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For the life of me. I never handle a a Combat unit composed of PMC for the US Military. As mention before those "Combat Forces" of PMC were hired by DoS, CIA, and a few O.G.A. and only to provide Security

 Jihadin wrote:
For the life of me. I never handle a a Combat unit composed of PMC for the US Military. As mention before those "Combat Forces" of PMC were hired by DoS, CIA, and a few O.G.A. and only to provide Security

Keep feeding the lie. You know damn well we resurrected Mad Mike Hoare, Cat Shannon, and Xenophon to lead hordes of mercenaries to slaughter in our name.

 CptJake wrote:

 Jihadin wrote:
For the life of me. I never handle a a Combat unit composed of PMC for the US Military. As mention before those "Combat Forces" of PMC were hired by DoS, CIA, and a few O.G.A. and only to provide Security

Keep feeding the lie. You know damn well we resurrected Mad Mike Hoare, Cat Shannon, and Xenophon to lead hordes of mercenaries to slaughter in our name.

We should never have open that book...........

I don't care if it was the boy scouts of America who were hiring these contractors!!

All this talk of justice departments, defence departments, security departments and national parks departments, misses the fundamental point:

Violence and authority is a nation's most powerful tool, and for obvious reasons, nations try to hang onto that.

By outsourcing that tool to contractors, America is exhibiting the signs of a nation with a crisis in its own authority, and it's own moral purpose. The collapse of the Soviet Union has left America wondering what it hell it should do. Luckily for America, the rise of China will give it back that purpose.

In the meantime though, Jihadin and CptJake keep saying that these contractors are only cooks, or hairdressers, or whatever.

But, that overlooks two things:

1) The USA like a lot of countries can't convince people to join its armed forces, as people remain unconvinced about the political case for American force projection/defending American interests overseas

and

2) Washington has to pay mercenaries money to do its work for it. Again, signs that it lacks a moral or political purpose.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
I don't care if it was the boy scouts of America who were hiring these contractors!!

All this talk of justice departments, defence departments, security departments and national parks departments, misses the fundamental point:

Violence and authority is a nation's most powerful tool, and for obvious reasons, nations try to hang onto that.

By outsourcing that tool to contractors, America is exhibiting the signs of a nation with a crisis in its own authority, and it's own moral purpose. The collapse of the Soviet Union has left America wondering what it hell it should do. Luckily for America, the rise of China will give it back that purpose.

In the meantime though, Jihadin and CptJake keep saying that these contractors are only cooks, or hairdressers, or whatever.

But, that overlooks two things:

1) The USA like a lot of countries can't convince people to join its armed forces, as people remain unconvinced about the political case for American force projection/defending American interests overseas

and

2) Washington has to pay mercenaries money to do its work for it. Again, signs that it lacks a moral or political purpose.

I was Contract Oversight on my last rodeo. Who were the Mercenaries the US Military hired?

 Jihadin wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
I don't care if it was the boy scouts of America who were hiring these contractors!!

All this talk of justice departments, defence departments, security departments and national parks departments, misses the fundamental point:

Violence and authority is a nation's most powerful tool, and for obvious reasons, nations try to hang onto that.

By outsourcing that tool to contractors, America is exhibiting the signs of a nation with a crisis in its own authority, and it's own moral purpose. The collapse of the Soviet Union has left America wondering what it hell it should do. Luckily for America, the rise of China will give it back that purpose.

In the meantime though, Jihadin and CptJake keep saying that these contractors are only cooks, or hairdressers, or whatever.

But, that overlooks two things:

1) The USA like a lot of countries can't convince people to join its armed forces, as people remain unconvinced about the political case for American force projection/defending American interests overseas

and

2) Washington has to pay mercenaries money to do its work for it. Again, signs that it lacks a moral or political purpose.

I was Contract Oversight on my last rodeo. Who were the Mercenaries the US Military hired?

Mercenaries, contractors, is there a difference? It's all small print to me. I'm not going to use the Bremer/Viceroy example again,

but I'm going to continue with my theme of a crisis in authority and moral purpose.

For example, everybody in America agrees ISIL is bad. Obama's said it, Biden, Republicans, hell even Jimmy Carter said it.

Everybody in America agrees that ISIL is a threat to American interests in the Middle East.

Everybody agrees that America is the most powerful nation on earth.

Logically, if the most powerful nation on earth is seeing its interests threatened, then the most powerful nation on earth would fight back.

And then the most powerful nation on earth gets somebody else to fight for it. In this instance, the Kurds...

Would Rome, would the British Empire do this?

To hell they would. They'd send in their own troops.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

But, that overlooks two things:

1) The USA like a lot of countries can't convince people to join its armed forces, as people remain unconvinced about the political case for American force projection/defending American interests overseas

and

2) Washington has to pay mercenaries money to do its work for it. Again, signs that it lacks a moral or political purpose.

Don't be an idiot. We're cutting back our military, and turning people away from the recruiter, we've quit granting various waivers for enlistment, and have not had a problem making mission for years, and when we DID have the problem it was due to a very quick build up, not due to folks being "unconvinced about the political case for American force projection/defending American interests overseas". We temporarily (and in my opinion wrongly, and I would bet Jihadin would agree) lowered the standards to allow the quick increase in force size.

