can quickly rule out several otherwise ideal geographical locations as being too politically unstable to operate from. The introduction of weapons to the equation adds a level of complexity relative to compliance with laws, regulations, permits, etc, goes up. Notably the pirates are not encumbered by these regulations.
Legally speaking carrying arms aboard a commercial ship can be problematic, especially if the ship wishes to or needs to enter a port with arms onboard. While there is more latitude afforded while steaming in international waters in the case of the Gulf of Aden/Red Sea the proximity to the national waters of Yemen, Somalia, Djibouti, Oman, Eritrea, Sudan and Saudi Arabia add a layer of legal complexity that is difficult for law abiding security companies to overcome.
Perhaps the largest legal challenge to this potential solution are the Rules of Engagement necessary to successfully and defend the ship while protecting unnecessary loss of life. As always it is a challenge to develop and define ROEs that can be commonly interpreted and applied. At the end of the day the final decision to use force is a personal one made a the time by the man on the ground. Some cases are kill or be killed while others leave more room for interpretation and debate. All the more reason why the industry needs a form of certification where by both the company as well as the individual security guards can be vetted, trained and supervised in a way that protects all stakeholders’ perspectives. What the industry cannot afford is a migration of many of the unregulated firms operating in other theatres to quickly find themselves involved in the anti-piracy campaign using the same contractors directly out of Iraq or Afghanistan without undergoing the appropriate training and rehearsals.
Liabilities: The liabilities here are potentially many but they mostly all centre around the assumption that the introduction of armed guard will automatically result an increase in casualties and damage to property. As such the resistance to the armed guards concept is mostly championed by the insurance companies and to a lesser degree the ship owners and financiers. Insurance actuaries crave stability and predictability in order to construct the price of the premiums in relation to the potential payouts. In 2008 ransoms were paid out for 40 ships at an estimated $80 million dollars. While this may seem like a large number, in relation to the premium revenues taken in by the underwriters it remains an operating cost they are comfortable with. In light of the fact that even a single vessel sunk by pirates would trigger the insurance company to incur costs of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Summary: Both the root cause of the piracy problem as well as any eventual solution have their roots in economics. The pirates are active because of the financial benefits relative to the downside for failure. The insurance companies view a few million dollars in ransom payments worth the expense when compared to the catastrophic loss of a ship. The carriers, for their part, remain open to the idea of armed guards but have seen their profits thinned recently due to the slackening demand in the shipping market so they often hesitate to further erode profits by paying private security guards out of what would otherwise be operating profit. Finally the logistical challenges and the web of legal risks involved in conducting security operations in the region mean that the rates for security services are often more than many carriers are able or willing to pay.
A more reasoned approach to Somali pirates
Apr 14, 2009 Jake's Posts, Piracy, Somalia
By Jake Allen
Although there were many who agreed with yesterday’s rant about the piracy problem off the coast of Somalia I did take some heat from a few readers. Perhaps some of that heat was justified and in rereading the post it does read as more angry than I certainly am.
The truth is I have long been level-headed realist when it comes to dealing with this piracy problem. Note I said, ‘dealing’ with the problem and not ‘solving’ the problem. The solution, of course, will come some day when Somalia is able to establish a functional government which can provide services for its people and stand up a working coast guard to both defend its territorial waters as well as enforce laws prohibiting piracy. But as that day is not likely to arrive soon let’s put aside solutions and discuss counter measures which can deal with the realities in the interim.
The death of these teenage pirates is indeed tragic but we must remember that 19 year-old men are responsible for their actions. They chose at multiple junctions not to release the hostage. In fact it has been reported that they were surprised to learn that the ship was crewed by Americans. The decision not to retreat at that early stage turned out to be a poor one. But in the subsequent days they were offered many other chances to lay down their arms and release the hostage. Perhaps, as I will touch on below their death may serve to bring into balance the calculations taken by other pirates as to whether or not piracy is worth the effort.
