Privatization in the German Armed Forces

Abstract

Several very different developments over the last two decades are being named by the catch-all privatization of security and/or the military. Nevertheless, there is a broad unanimity on the fact that this is a global trend which is narrowly linked to the end of the East-West confrontation and the accompanying deep changes of the geopolitical security situation. The common explanatory attempts cover a wide range, from rather military-strategic considerations via the everywhere observable processes of degovernmentalization in the developing and newly industrializing countries up to an economization of military force in the ‘New Wars’ (Münkler 2002) which are instigated and kept on running mainly for economic interests of the local war actors. Seen this constellation, a multitude of non-state actors have been emerging to whom war itself constitutes a fount of resource and income.