The PMC’s Corporate Decision-Making in Humanitarian Intervention

Abstract

This chapter looks at corporate decision-making within private military companies (PMCs) in the development of operational art in humanitarian intervention. Operating outside the scope of the Social Contract the PMC does not face the same strategic and operational constraints as the state’s military leadership when employing the soldier in the theatre. Nonetheless, a PMC has to account for three essential relationships that shape its corporate decision-making: the relationship towards its client state, its stakeholders and its contractors. After all, as this chapter demonstrates, it is these non-social contractarian relationships underlying the PMC’s corporate planning which ultimately affect the contractor’s behaviour at a tactical level.