posted
We've been seeing more and more articles like this one that discuss the increasing role that private security forces are playing in US defense policy. I'm sure that this has everything to do with wanting to avoid a draft, and having a derth of soldiers in our volunteer military. The question is, is this the beginning of a return to the mercenary model? Is there any reason to think that this model will work better now than it did during the late middle ages and Renaissance? An army that is loyal to itself rather than a country is an inherently dangerous thing, I think, regardless of the time period in which it exists. Also, with corporations essentially writing trade, energy, and environmental policy for the gov't, and private military forces increasingly employed in place of national forces, where does that leave the government? Are we seeing the beginning of a ceding of power (or, one might argue, just another step in the process of this ceding of power)? Or did I just not get enough sleep last night, and wake up in a paranoid mood?
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Seriously? No response? I've been thinking about this ever since I posted about it, and the more I think, the more concerned I get. This just feels like a recipe for disaster. I ended up talking to a co-worker of mine, who is an ex-marine (yes, yes, I know, no such thing as an ex-marine, blah blah blah), about it. We're about as divergent as two people could be, politically--he makes The Pixiest look like a communist sympathizer--and he's in complete agreement with me on how dangerous this trend could be, if it continues. He talked a bit about the character of the various former marines he knows who have joined these mercenary companies. Not that it's surprising, but he said that they had all been men who were thought of, in his words, as "sh*theads" who were out for money and personal glory, and had little loyalty to anyone but themselves. That's not really who I want out there defending us and making the world safe for democracy.
No one else sees this as a problem?
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posted
My great uncle wrote a fair number of books dealing with the collapse of the nation-state model.
He spent his career as a political scientist, and did some fairly ground breaking research. Starting in about the late 70's, he predicted that the spread of resources, technology, and population, was unsustainable over the long term, and that we would see a systematic destruction of the state model across the world, as various factors converged to a hyper-unstable point. He never pinpointed when or how this would occur in practical terms. What you are talking about is the sort of convergance that COULD bring down the state model.
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posted
Well, that's what it seems like to me. Really, the idiocy of these two trends, and the danger of their combined effect...I think it's something that we as a country should be taking a really hard look at, but I don't hear anybody else talking about it.
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posted
I've heard stories from Yellowstone National Park about hikers whose dogs ran off and stirred up a bear and then hightailed it back to mom and dad with the bear hot on it's heals.
Al Qaeda has done just that, leading the bear back to its host countries.
What is the difference between Al Qaeda and an army of mercenaries? Not much, except the paid mercenaries are supposed to be on our side.
The problem with them being paid is that it's never in their best interest to settle a dispute. They delight in bloodshed and in stirring up trouble because it pays. They will keep stirring up trouble on behalf of their host country until they find a bear...China perhaps?
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Well, no one wants to look at it because we're comfortable...
Without the mercenaries, we'd have an absolute disaster in Iraq, rather then just a complete mess. They are filling vital roles, that need to be filled, in order to secure the peace.
If it weren't for mercenaries, we'd either have to institute the draft, or give up on iraq. Neither of these is really an acceptable option.
In terms of corporate power, again, its a matter of comfort. We don't want to take a long hard look at energy, for example, because our energy situation is rapidly approaching a crisis. We can turn to corporations, and let them deal with the mess, rather then talking about sacrifice, and high gas prices.
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Exactly Paul*. And more and more, we'll come to rely on the mercenaries to do our military work, delighted that we can further reduce the size of our own military--and after all, they do such a great job, don't they? And if they commit atrocities, well, they're just loose cannons, aren't they? We can wring out hands with a clear conscience, right?
*Well, on the military end, I think. I'm not so sure that that's what's going on with the corporations. I'll have to think about it some more.
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What I'm wondering about is why the US is paying mercenaries six times as much as the US pays the USsoldiers who are doing the really dangerous jobs. The only reason I can think of is an indirect campaign contribution by the Federal government to the RepublicanParty: "See, we really only have a 120thousand troops there" by not counting the mercenaries as USsoldiers. And obviously mercenaries don't have to be included in the UScasualties count, which is another political plus for the RepublicanParty.
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That's very cynical, BerenOneHand, to suggest that Halliburton would prefer to take in 10%profit on 6times the pay rather than to operate in Iraq out of a sense of pure selfless patriotism.
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Aspectre, how do you know the rate at which the gov't is paying its mercenary companies? I'd love a link, not because I doubt what you're saying, but because I want to be carefully documenting all of this at every step of my thought process, and sources are enormously helpful for that kind of thing.
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If we aren't willing to pay our troops a living wage, never mind outfitting the rank-and-file with proper equipment, we might as well outsource the work to interested third parties.
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Rhaegar, tell me where I'm wrong. Why isn't this a potential problem? Seriously, I want to know the thinking of as many people as possible on this one, from as many points in the political spectrum as possible.
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So Trevor, you don't foresee any potential problems with having our military power supplied by a third party? Seriously?
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We are slowly creeping towards a privatized police system, especially in rich suburbs. We have rent-a-cops patroling the streets. And gated communities all have their own private patrols.
Edited to add: Read Snow Crash Noemon, you'll love it.
[ August 12, 2004, 11:06 PM: Message edited by: Beren One Hand ]
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posted
This site has an axe to grind but "...the salary of a soldier in the lowest rank who has one year's service was $15,480 a year... ...The pay for an experienced corporal of three years of service was $19,980 a year." is a useful though slightly misleading start. I think there's another ~$3thousand for being in the Iraq combat zone for ~$18,500 and ~$23,000 respectively, which is what a US soldier of the same time&rank earns in the much safer Balkan* hazardous zone. Fully taxed of course.
"These ex-SAS men...can earn as much as $250,000 a year" though the common pay scale is $500to$1000 per dutyday for FirstWorld security personnel with prior military or police experience. Personnel from poorer countries -- Gurkhas, ChileanSpecialForces, etc -- are recruited by about the equivalent of six times the pay that they would receive in their own respective countries. No taxes on the first $120,000 per year earned by US"civilian" security personnel.
Until the USmilitary instituted stop-loss provisions preventing resignations&retirements, USSpecialForces were being seriously depleted by such recruitment from private security firms. Similarly, the UK's SAS and Commando units. Articles on this attrition of military combat units is where I originally found the "six times military pay" figure. Unfortunately, the articles that I'm aware of are now in the "pay to read" sections of online newspaper archives. Perhaps you can find more appropriate info
* There aren't many UStroops in the Balkans: replaced by NATOmember-nation troops, especially German and Canadian, before and since the Afghanistan and Iraq wars began.
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