On the Basic Reasons of Private War

The privatization of war was an objective reality of the political trends. Globalization, information, Technological democratization and Decentralization of power were the root causes of the privatization of war. To world security and national and personal security, the world and the people should be concerned about the development trend of the privatization of war.

world politics, the war (the public war) should become the country's patent because it would be a political act of national sovereignty, but more and more belong to non-state actors due to various reasons.
The author attempts to explore the root causes of the privatization of war, to expound on the objective reality of the political situation.Let the world alert the development trend of the war and the evil consequences.

The Basic Reasons of the Privatization of War
Privatization of war phenomenon is closely related with many factors.The first is the phenomenon of globalization in the world which makes all things globalization including privatization of war.Second, the information of international community provides ample information conditions for the privatization of war.In addition, the democratization of technology prepares the technical conditions for the privatization of war.Finally, the decentralization of power makes the individual and non-state actors control some of the political power in the international politics.To sum up, the individuals and non-state actors control some power and resources that they had never owned in the past.Nowadays, they can play the role of the nation in the international politics to some extent.These changes greatly enhance the individual and non-state actors' influence on the international politics, which makes the privatization of war become political reality.
First, Scattered world is integrated by the economic globalization gradually, which is the profound historical background of the privatization of war.The world was like a honeycomb before the globalization, and the state divided the world into every separated hole each other.The world as a whole, however, was a fragmented and divided world.Globalization breaks the barriers between countries so that a variety of actors are mobilized in the international community, which is the main theme of the 21st century.It affects every aspect and every corner in the world.It is self-evident that the globalization impacts on the world economy, which accelerates the development of modern productive forces and enhances world economic growth rate.Whether the developed or developing countries have become involved, each event occurs in any country has a global impact.
In this process, the state is no longer the only actors in the international community.Sub-national actors and inter-state actors such as the countries are not only very active, but also become the main promoter of world economic development.There has long trend of diversification of economic main body, and non-state actors play great role in the economic field.Diversifications of economic actors affect the international politics, including war.The international political actors become diversifications which greatly affects the morphology of the war."The new war would be launched by non-state actors and intended to challenge the legitimacy of the country.The war did not look longitudinally control national army as the core.The war parties had transnational economic and political support, not country-based."(Anna Leande, 2002) Joseph Nye also said," privatization was developing and the terrorism was the privatization of war.Globalization shortened the world distance -e.g.what happened in Afghanistan, could have a significant impact on the lives of Americans." (Joseph Nye, 2003, p100) It was obvious, without exception, Western powers played leading pole in the process of economic globalization.They took the privatization and marketization of economy as a panacea for economic development, to spare no effort to push, so this trend spread around the whole world.Many public sectors were privatized and marketized in western countries, as Osborne said, "the government's arsenal manufactured all kinds of weapons in the past historical period, and no one envisaged that the private sector undertook such important work.And today, no one would envisage that the Government produces arms." (David Osborne, 2006, p1)Since the 1990s, the functions were traditionally assumed by the state's security or military sectors which were increasingly sub packaged to private military companies.These activities included security tasks, logistical and technical support, training and close protection and so forth.According to the U.S. Department of Defense statistics, there were about 7,300 private security companies in Iraq.They all had contractual relationship with the Department of Defense, of which about 5,000 private security companies protected U.S. troops and the key sectors in the Iraqi government (2007).The wave of privatization and marketization spread in the developing countries.The main actors of war should be the state but the privatization of war appears in a new form in front of the world under the influence of globalization and privatization.
Secondly, the international community developed from the agricultural society, industrial society to information society, and the information provided convenient conditions for the privatization of war.The information blocked, and the state limited means of interaction so that information could easily be monopolized in the agricultural society.In the industrial society, globalization of the world started and information disseminated more frequently than the agricultural society, but the state actors wanted to block the information only and paid a smaller cost."Instant global communication was very expensive 30 years ago, therefore, the object of its use was limited to large institutions which had a large expenditure of budget such as governments, multinational corporations or the Roman Church.Today the Internet made global communications regulator for any people who were free of charge."(Joseph Nye, 2005, p21) It was impossible for the country to block information.The characteristics of information itself promoted the diversification of war main body.