While we celebrate the hostages successful release let us also not forget that what is required to prevent future events of this type is a total approach to the problem. Killing pirates or those suspected of piracy on-site is no more a winning strategy by itself than relying solely on water cannons or other non-lethal approaches. Furthermore navy patrols alone are not the answer. Nor is arresting and prosecuting every armed “fisherman” found off the Somali coast. The complexity of the challenge requires us to adopt a coordinated and comprehensive strategy.
Before we look at that strategy let’s just revisit the business case from the pirates perspective so that we can understand and ultimately change his calculations. There are basically only 4 outcomes which pirates are able to achieve.
1. Success: Ransom paid out
2. Failure: Return to shore empty handed
3. Failure: Arrested and tried in a court-of-law for piracy
4. Failure: Lost or killed at sea
With that said. Let’s look at what each stakeholder here can do to contribute to an increase in outcomes 2, 3 and 4.
Ransoms: Part of the problem here and the driving force behind the piracy market is the fact that shipping companies willingly and often too quickly payout multimillion dollar ransoms. Certainly if you were a hostage this is precisely what you would want to occur but the problem with this is that it only encourages more attacks as more and more pirates enter the ‘lottery’ in an effort to get some easy money. Were carriers and insurance companies to stop paying ransoms this market would disappear over night. Desperate people might resort to other types of crime but piracy-for-ransom would effectively end. Ransoms may be warranted but they need to be drastically curtailed and reduced in size through tough and often long-drawn out negotiations. Ransoms are money in the hand of pirates, but it needs to be hard- money and not easy-money.
Naval escorts: The navies of the world do need to maintain an active presence in the region but let us be realistic about what effect they can have. Yesterday’s successful recover of Captain Phillips notwithstanding we can already see a game of whack-a-mole developing where pirates simply have moved out of the Gulf of Aden and are now more active in the western Indian Ocean. The navies are a critical element to the equation but they alone are not capable of dealing with this problem. At best they will serve as a deterrent when they are in a particular geographical area but only a 911 emergency responder to areas where they are not. Already with the rescue of Captain Phillips the U.S. Navy has set a precedent for getting involved post incident. Will that continue? What if the next Captain is not an American? How will these decisions be made? What kind of signal will that send not only to the pirates but to our allies?
Armed guards aboard: As indicated the Obama administration is presently making the new realities clear to the shipping providers. It will be made to them in no uncertain terms that they are going to have to shoulder more ownership for the security of the ship, cargo and crew. It is understandable, based on some of the cowboy firms we have seen performing armed security in Iraq and Afghanistan, that many are hesitant to introduce more guns to this theatre. But there are a number of practical realities of the maritime environment which make it ideally suited to the use of PMCs. For one the list of potential clients is knowable and likely 80% of shipping traffic in this area is conducted by 20% of the companies. Governments could step in here and provide a list of ‘authorized suppliers’ of security services and forbid carriers from using security companies who are not on the approved list. This of course opens the whole discussion around the definition of ‘qualified’ but in all honesty this is a discussion that has been necessary for a long, long time. The bottom line is that a viable deterrent must be co-located at the point of the attack.
Prosecution: The U.S. entered into an agreement with Kenya earlier this year whereby pirates caught in international or Somali waters could be transported to Mombasa for trial. To date this mechanism has not proven effective. Mostly due to evidential complications of documenting and proving acts of piracy. While these challenges will not disappear this legal framework needs more throughput. We cannot stop simply because it’s too hard. We need to understand clearly what evidence will be required at trial for a successful prosecution and ensure that the navies and law enforcement are able to document that evidence and protect the chain-of-custody in such a way that trials are both fair but also effective.
We can control the proportions...
One way to think of this problem is in the shape of a pie where we have control over the proportionality of the 4 pieces or outcomes. To date the Trial/Prosecution portion is far too small while conversely the Ransom Payout piece is far too large. While Killed/lost at sea may preferably always be low in percentage terms it must be a real enough possibility to factor into the pirates business case.
The bottom line is this is business for pirates and to counter this we need to make the business model less appealing if not very difficult as compared to other choices one makes about how to spend their time. That can only be done through a coordinated effort of both commercial, private and state security mechanisms each working in concert to mutually support eachother.
