A Mercenary Military?

[Gewehr98]

But a foreign country is ok?  When did we become Imperialists?

I figure sometime before Teddy Roosevelt's presidency, when we were canoodling around in the Philippines and Cuba.   

[Perd Hapley]

Correct.  Before that, we only invaded ourselves.   

[Matthew Carberry]

Correct.  Before that, we only invaded ourselves.   

I still do that. 

...and kittens die. 

[wooderson]

[roo_ster]

That is a pretty funny poster good for any ninja or ninja-wannabe.

Bob Kaplan is not so worried about private security firms:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200709u/kaplan-blackwater

[RevDisk]

But a foreign country is ok?  When did we become Imperialists?

How foreign countries want to deal with mercs is their business.  Apparently it's fashionable to burn them alive, hang them upside down, and beat them with sticks.  In another country, the typical treatment was a burning gasoline-soaked tire.  Interestingly, they did not burn to death, but rather asphyxiation.  I have a difficult time getting worked up about that, but I do think it's preferable to just shoot them.

[Art Eatman]

Per recent articles in "Newsweek", including the Oct. 1 issue, there are around 30,000 civilian contractors working as bodyguards.  Of these, some 28,000 are Iraqi.  Blackwater is around 1,000.

Only contractors of the Defense Department are subject to US law, per a law passed in 2000.  Blackwater, however, is contracted to the State Department.

If you read Farnham, et al, about executive protection training and requirements, cops and GIs are candidates for training into that work, but are not inherently competent by virtue of past training.  And that's the "why" of Blackwater and others.

The earliest instance of private-army mercenaries of which I'm aware is that of Shell Oil Corp.  They began their system in the 1970s after kidnapping of executives became popular.  The effort includes plant security as well as executive protection.  The original boss of that effort apparently had much in common with the African buffalo insofar as attitude and charm.

[doczinn]

Only contractors of the Defense Department are subject to US law, per a law passed in 2000.  Blackwater, however, is contracted to the State Department.

Not quite. Only contractors of the Defense Department are subject to military law, which kinda makes sense.

[Phantom Warrior]

First, I will say that I'm not comfortable with the lack of oversight and regulation of private security contractors.  If we (the Army) shot up a bunch of civilians there would be 15-6s all over the place, people would be getting court martialed, commanders would be getting relieved, the works.  The only reason Blackhawk is getting in trouble, as far as I can see, is because the Iraqi government is upset.

That said, people are overreacting to this whole "mercenary" thing.  As has been mentioned the number 100,000 covers ALL the contractors of any type in Iraq.  The vast majority of those are people like the Indians that work at the laundry point, the guys from Ratheon that got hired to come over here and install CREW systems (electronic warfare), the corporation that manages non-Iraqi terps, the firefighters, etc.  All of those people are present on our FOB, but there are no security contractors on our FOB.  All the force pro is handled by soldiers.

Within the security contractors there is another divide.  A lot of the security contractors are basically third country nationals (Africa or Far East, I'm not exactly sure where) who are hired to hold an M4 and guard the entrance to the PX in the IZ or or watch a check point inside a secured area or something.  These guys have almost no gear besides their weapon.  The ones in more exposed locations, like checkpoints, are wearing the requisite body armor and helmet.  But the guys inside the IZ don't have anything but a khaki uniform, a boonie hat, and their M4.  I've never seen any of them with sidearms, night vision, medical kits, or even spare magazines (maybe one).  All secure U.S. military facilities (hospital, FOBs, headquarters, entrance to the IZ) are still guarded by U.S. soldiers.

The last, and probably smallest, category is the more high speed contractors like Blackwater, Dynecorp, etc.  These guys do have the more sophisticated body armor, side arms, sometimes tactical radios, and roll around in SUVs equipped with radios, BFTs, CREW systems, and sometimes turrets w/ crew served weapons.  These guys do things from providing security to KBR convoys to securing non-military U.S. government facilities.

