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Perhaps this is a dumb thing to think about but i think it should be considered to an extent. The U.S. has a presence all over the globe and bases around it already, we have the most high tech army on earth to my knowledge and we have a huge amount of debt we need to pay off.

I mean currently the way i see it is having so much of a military without getting anything out of it is a gigantic waste and it doesn't help the U.S. is in debt. So if a country that we are either neutral with or on good terms with needs military help and it serves their interests (but not really the U.S.'s interests though not against the U.S.'s interests) and we happen to be nearby we could help them out for a fee. Kind of like the U.S. loans out parts of its army for a rate decided on how costly the equipment used is or certain hazard pay. A lot of nations have plenty of money but lack a large enough military in case something came around to bite them in the *ss or if it needs help against criminals or terrorists to keep the peace.

The general idea is kind of like mercenaries except from a country with certain guidelines.

I might think up another few possibilities. I'm sure huge chunks of the world lack the military technology or resources to maintain or use this stuff themselves so i can see how they might want to have an army out of nowhere when they need it most.

Anyway if this idea is stupid then tell me but i think it's a decent general idea that could be broadened out a bit.

What if people in the U.S. military could agree to this first though? Maybe they could also be paid extra for signing up to help out some country and get lent out in a sense. Also in a sense this is america's interests as it'd help get us out of an insane amount of debt as a country. This doesn't necessarily mean fighting another country's war but it could help the peace of nations that need it but lack a military to do it.

What about drone strikes?

Besides not everything has to be super expensive and there are some countries that might afford a small bit of it. It's not like i'm saying we could lend out a stealth fighter jet.

Yes except we don't have to give them equipment. If we lend it it would be in our interests. Then again i suppose you have a point that eventually a nation we helped could screw us over in the end. I dunno i still don't think it'd be as bad if it was loaned rather than given away for a price.

There might be some foreseeable problem in the future but like in that story the other outcome was a communist run country.

Have you ever seen the movie 'Charlie Wilson's War'? I'll admit it basically mentioned that the events that lead up to the terrorists in al qaeda happened because we gave weapons to afghanistan to cause it to happen but the other outcome was the soviet union would expand its borders through military force. A lot of things can seem to be bad in the end. Personally i'd rather have terrorists to face than the soviet union embroiling the world in a nuclear war or march through killing lots of people on its path to where it went.

I dunno maybe it's a bad idea what i said.

 daedalus wrote:
I... you want the US to overtly and directly send it's military to kill people for money.

I'm going to sit on that for a second... little while longer... okay, so... who?

Who is there out there that isn't already part of a mutual defense pact with the US, that isn't appallingly misaligned with the morals and beliefs of US people, and has money, such that we can send our soldiers to die valiantly in the name of overt government and corporate profit?

Remember the "Blood for Oil" gak-fit in the early post-9/11 days? Wouldn't go over too well.

Not like it'd be the first time the U.S. or any other country killed for a gain like land in mexico or most of the other parts of land in the U.S. This is helping the U.S. and they could probably volunteer to help another country for a pay boost.

There are a lot of countries in the world. We already have bases in a lot of other countries. We also wouldn't be the first country to my knowledge to lend out our military for other nation's interests (german hessians supposedly were used during the revolutionary war of the U.S. because the british army didn't want to face their own people supposedly).

 daedalus wrote:

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
Machiavelli on mercenaries;

To be fair, that would actually benefit the US. Problem is it'd only work once.

Yeah it would but i didn't realize it'd screw over the recipient so bad. Whoops.

It could make some more enemies for the U.S. once they've been dried out of money.

As it is though i think the U.S. has screwed up in quite a few places honestly. Not like this would be the first or last time if it happened. The big mistake currently seems to be the U.S. getting itself into debt in the first place. Didn't thomas jefferson say something about the hazards of debt? If i remember he died in complete debt and everything he owned was taken away. This is why i'd rather not buy something if i don't have the money for it even if it's at a paid rate.

We still currently use mercenaries and it probably isn't to our benefit. Like i said plenty of nations currently don't have an army. Armies are expensive to maintain and a large amount of that debt is probably in part because of it.

 curran12 wrote:
"Like I said, plenty of nations currently don't have an army"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_without_armed_forces

There ya go. Now which one of those are we selling our lives to again?

This is the most inane idea I've ever heard. And the rationalization is worse, completely unresearched and made with apparently no research, foresight or...as it seems a clue.

Way to take my words extremely literally. I meant 'not much of an army'.

It was an idea i pitched. Mercenaries are an old thing but this was something i likened to mercenaries. That's why i didn't research all about mercenaries. I was throwing ideas out there. You don't have to be insulting.

I think the germans did it for the british during the revolutionary war (german hessian mercenaries). I remember hearing in history class it was a common misconception that british soldiers mostly fought for the loyalists in that war as they would not fight their own citizens.

 sebster wrote:

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
I think the germans did it for the british during the revolutionary war (german hessian mercenaries).

Looked it up and right you are. I always thought they were private citizens. Thanks for that.

I remember hearing in history class it was a common misconception that british soldiers mostly fought for the loyalists in that war as they would not fight their own citizens.

What?

Supposedly most of those redcoats vs. yankees that you see in films is mostly bull sh*t and the revolutionary war was in many ways a civil war i'm pretty sure. Hessians were hired help. I remember hearing british soldiers didn't want to fight colonists because they were still sort of considered british citizens. I mean an american soldier shooting down american citizens even if they were trying to fight them would be hard to think of. Then there's that statistic which states that most fresh recruits purposely miss a target because they don't want to kill somebody. Something like about 75% of people shoot off into the wild blue yonder or act like they're doing something because they can't bear to take a human life. Add to that rebels often would look just like citizens and Bam! they can't stand killing them.

So yeah i think supposedly the hessians fought a lot of the revolutionary war in america. Of course the colonists saw the use of hessians as a treacherous act by the british and hated them even more for it.