ABSTRACT
In the last decade, private military and security companies (PMSCs) have been the objects of great interest. Scholars, policy-makers, and journalists have worked to define who these new actors are, and how they should be used and judged. Two issues arise consistently amidst all of this attention. First, PMSCs defy easy categorization: we do not really understand what they are. Second, regardless of what they are, we suspect that they are tainted, potentially corrupt, and somehow suspicious entities: whatever they are, we do not like them. These two issues are fundamentally connected. Can there be a legitimate mercenarylike force operating in war zones around the world? Should there be any such thing as a “corporate warrior”?
