Erik Prince is Wrong for Secretary of Defense

“If you want peace, prepare for war” was written by General Vegetius 1,600 years ago as he watched the Roman military deteriorate in a time of peace. This phrase should set the priorities of the next Secretary of Defense (SecDef). They must prepare to wage war while working to avoid it.

Mr. Scheller makes the case that the military must be run like a corporation to gain efficiency and lethality. The problem is we have tried this before. On September 10^th, 2001, Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, a former successful CEO, made a speech promoting the privatization of the military to save money, gain efficiencies, and reduce bureaucracy. He had a mandate to transform the military. Twenty-four hours later he could be seen looking at a map of Iraq, salivating at the prospect of invasion. The mandate to transform the military was tossed away when its leadership decided to wage war. 

Erik Prince is the next Donald Rumsfeld. In recent comments, Prince has suggested that the United States could have used Private Military Contractors (PMCs) in Afghanistan to win the war and has proposed colonizing Africa. He yearns for conflict and has a readymade answer for it: use private contractors. Any conflict under his watch would use PMCs in the name of efficiency. This would include everything from cooks, vehicle maintenance, and hired guns (like me) because companies can allegedly do these jobs cheaper. There are two problems with this. First, we tried it in Iraq and Afghanistan—it did not work. Second, it outsources the morality which comes with combat operations.

The military is governed by lawful orders and the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). PMCs are governed by neither. You would be hard-pressed to figure out which laws apply to civilians in combat roles in foreign lands. As an example, when I worked for Blackwater, we were told we had “diplomatic immunity” with the black Department of State passport to prove it. We were not governed by the UCMJ or the laws of Iraq. Until the former Blackwater employees of Raven 23 were prosecuted under U.S. federal law, which ignored due process and the chain of custody of evidence, no one knew which laws applied to PMCs. This is the legal ambiguity Erik Prince and politicians need to address when using PMCs in combat. 

Finally, the costs of war cannot be measured in lives and dollars. The effects of war last much longer, which is why we have the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Private Military Contractors do not receive long-term benefits. Their benefits are frontloaded in the form of pay, and the longer effects of being in combat operations are ignored. The VA, for all its faults, is still a place for veterans to turn. PMCs do not qualify for benefits in the form of medical care, education, or disability compensation like military members. Yet many bear the same external and internal scars of war. I have found no data on the number of PMCs who have committed suicide; I doubt any exists. What I do know is the suicide rate of former Blackwater employees I worked with is much higher than that of the soldiers I served with.

The next SecDef must meet these criteria in this order: first, avoid war; second, prepare the military for the next war; third, do not use PMCs in conflict zones where we are not willing to put soldiers; fourth, if PMCs are hired, define how they will be used and which laws apply, and set up long-term benefits for those who participate.

Erik Prince is not the man for this job.

Morgan Lerette is the author of Guns, Girls, and Greed: I was a Blackwater Mercenary in Iraq. He served in the US Air Force Security Forces, US Army as an Intelligence Officer, and worked for Blackwater in Iraq for 18 months in 2004-2005.