Since the French Revolution it has been argued that a true “liberal” democracy needs citizen soldiers to defend the patria. But soon the notion of the defence of the state became de-territorialised. A perception emerged in which threats “over-there” can quickly transform into threats “over-here”, dissolving the territorially bound notion of state security. Soldiers had to fight abroad to guarantee security at home, putting at odds the ideal of the citizen/farmer soldier. During times of strong nationalism, the appearance of existential threats or clashes between ideologies states mainly did not face challenges in recruitment. But since the end of the Cold War, “liberal” states are faced with a problem in recruitment. Here, following neo-liberal market ideas, the private sector was able to fill this void in the form of Private Military Companies. To justify their use, liberal states, have mainly used the argument that they are economically more cost effective, while it might be assumed that their cost effectiveness with regard to the state is mainly political. While the media reports the death of every soldier, statistics on the official loss of Contractors do not exist, making them a politically cost effective option. Hence, does the privatisation of warfare make liberal states more prone to wage war as it frees them from certain political costs? And, more importantly, does the legal status of these actors (which differs immensely from that of a “national” soldier) question the idea of the existence of a liberal way of war, a war fought on behalf and bound by normative and legal constrains?