It wouldn't surprise me if security contractors are sometimes used to do things that it is illegal for the military to do.  But the reason for the majority of them is to perform duties, like securing State Department officials or guarding parts of the IZ, that the military does not have the combat power to do.  We are stretched thin as it is.  The reason you will see a draw down in Iraq next summer is because over half of the Army brigade combat teams are deployed right now.  There simply is no one available to replace the surge.  I'm sure the Marines are in a similar situation.  We flat out do not have the combat power to fritter away on securing all the various government personnel and facilities scattered all over Iraq. 

Which is where the security contractors come in.  By hiring out the a lot of the security work the military is free to do our job and destroy the enemy.  (Don't get me wrong, we aren't even doing that.  But that's a topic for a whole different thread.)  If the military was twice as big we'd have the soldiers to stand guard on anything we wanted.  But it isn't.  And the size of the military is statutorily regulated, so they can't just go out and hire more people.

There are some things about security contractors that aren't good.  They could definitely use some more oversight, and I'm not very comfortable with the idea of them being deployed stateside.  But hiring some guys to drive State Department officials around Baghdad is a far cry from King George.  I think we can put the revolution off a little bit longer.

[RJMcElwain]

Phantom,

Good thoughts. However, a couple of points. Given the inability of our government to report anything accurately and, specifically, the Pentagon to know where they're spending their money, is there any reason to believe that 100,000 number?

More important, is this the direction we want our military to go in the long run? To hired mercenaries? As I mentioned earlier, this country has had experience with this in the past, and all of it bad, IE "The Regulators" and other such vigilante groups.

I find the idea of "guns for hire" in place of a citizen military a scary idea.

Bob

[Phantom Warrior]

RJMcElwain,

*shrug*
I don't have access to high-level government documents, nor do I make a tick mark on a notepad every time I drive by a contractor.  That said, 100,000 is the number you hear all the time in the news and it sounds about right.  I've seen lots and lots of laundry, mechanic, chow contractors and a small number of security contractors.  There certainly isn't a sector controlled by Blackwater or anything.


Regarding hired mercenaries again, as stated, most of these guys are basically security guards.  Does your town have rent-a-cops that guard business or local events?  If you work for a big company, are there security guards in the parking lot?  Because that's the role these guys are filling.  Your town could put POST-certified, sworn officers at every business and parking lot in town.  But that would mean a much, much larger police force. 

Similarly, if you want to get rid of the contractors and replace them with soldiers you need to get Congress to authorize a larger standing military.  Then you need to get them to authorize the billions of dollars to recruit, train, pay, house, clothe, feed, equip, and provide medical care and other benefits for these soldiers to stand guard at a PX.  You don't need fully trained, sworn police officers to guard a parking lot, nor do you need a mechanized infantry battalion to do the same thing in Iraq.  Using contractors is easier to scale up and down as necessary.  Four years ago we had enough soldiers to meet all of our obligations.  And when we finally leave Iraq, the need will go away and we can let most of those contractors go.  Remember, you can't fire soldiers.  Given that the lower end security contractors have less training and less benefits, they are probably cheaper, body for body, than soldiers.


Once again, there are some problems with organizations like Blackwater and their lack of oversight.  But unless you want to throw the baby out with the bathwater and stand up a couple more divisions of soldiers to guard parking lots, we need contractors.

[wooderson]

So, the organization in charge of investigating the Blackwater claims for the US Govt was... Blackwater.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/054718.php

A few days ago the State Department released what it called a "first blush" report on the Blackwater incident in Baghdad, a report which largely exonerated the Blackwater personnel involved.

I noted at the time that "first blush" was something of an understatement since the report was based exclusively on statements the State Department took from Blackwater operatives on the scene. In other words, the Blackwater employees who did the shooting gave State an account that largely exonerated themselves. A truly shocking development.

But it seems that I was behind the curve on the level of caricature and self-parody that is the military contracting biz in Iraq these days.

The report was written out of the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security, the folks who hired Blackwater to provide security for US diplomats in Iraq. But it turns out that the State Department employee who interviewed the Blackwater folks and wrote the report, Darren Hanner ... well, he wasn't a State Department employee. He was another contractor from Blackwater.

So yes, you've got that right. We've now reached what can only be called the alpha and the omega of contracting accountability breakdown ridiculousness. We're outsourcing our investigations of Blackwater to Blackwater.