First of all, information became a new source of power in the information society; such power source was diffuse, non-mandatory, non-monopolistic and other features."The success of the information revolution provided a cheap means of communication and organization management.The group was limited to the local and national police force in the past, now was a global organization."(Joseph Nye, 2005, p21) State actors could not monopolize information as previously, and information spread rapidly through modern means of communication in the world.Individuals and non-state actors accessed to information almost as many countries, which allowed them to play more and more important role in world politics.
Second, the information society model not only made the war diversification but also the limit of war was more ambiguous and complex boundaries, accelerating the pace of privatization of war.Network warfare, information warfare, psychological warfare and precision warfare was no longer monopolized by the state which was the first choice of non-state actors because of low cost and broad impact."not only nation-state, group of countries, political parties social groups could wage war, but also non-state actors, non-governmental organizations, terrorist groups and 'information warriors' could start a war."(Wang Baocun, 2003, p274) In addition, "The emergence of information warfare made the original 'boundaries' fuzzy, such as domestic and foreign, front and rear, groups and individuals, the military soldier and civilian, the foreign affairs and internal affairs, military and non-military, local and global, etc." (Cai Cuihong, 2003, p157) These made it possible for individuals to wage war.
Third, the rapid development and popularity of science and technology got the individual and some non-state actors to master the means and conditions of war; the democratization of technology was leading to the privatization of war.(Joseph Nye, 2005, p20) Former NBC News Director Laurance Croasman brilliantly summed up the democratization of technology: "Printing," he said, "So we all became readers.Xerocoty made us all become publishers, television made us all into the audience, digital made us all into broadcasters " .There was no doubt that the proliferation of military technology and military weapons made everyone become soldiers in the world.
Mankind created social wealth far greater than in any previous era with the rapid development of science and technology.Numerous scientific and technological fruits gave a profound impact on social life.Earth-shaking changes occurred in social production, lifestyle and social structure with the great changes in technology.(Li Shichao, 2005, p100) However, the technology was a double-edged sword with pros and cons.On the one hand, it brought endless well-being for our human being, and was essential for human survival and development; on the other hand, it gave an unexpected humanity hazards.As Negroponte said, "Every gift of technology or science had its dark side."(Negroponte, 1996, p26) The privatization of war was the vague expression of technological dark side.The relationship between people and technology was very clear.The people were subject and the technology was object, so the former should manipulate the latter, but nowadays the people were becoming the slaves of technology.
The expansion of technology, especially the proliferation of military technology, would lead to the privatization of war because technology had different value for international political actors.For instance, nuclear weapons were quite different between the state actors and non-state actors.It was the ultimate tool to protect national security for a state actor.It was difficult to predict its consequences for the individual because of the limited rationality of people.Individuals needed to rely on the power of government to kill tens of millions of people, such as Hitler in the 20th century.However, if certain individuals or non-state actors got weapons of mass destruction, they would achieve extraordinarily destructive power in the 21st century.And the proliferation of technology got into Collingridge dilemma: it was difficult and almost impossible to try to control technology.We could control the technology in the early technological development, and then we didn't learn of its adversely social consequences; when the consequences of technology became apparent, the technology had been widely spread and often used, occupying the production and market.Controlling technology would require a very high cost and got along slowly (Collingridge, 1980, p19) .This was the objective laws of technological development.It was almost impossible for the state to control technology.It was said that Simpson, New Zealand's science and technology enthusiasts, manufactured cruise missiles in the home.All materials were purchased form store, and the cost was not more than 5,000 U.S. dollars.(Wang Xiaoqiang, 2004, p174) Non-state actors would achieve the technology they wanted sooner or later."People created history, but then they were ignorant of the history of creation."we were facing the reality that Western philosophers stated.The proliferation of military technology got the privatization of war into the possible reality.Non-state actors controlled the violent means that state actor had ever monopolized, so they could wage war by itself will.Technological development and diffusion of technology prepared for the privatization of war.
