Abstract
Private Military Company, the association of these three words seems surprising. It is indeed generally accepted that military operations is public and is a matter of state, which has the monopole of physical violence, according to Max Weber. Moreover reference to a company, economical actor, seems unlikely. After all, war cannot be the objective for a business. Defense and security cannot be a merchandising service.
This conception must be revised after analyzing the recent events. Since the end of the Cold War, numerous companies, mostly English-speaking, developed themselves by commercializing defense and security services. These civilian structures, most of the time leaded by ex-high ranked personnel from regular armed forces, carry out missions which were before strictly given to the armies, and touches the core of military activities : logistics, training and formation, weapon maintenance on battlefields.