[Paddy]

Once again, there are some problems with organizations like Blackwater and their lack of oversight.  But unless you want to throw the baby out with the bathwater and stand up a couple more divisions of soldiers to guard parking lots, we need contractors.

Really?  Why is that?  And how have we managed to fight (how many?) wars without contractors until now?

[Len Budney]

And how have we managed to fight (how many?) wars without contractors until now?

Conscription.

[Hawkmoon]

More important, is this the direction we want our military to go in the long run? To hired mercenaries? As I mentioned earlier, this country has had experience with this in the past, and all of it bad, IE "The Regulators" and other such vigilante groups.

I find the idea of "guns for hire" in place of a citizen military a scary idea.

I agree -- I dislike and distrust the use of mercenaries.

The alternative, however, is unacceptable to a large segment of the U.S. citizenry: reactivate the draft. Statutory limitations aside, the practical reality is that we aren't going to increase the size of our active duty military by very much even if the statutory limit was doubled. I just read an article within the week that noted the percentage of high school graduates in the military is way down over what it was even a year ago. I zeroed right in on that, because it was my understanding that the "new" (to me, a Vietnam veteran) all-volunteer army wouldn't even talk to anyone who didn't have at least a high scool diploma. Evidently I was incorrect.

So what this means is that to maintain even the inadequate number of troops we have, we are

(a) Lowering the standards for recruitment;
(b) Not allowing people whose contracts (terms of enlistment) have ended to leave the service ("stop loss," a concept unheard of when I was in);
(c) Calling up the reserves; and
(d) Federalizing the National Guard for duty in foreign countries, a role for which the National Guard is not intended.

Items (b), (c) and (d) above are counter-productive, short-term solutions. Some people enlist in the Army Reserve or the National Guard mostly for the "free" education, but they didn't expect to be sent off to some God-forsaken corner of the world for literally years at a time. And I doubt either the reservists, the NG troops, or the regular Army (or Marine) enlistees ever foresaw that when their contract was finished the government would say, "So what? You ain't goin' home until we tell you you're going home. Screw your contract ... read the fine print. No, the VERY fine print, where it says we OWN your sorry ass." Things like that do not make other young men and young women rush the gates to sign up, hence the need for recruiters to lower the standards (although they uniformly deny they have done so) to have even a remote prayer of coming close to meeting their quotas.

Like it or not, if we want a bigger military we have to either SIGNIFICANTLY increase the pay scale, or reinstate the draft. Or perhaps both. I expect that many of you who have grown up since the draft was stopped in the mid-70s will be adamentily opposed to the concept of starting it up again. Having "come of age" during an age when the draft was a fact of life and we looked at it as just another civic obligation ... I don't have a problem with it, and I keep wondering why the Hell they haven't done it.

[RJMcElwain]

More important, is this the direction we want our military to go in the long run? To hired mercenaries? As I mentioned earlier, this country has had experience with this in the past, and all of it bad, IE "The Regulators" and other such vigilante groups.

I find the idea of "guns for hire" in place of a citizen military a scary idea.

I agree -- I dislike and distrust the use of mercenaries.

The alternative, however, is unacceptable to a large segment of the U.S. citizenry: reactivate the draft. Statutory limitations aside, the practical reality is that we aren't going to increase the size of our active duty military by very much even if the statutory limit was doubled. I just read an article within the week that noted the percentage of high school graduates in the military is way down over what it was even a year ago. I zeroed right in on that, because it was my understanding that the "new" (to me, a Vietnam veteran) all-volunteer army wouldn't even talk to anyone who didn't have at least a high scool diploma. Evidently I was incorrect.

So what this means is that to maintain even the inadequate number of troops we have, we are

(a) Lowering the standards for recruitment;
(b) Not allowing people whose contracts (terms of enlistment) have ended to leave the service ("stop loss," a concept unheard of when I was in);
(c) Calling up the reserves; and
(d) Federalizing the National Guard for duty in foreign countries, a role for which the National Guard is not intended.