Fourth, decentralization of power and the weakening of sovereignty made individuals and certain non-state actors control more and more power, so that they had the political ability to wage war.Transference and dispersion of power was an inevitable trend of historical development from the law of power own development, while the law of power development provided political conditions for the privatization of war.There were three main sources of power, violence, wealth and knowledge."The weakness violence or coercion lied in lack of flexibility and only was used punishment.It was considered to be a low-quality power frequently.In comparison, the power of wealth could be higher.Money talks, no penalty and no threat, it was used in more diverse way.It could be used in right or evil way, and it was more flexible than violence, so the wealth should be the power of intermediate quality." (Alvin Toffler, 2006, p11)The state actors traditionally monopolized the two kinds of powers; the two kinds of powers had been out of state control increasingly because of economic globalization.As we all knew, the economic power of some of transnational corporations and individuals were extremely wealthy.
The most prominent manifestations were the using of knowledge which was the power of the highest quality.Francis Bacon said "Knowledge was power".It was equal between knowledge and power.Knowledge was power and that was no longer just a wise man's prediction, but was a real reality in the 21st century.This kind of power not only made the violence double, but also let the wealth rapidly expands, and was no longer monopolized by the state.It was more flexible and powerful than violence and wealth.Everyone could not use the same gun, and did not spend a penny, but everyone could use the same knowledge.The more widely knowledge spread, the more significant the power was.It sought to achieve the goal with the least resources at maximum efficiency.The history of power was from violence to wealth and then to knowledge, so that the diffusion of power became an inevitable trend, which provided a solid political conditions for the privatization of war.
From the point of state power, "all the government would find that its control was being eroded with the gradual spread of information technology and the related costs continuing to decrease in the 21st century." (Joseph Nye, 2005, p298) This was the theory of sovereignty weakening; the theory suggested that an important contemporary phenomenon was more and more international organizations and they had more and more attraction and influence.Thus, they effectively "eroded and undermined the sovereignty of state actors" and "offset or weakened the indivisibility of sovereignty."So, nation-states had been the main body of sovereign so far, and the exchanges between countries still had the traditional feature of international relations.However, the relative weakening of national sovereignty was an indisputable fact.(Jiang An, 2001, 191)As indicated in Table1 , (Joseph Nye, 2005,p298) showed that the country's power was no longer concentrated in the central government as the 20th century, but in a decentralization in the 21st century.The power was transferring to the supra-national and sub-national organizations, and the speed of transferring was accelerating as the development and proliferation of information technology."The decentralization of power could lead to positive results and may also lead to negative consequences."(Joseph Nye, 2005, p299) The negative consequences indicated a kind of bleak prospects for the world, "produce a new feudalism, those devastating individuals, terrorists and the weak state obtained weapons of mass destruction resulting in a true anarchy, which was different from the anarchy of inter-State system."(Joseph Nye, 2005, p299) That was real anarchy that Hobbes said natural state.Everyone waged war against everyone, and the whole world run into chaos.The state lost the traditional protection.The proliferation of state power made the privatization of war possible.
In short, the privatization of war was complicated and objective political phenomenon.Many factors have contributed to the development trend of the privatization of war.The only four were main reasons; there may be other factors to be explored.

Conclusions
The main form of the private war was terrorism (Joseph Nye, 2005, p274) and private military companies at present.Some of the separatist political movement against the government also took on the feature.The trend of the private war has been more and more obvious since the 1990s.The U.S. military anti-terrorism used the wrong policy, causing terrorism intensifying in the 21st century.Private military companies were more and more, damaging the legitimate authority of the state, challenging the rules of war and the principles of democracy.(James Pattison, 2008, p160) The privatization of war was world politics' disaster which increased the savagery and destruction capability of war, made the world more and more into anarchy and chaos.Both individual and national lacked security, challenging the legitimacy of national sovereignty, which should arouse the vigilance of the world.
Research on the privatization of war should be further.E.g. what was the manifestation of the privatization of war?What impact on the international political theory?How assess the impact on national security?How should the state look at the privatization of war?Which measures should be use to prevent the privatization of war?And so on.We are looking forward to more research about this issue there.