Número 8. Noviembre/Diciembre:
From the Editor
A Surprising Key to President-elect Obama’s Success
Features
Cover Story
Stability Operations: U.S. Army Embraces the Private Sector for Mission Success
Army raises the role of the private sector to new levels with release of updated field manual.
“HOPE” Floats on High Seas for 50 Years
Serviam rises to salute its Person of the Year.
What Army Doctrine Means for Businesses and Charities
Army doctrine presents new opportunities for private sector and NGOs to contribute to global stability.
Departments
Innovation
Pentagon Reconnects Circle of Troops’ Friends and Families
In the News
U.S. Navy Marks Midpoint of Operation Continuing Promise
Special Report
Comprehensive Approach: Army’s New Field Manual on Stability Operations Stresses Private Sector
Industry Heritage
An Officer and a Businessman: Captain Parrott Made Greatest Defense Contribution as a Private Contractor
Culture of Influence
Missed Opportunities in Stability Operations Doctrine
The Last Word
U.N. Success in Conflict Resolution; Short Memories and Wishful Thinking
Quiero añadir un par de cosillas. En primer lugar el
From the Editor de este número:
A Surprising Key to President-elect Obama’s Success
By J. Michael Waller
”Blackwater is getting a bad rap.” Those are President-elect Barack Obama’s words after the company’s crack military veterans protected him during his trip to Afghanistan last July.
The revelation, which the then-candidate privately admitted in comments picked up by U.S. News & World Report, shows that Obama understands that ideological biases and political rhetoric often distort reality. His campaign said the Afghanistan trip was to help establish his international credentials and give him a firsthand sampling of the difficult complexities of a world whose leadership he worked hard to inherit.
The U.S. cannot prevail in Afghanistan and Iraq without the active involvement of private companies that provide niche services like personal protection of U.S. civilian officials; the training and mentoring of local police and counter-drug forces; and specialized military logistics services and outsourced intelligence functions.
Obama never commented publicly on his epiphany about Blackwater, but his Afghanistan trip did end his harsh public criticism of the North Carolina-based firm.
He and other senior members of their party seem to realize that the partisan attacks against Blackwater were really attacks on their political opponents. Criticism and inquiry of any government contractor or policy is a good thing. But the politics of destruction is another matter. And this is where President-elect Obama, Vice President-elect Joseph Biden, and top Senate Democrats part ways with their scrappier attack-dog comrades in the House of Representatives.
Congressman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) all but admits that he used his chairmanship of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to destroy Blackwater’s business relationship with the U.S. government.
Last summer, Waxman declared that State Department should cancel its protective services contract with the company. “I don’t see any reason to have a contract with Blackwater,” Waxman said.
Of course, as Obama saw firsthand (and as everyone from our ambassadors in Iraq to General David Petraeus agrees) Blackwater has done a stupendous job living up to its contracts, and that protective security is not a function that the military wants.
Gadfly author-activist Jeremy Scahill admits with chagrin, “one of Obama’s senior foreign policy advisers told me earlier this year that Obama, quote, ‘cannot and will not rule out using these companies.’”
That’s good news for the country, and for the global stability industry. It shows that, campaign rhetoric notwithstanding, leaders of both parties agree on the need to rely heavily on private security companies as instruments of U.S. national security and defense policy.
Reality is the best persuader
Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.), Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), and Joe Biden (D-Del.) recognized the critical need for private contractors operating in conjunction with U.S. troops in February 2000. Bad weather prompted Army pilots to ground their Blackhawk helicopter in a mountainous part of Afghanistan and they were evacuated to safety by American military veterans under contract for Blackwater Worldwide.
At the Democratic National Convention in August, Scahill buttonholed Kerry and former Navy Secretary Senator James Webb (D-Va.) to get them on the record in support of Wax-man’s anti-Blackwater propaganda campaign. He gave both a chance to say the United States should ban Blackwater. Both said the company should be allowed to do its job.
“No, I don’t think they should be banned,” Kerry told Scahill. “I think they need to operate under rules that apply to the military and everybody else.”
“I’m not in a position right now to say that Blackwater’s contract specifically should be canceled [if Obama becomes president],” Webb told Scahill. “I think all of them should be aggressively reviewed and, you know, have standards put on them, and I think Blackwater, like other companies, ought to compete.”
Senators Kerry and Webb are right. That’s all that legitimate private companies ask: to be allowed to compete and to operate under clear rules and authority, with all the necessary legal safeguards and accountability.
For successful global stability operations, partisan politics should have no place in public-private partnerships. President-elect Obama, Vice President-elect Biden, and infl uential leaders like Senators Kerry and Webb seem to know that. They also know that they will need the present group of private contractors if the new administration is to succeed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Y en segundo lugar que si alguien quiere suscribirse a Serviam lo tiene fácil. Yo recibí los tres primeros números durante el "periodo de captación de clientes" directamente en mi buzón, y aparte de renovar mi suscripción particular también se han suscrito desde una oficina en Andalucía donde dejé un par de ejemplares hace unos meses y desde la que mandaron el cupón de suscripción anual que viene en cada número. Así que si alguien os dice que Serviam no admite suscripciones a España probar a mandar un mail y os contestarán enseguida.
No, Serviam no me regala suscripciones a cambio de publicidad
pero para una revista profesional sobre el sector que sale que menos que procurar que tenga distribución
) hay cuatro páginas de publicidad y un artículo dedicados al mismo grupo empresarial, no hay que ser un genio para saber quien se mueve tras la revista y empieza a abrirse paso para competir frente a los gigantes de la industria militar americana.