Items (b), (c) and (d) above are counter-productive, short-term solutions. Some people enlist in the Army Reserve or the National Guard mostly for the "free" education, but they didn't expect to be sent off to some God-forsaken corner of the world for literally years at a time. And I doubt either the reservists, the NG troops, or the regular Army (or Marine) enlistees ever foresaw that when their contract was finished the government would say, "So what? You ain't goin' home until we tell you you're going home. Screw your contract ... read the fine print. No, the VERY fine print, where it says we OWN your sorry ass." Things like that do not make other young men and young women rush the gates to sign up, hence the need for recruiters to lower the standards (although they uniformly deny they have done so) to have even a remote prayer of coming close to meeting their quotas.

Like it or not, if we want a bigger military we have to either SIGNIFICANTLY increase the pay scale, or reinstate the draft. Or perhaps both. I expect that many of you who have grown up since the draft was stopped in the mid-70s will be adamentily opposed to the concept of starting it up again. Having "come of age" during an age when the draft was a fact of life and we looked at it as just another civic obligation ... I don't have a problem with it, and I keep wondering why the Hell they haven't done it.

Exactly!!

I was about to reply to  "Conscription" by  saying something similar to what you said. However, you said it better than I would have. And, unfortunately, none of our politicians have the b***s to even suggest bringing back the draft but, in the end, that's the only true solution. And damn right, more pay!!

Bob

[Gewehr98]

As somebody who's been stop-lossed twice in his military career, that ain't no fun. 

[RevDisk]

As somebody who's been stop-lossed twice in his military career, that ain't no fun. 

Ever see a piece of paper with your enlistment temporarily extended to 2038 ?  I still to this day have no idea why that was put on my paperwork.  My IRR time expires this December.  I don't worry about it, but... 

Never, never sign to military job description that is essential, rare and in high demand.

[Perd Hapley]

Never, never sign to military job description that is essential, rare and in high demand. 

You mean like when an infantryman on IRR switches to Natl. Guard, as Intelligence?  In 2004?  Yikes!  A very near thing for old fistful on that one. 

[Gewehr98]

I'm still sweating bullets because I sent in my mandatory recall paperwork earlier this year, and haven't heard hide nor tail since then. I did make a couple pissed-off calls to my buddies in Air Staff. 

No news is good news, so far. 

[Phantom Warrior]

Really?  Why is that?  And how have we managed to fight (how many?) wars without contractors until now?

As has been mentioned, the military used to be much bigger than it is now.  The Army was several million soldiers (around eight, I believe) during WWII.  Now it is half a million.  *shrug*


To anyone advocating the draft, are you willing to pay for it?  Something like 2 million men turn 18 every year.  Same for women.  One of the more common things I hear is "Oh, our young people should all serve two years in the military when they turn 18 to teach them patriotism and discipline."  4 million times $1000/month times 12 months/years equals 48 billion dollars a year.  And that's just to pay these people.  That doesn't count any of the money that would have to be spent to train, equip, feed, clothe, house, and generally support these millions of troops.

We'll leave aside the whole issue of the precipitous plunge in quality if you quit letting in a few more people w/ GEDs and start whole sale importing people who flat out have no desire to join the military, giving them basic training, and then kicking them out after two years.  The bottom line is we have the soldiers we need to win a real war.  We stomped Sadaam Hussein in no time flat with much less troops than most people predicted would be necessary.  Remember 2003 and the initial push?  It's tying up the military garrisoning and policing a country that's a hop, skip, and a jump away from a civil war that is straining our resources.

[RJMcElwain]

To anyone advocating the draft, are you willing to pay for it?  Something like 2 million men turn 18 every year.  Same for women.  One of the more common things I hear is "Oh, our young people should all serve two years in the military when they turn 18 to teach them patriotism and discipline."  4 million times $1000/month times 12 months/years equals 48 billion dollars a year.  And that's just to pay these people.  That doesn't count any of the money that would have to be spent to train, equip, feed, clothe, house, and generally support these millions of troops.

We'll leave aside the whole issue of the precipitous plunge in quality if you quit letting in a few more people w/ Geddes and start whole sale importing people who flat out have no desire to join the military, giving them basic training, and then kicking them out after two years.  The bottom line is we have the soldiers we need to win a real war.  We stomped Saddam Hussein in no time flat with much less troops than most people predicted would be necessary.  Remember 2003 and the initial push?  It's tying up the military garrisoning and policing a country that's a hop, skip, and a jump away from a civil war that is straining our resources.

