The Moral Worth of the Contractor as a Cosmopolitan Agent

Abstract

The final chapter returns to the question about the virtue of the contractor as the liberal state’s cosmopolitan agent. This chapter analyses the potential tactical effects generated by the contractor within an emancipative strategic and operational framework characterized by the lack of rigid societal oversight and the private military contractor’s (PMC’s) relative operational decision-making autonomy. The contractor’s abstract relationship to society and state leads to minimal operational interference by the client state’s political leadership and consequently allows the PMC in its operational planning to deploy the contractor to maximize operational effectiveness without having to cater for any social contractarian constraints. Based on five parameters, this chapter shows why the contractor can become an effective and ethical cosmopolitan agent of the state.