The world has shifted. States that used to symbolize the holders of world order have now become the spoils of war. 

Inter-state conflicts are nearly extinct since the last World War and are instead being replaced by unconventional wars, expanding into cyberspace [1]. The influence of nation-states is retreating everywhere and being replaced by a new class of actors wielding political power, such as multi-national corporations, super-warlords and billionaires.

The global 1% are now more powerful than most countries. The top 100 economies include 31 countries and 69 corporations. 62 individuals possess more wealth than the poorest half of the planet [2].

Free market forces are no longer free. The manipulation of demand and supply are heightening inequalities and rendering the use of force a necessary tool to maintain social control. Mercenaries of all kinds are increasingly being recruited by private clients to fight in armed conflicts.

The United States legalized the use of mercenaries under the term Private Military and Security Companies (PMSC). PMSCs are used by countries for a number of different reasons from protecting illegal economies, such as in the Central African Republic (CAR) to the expropriation of land, as in Crimea. The use of irregular fighters permits States to wage shadow wars and plausibly deny that they have any direct role in unpopular interventions.

Mercenaries can be quite lethal. Professionally trained, as in the case of former service members selling their services to armed groups or authoritarian regimes, they increase the capacity of proxy forces. Their presence adds to the messiness of an already complex landscape of hybrid fighters composed of national troops, resistance fighters with ethno-national goals, globalized terror organizations, and a host of hangers-on such as arms and drugs traffickers as in Syria, Yemen and Libya.

What distinguishes mercenaries is their commodification of war. Typically foreign-focussed, they are structured as business entities [3] and primarily motivated by profit rather than politics. They look more like a military force, then a law-enforcement one and their purpose is to violently defeat or deter the enemy, not to de-escalate or maintain the rule of law.

When military strategy meets market strategy and money can buy firepower, the super-rich can become superpowers. 

The booming trend is to hire a private army [5], which will mean wars without States. The commodification of mercenaries is blurring the line between war and peace, as the use of mercenaries is becoming a peace-time strategy. 

Mercenaries operate outside military codes of conduct and can engage in human rights violations with relative impunity. While they are still subject to international criminal law and can be held responsible for war crimes and violations of the laws of the State where they act, the capacity of these States to conduct such trials is often lacking [4]. There is nevertheless still a high political cost to violating international humanitarian law, even for armed groups. 

Accountability for irregular fighters seems elusive as the law of war pains to curb the demand for their services. You may pursue their clients but what is the likelihood of going against a State or ExxonMobil. Laws often do not have extra-territorial jurisdiction. At times, the law even defends such practices, such as licensing regimes who want to export their defense services.

Entering into a dialogue with mercenaries also proves difficult since they answer to their clients. One is again better off engaging the sponsoring entity. However, it is hard to connect with the client when they deny the existence and use of PMSCs.

When PMSC are part of a clear chain of command, the control, structure and culture of that command may make them easier to approach.

Market mechanisms shape market forces, so freezing the assets of mercenaries or their clients can provide another tool to rain-in their expansion.

Sadly, these interventions only address the symptoms of the problem and fail to tackle the broader issue of worldview which sees violence as an acceptable strategy to satisfy personal gains and the accumulation of wealth. The problem is one of values. The unprecedented extraction of resources brought about by the industrial revolution, amplified by technological advances, and embedded in market forces with no concept of "enoughness," are driving the escalation of force.

The measure of any weapon's value is its utility; therefore, only a change priorities can make the need for mercenaries obsolete.

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