The Circuit: An Ex-SAS Soldier / A Secretive Industry / The War on Terror… (edition 2009)

One thing has to be clear from the start – this book is not critique of private security industry and their actions from the “outsiders” (journalist, investigative reporters) point of view [as it is often case in most books on this subject that are considered with legal point of view on the issue of military force privatization – and I can say with a very good reason but I will not go into details here].
This is a book written [obviously] by an expert in the field of close protection who feels proud to be working for commercial security companies (CSC) and thinks that they have their place under the sun (he is more than proud when it comes to his teammates and working colleagues), but also feels more then embittered considering the way those same commercial security companies conduct and do their everyday job.
He does not advocate shutdown of all CSCs but their reorganization and legal regulation that will enable them to remain professional (by that he considers using firearms to be a very last resort something that should happen only if everything else fails) and do the jobs that are truly jobs for them (author clearly draws the line between operations that are supposed to be conducted by regular military forces and those that are open to the market (CSCs) to pop right in).

It is interesting point of view today – saying that CSCs are useful as an asset [or backup if you like] to regular military operations but should not become means for themselves, they should not become way for hiding seriousness of situation in conflict areas nor the way to hide number of casualties.

Very interesting book, written by a man that knows what he’s taking about. If you are interested in the field of CSCs/PMCs you’ll like this one.

Recommended. ( )