For starters, the draft operated on a lottery system based on the number of troops the military determined it needed at that time. We've never drafted 100% of those eligible. With a draft, the military can also be selective about who they determine to take. Also, with a draft the families of politicians would be eligible for the military and getting shot at. That might cause a few politicians to think a little more seriously before committing us to war.

Further, if a large number of youths serve a couple of years in the military, and maybe others serve some time in other forms of service to their country, we'd have a larger ready reserve to tap into if they're ever needed for actual war.

We fought Vietnam with a draft and we didn't need to hire mercenaries. We didn't need them in Korea or WWI or II. Ending the draft after Vietnam was a stupid mistake. We need to correct it.

Bob

[BrokenPaw]

As somebody who's been stop-lossed twice in his military career, that ain't no fun. 

Ever see a piece of paper with your enlistment temporarily extended to 2038 ?  I still to this day have no idea why that was put on my paperwork.  My IRR time expires this December.  I don't worry about it, but... 

Never, never sign to military job description that is essential, rare and in high demand.

Disk,

That was likely because of a specific computer error.  Unix computers store a date/time value as a number of seconds since Midnight, January 1, 1970.  They use a 32-bit signed value to store the seconds, which means that this counter rolls over at 2038/01/19 03:14:07.  Probably some foolish programmer interpreted a negative value wrong, and gave you a 30+ year reenlistment.

-BP

[CAnnoneer]

I don't see why mercs cannot have their place in the overall tapestry of force. There certainly are potential problems to consider, e.g. of legal, political, and psychological nature, but I don't think they are insurmoutable. Mercs do have some advantages over regular military, and thus can be efficient in certain tasks.

As far as conscription goes, I agree it will be expensive and I don't see how useful it would be militarily. People think of conscription models that are well over 50 years old, probably some as far back as WW1. In WW1 mentality, the projection of force in the field of battle was based on infantry riflemen, supported by artillery and mobile units. Thus it was believed that more was always better. In addition, the slow speed of tactical troop movement, mostly by foot, meant that large armies were necessary to cover wide geographic fronts to prevent flanking manovers and maintain supply lines.

However, technological advances, e.g. rapid-firing artillery and machineguns, actually devalued the massed infantry and caused huge losses in personnel in the battlefield. That resulted in the stalemate of trench warfare, which ironically still required large numbers of troops, to man trenches stretching hundreds of miles. The stalemate was broken by technological developments, chiefly tanks, but also mechanised infantry and ground-assault aircraft. The new-found mobility and striking power meant a numerically inferior but mobile and organizationally superior, coordinated army would win, which is essentially the idea of the blitzkrieg, as best demonstrated by the French collapse in 1940 and the early encirclements on the East Front.

Nowadays, tactical weaponry is even more destructive, while mobility is much higher, and communications, organization, and coordination have become a complex art of its own. Thus more troops which are very inexperienced and untrained, will not accomplish much more on the battlefield, in fact they are likely to get themselves killed in far greater numbers accomplishing much less.

The only place where I can think numbers would be a significant advantage would be military police operations for holding and policing territory, or battlefield operations in environments where modern tech cannot be fully brought to bear. This analysis is supported by the massive conversion of other units into MP, which has been going on since the invasion in Iraq.

To recap, conscription will be expensive and inefficient, while bringing only very modest military benefit in very specific cases.

[Len Budney]

I don't see why mercs cannot have their place in the overall tapestry of force...

Just a note: the libertarian position has no problem with mercenaries per se. If defense and law enforcement are privatized, then all agents of force are "mercenaries." But libertarian society enforces a crucial distinction: security and defense workers have no power or authority above any other citizen. They can confiscate property from thieves, and they can use lethal force in self-defense or in apprehending a suspect--but so can anyone else, and like anyone else, the security worker must be prepared to shoulder the burden of proof that he was acting lawfully.

What makes mercs dangerous is that when governments hire them, they grant them special immunities similar to cops and soldiers, but exercise much less oversight than the police or military. Power + Immunity - Oversight = Very, Very Bad.

--Len.