When the Iraq War erupted in the 2000s, headlines were filled with stories about Blackwater, the American private military company accused of atrocities in Baghdad. To many, this was a shocking new phenomenon: soldiers of fortune in suits, contractors replacing national armies. But for students of history, it was déjà vu. The United Kingdom had been here decades earlier. In fact, long before Washington made security outsourcing a business model, Britain had pioneered it. With a mix of ex-SAS veterans, discreet companies registered in Jersey or London, and subtle nods from Whitehall, Britain built an entire ecosystem of private armies that served its interests from Africa to Asia.
This is the story of how five companies- 5 Commando, Watchguard International, Keenie Meenie Services, Sandline International, and Aegis Defence Services, mapped out the blueprint for private warfare.
The Wild Beginning: 5 Commando in the Congo (1964–65)
The saga begins not in a boardroom but in the blood and mud of the Congo Crisis.
Enter “Mad Mike” Hoare, an Irish-born British Army officer turned mercenary leader. In the mid-1960s, he commanded 5 Commando, a band of white mercenaries fighting for Moïse Tshombe against Simba rebels. Hoare’s men were known for discipline, efficiency, and a brutal streak that made them feared across the Congo.
There is no firm evidence that MI6 directly controlled Hoare, but Britain’s fingerprints were present in other ways: veterans, logistics, and tacit diplomatic sympathy. 5 Commando wasn’t a company, it was a mercenary band, but it set the stage. It proved that a handful of Western soldiers could tilt the fate of an African state.
The British establishment took note. If mercenaries could shape wars, why not make them more professional, more deniable, more corporate?
Watchguard International (1965): The Birth of the Modern PMC
In 1965, SAS founder David Stirling and fellow veteran John Woodhouse turned that lesson into a business. They registered Watchguard International in Jersey, giving the world its first proper private military company.
Watchguard’s creation was radical. For the first time, war could be sold as a service. Veterans could swap fatigues for corporate titles, contracts could replace informal deals, and operations could be managed with a sheen of legality.
- Yemen Civil War (late 1960s): Watchguard sent personnel to advise and report on the royalist forces fighting Egypt-backed Republicans. Britain was already running a covert war through MI6, and Watchguard’s role gave London an extra layer of deniability.
- Libya (1970–71): Stirling himself was linked to a plot to overthrow Colonel Gaddafi—an audacious attempt at regime change. It failed, but it demonstrated the ambitions of these private armies and how easily their missions bled into Britain’s geopolitical aims.
Watchguard proved that a “company” could do what governments could not be seen doing: meddle in foreign regimes.
Keenie Meenie Services (1970s–80s): The Dirty Wars Contractor
By the mid-1970s, a new outfit emerged: Keenie Meenie Services (KMS), set up by ex-SAS men. Its name came from SAS slang for covert movement, and that summed up its role, moving through wars unseen, but decisive.
- Sri Lanka: KMS trained the Special Task Force, the paramilitary police unit used to crush Tamil insurgents. Evidence later suggested KMS pilots even flew helicopter gunships in combat. Civilians were caught in the crossfire, and allegations of atrocities mounted. When questions reached London, the Foreign Office stalled, resisted, and covered. Even decades later, files remain sealed.
- Afghanistan: During the Soviet–Afghan War, KMS was tasked, with government approval, to train Afghan commandos. Britain’s fingerprints were kept off the battlefield, but its private soldiers were right there, building capacity for the Mujahideen.
KMS represented the perfect marriage of state and private force. Britain could claim clean hands, while a company run by its veterans did the dirty work.
Sandline International (1990s): The Scandal Years
If Watchguard invented the model and KMS refined it, Sandline International took it to the front pages.
Formed in the 1990s by Colonel Tim Spicer, Sandline promised governments and corporations “military solutions” in an era of post–Cold War instability.
- Papua New Guinea (1997): Sandline was contracted for $36 million to crush the Bougainville insurgency. Instead, the plan triggered a political crisis, the fall of Prime Minister Julius Chan, and a near-mutiny by PNG troops. It was a spectacular disaster that showed the dangers of outsourcing war.
- Sierra Leone (1998): More serious was Sandline’s role in re-arming President Kabbah’s government during the civil war. Britain had imposed an arms embargo. Yet Sandline supplied weapons anyway. A parliamentary inquiry later revealed that Foreign Office officials knew about the contract. In other words, London may not have signed the deal—but it did not stop it.
Sandline marked a turning point. For the first time, Britain’s use of private soldiers collided with public scrutiny, exposing the blurry line between private business and national interest.
Aegis Defence Services (2002–): Polishing the Model for Washington
After Sandline’s controversies, Tim Spicer wasn’t finished. In 2002, he founded Aegis Defence Services, a slicker, more corporate version of the private army.
Within two years, Aegis had won a $293 million Pentagon contract in Iraq, managing hundreds of security operations during the occupation. A British company was now at the heart of America’s biggest war.
Even when a scandal erupted, a “trophy video” of Aegis contractors firing at Iraqi civilians circulated online, the company survived. By now, private armies weren’t rogue actors or scandal-makers. They were part of the system.
Aegis symbolised the final evolution of Britain’s experiment: from mercenary bands in Congo to professional corporations embedded in the American war machine.
The Common Thread: Whitehall’s Shadow
Across four decades and multiple firms, the pattern is striking:
- Deniability: Britain outsourced the dirtiest jobs- overthrows, training, embargo-busting, so the government could always claim plausible deniability.
- Recycling Veterans: The same SAS alumni reappeared in firm after firm. Watchguard men later surfaced in KMS; Spicer bridged Sandline and Aegis.
- Tacit Approval: Official documents and inquiries often reveal that London knew more than it admitted. In Sierra Leone, FCO officials were aware of arms shipments. In Sri Lanka, evidence points to diplomatic cover for KMS. In Yemen, Watchguard overlapped with MI6 operations.
- Shaping Regimes: Whether overthrowing Gaddafi, training Colombo’s counter-insurgents, or restoring Kabbah in Sierra Leone, these firms didn’t just fight wars, they changed governments.
Britain, the Original Private Army Superpower
Before Blackwater became a symbol of American imperial excess, Britain had already mastered the art of private war.
From the Congo to Iraq, its veterans turned coups into contracts and mercenaries into corporate directors. Whitehall benefited from deniability, influence, and reach, all while keeping official hands clean.
In truth, the age of private military companies was not born in Washington in 2003. It was born in London in 1965, when David Stirling signed the papers for Watchguard International. Every contractor that followed, from KMS to Sandline to Aegis, carried forward that same legacy.
Britain was the first state to prove that war could be outsourced, deniability could be bought, and regime change could be managed like a business.
