Internationalizing and Privatizing War and Peace: The Bumpy Ride to Peace Building

In this timely work, the author analyzes the use of private military firms and international interventions of the military. Outsourcing to the private sector takes missions away from the military, but the shift towards international intervention adds new, wider functions to the traditional role of defence. If these two trends continue at the present pace, important security functions will be out of control of parliaments, national governments and international authorities. The state monopoly of violence - an achievement of civilization - is at stake.

HERBERT WULF, formerly Director, Bonn International Centre for Conversion, is an advisor to UNDP North Korea on arms control. He served as a consultant to several United Nations Agencies. In his previous research positions, he was Senior Researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute and the University of Hamburg. He wrote several books on the defence industry and his dissertation at the Free University Berlin on technology transfer to developing countries.