The Army nationwide is on pace to hit its fiscal year 2014 goal of signing up 57,000 recruits for active duty.
That's down from about 80,000 new recruits each year from fiscal 2005 through 2008. Only once, in 2005, did Army recruiters fail to hit their mark.
In those years, much of their recruiting success was owed to commanders granting waivers for conduct and health issues that in peacetime would keep candidates out of the military. Only 86 percent of new recruits at the height of the Iraq War had completed high school. Many with felony convictions were allowed in.
Today, 99 percent of recruits have graduated from high school. The military branches expect higher scores in the ASVAB test, which quizzes candidates on tools and electrical circuitry as well as on language and math. Even a past misdemeanor may disqualify a potential recruit.
"It's not that we have a zero defect mentality, because we don't," said Nathan Christensen, a Navy officer in public affairs for the Defense Department. "But it is true that the quality of military recruits right now is the highest it's been in 40 years."
Many potential recruits don't know that. They're out of luck when they show up at Hoard's office with drug charges in their background, without a high school diploma or GED, or with more girth than the Army allows.

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2014/05/13/military-forced-to-get-picky-in-recruiting.html

The Department of Defense announced today recruiting and retention statistics for the active and reserve components for fiscal 2014, through December 2013.

• Active Component.

• Recruiting. All four active services met or exceeded their numerical accession goals for fiscal 2014, through December.

• Army – 10,924 accessions, with a goal of 10,670; 102 percent
• Navy – 6,835 accessions, with a goal of 6,835; 100 percent
• Marine Corps – 5,413 accessions, with a goal of 5,410; 100 percent
• Air Force – 6,549 accessions, with a goal of 6,536; 100 percent

• Retention. The Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps exhibited strong retention numbers for the third month of fiscal 2014.

• Reserve Component.

• Recruiting. Five of the six reserve components met or exceeded their fiscal-year-to-date 2014 numerical accession goals.

• Army National Guard – 12,569 accessions, with a goal of 12,060; 104 percent
• Army Reserve – 6,543 accessions, with a goal of 7,081; 92 percent
• Navy Reserve – 936 accessions, with a goal of 936; 100 percent
• Marine Corps Reserve – 2,063 accessions, with a goal of 2,011; 103 percent
• Air National Guard – 2,337 accessions, with a goal of 2,337; 100 percent
• Air Force Reserve – 1,410 accessions, with a goal of 1,369; 103 percent

http://www.defense.gov/Releases/Release.aspx?ReleaseID=16516

"(It's a) fallacy that we recruit from the poorest of Americans," Campbell said. "Those numbers bear it out. If you look at the numbers, we essentially recruit from the middle class to the upper middle class to the richest."

http://www.army.mil/article/46505/army-again-beats-yearly-recruiting-numbers-quality/

You're second point has been addressed multiple times. At this point you have yet to show anything but emotion to back up your claims, and it is getting old real fast.

I agree. We did lower the standards.

Now US Army is turning away those who are "Heavy set" while before you spend a couple week in a "Ready Platoon" before assigned to a Basic Training Company
Way back in the day.... .....damn I am old

I respect the fact that you guys are military men who served your country, so understandably, your loyal to the flag.

But if you're privatising your military, outsourcing authority to contractors and abdicating responsibility as a matter of national policy, you can afford to turn potential recruits away.

After all, you're getting somebody else to do the fighting for you.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
I respect the fact that you guys are military men who served your country, so understandably, your loyal to the flag.

But if you're privatising your military, outsourcing authority to contractors and abdicating responsibility as a matter of national policy, you can afford to turn potential recruits away.

After all, you're getting somebody else to do the fighting for you.

Cite me one source/organization/contract where the US Military has a legal binding for a "Organization" that is conducting Combat Operations on the US of A behalf.

 Jihadin wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
I respect the fact that you guys are military men who served your country, so understandably, your loyal to the flag.

But if you're privatising your military, outsourcing authority to contractors and abdicating responsibility as a matter of national policy, you can afford to turn potential recruits away.

After all, you're getting somebody else to do the fighting for you.

Cite me one source/organization/contract where the US Military has a legal binding for a "Organization" that is conducting Combat Operations on the US of A behalf.

Yeah, seriously, show actual examples of 'outsourcing authority to contractors' and 'abdicating responsibility as a matter of national policy' (assumedly to these mercenaries). Show me where we are 'privatizing our military'.

Don't just repeat the same gak, actually give some damned references.

 CptJake wrote:

 Jihadin wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
I respect the fact that you guys are military men who served your country, so understandably, your loyal to the flag.

But if you're privatising your military, outsourcing authority to contractors and abdicating responsibility as a matter of national policy, you can afford to turn potential recruits away.

After all, you're getting somebody else to do the fighting for you.

Cite me one source/organization/contract where the US Military has a legal binding for a "Organization" that is conducting Combat Operations on the US of A behalf.

Yeah, seriously, show actual examples of 'outsourcing authority to contractors' and 'abdicating responsibility as a matter of national policy' (assumedly to these mercenaries). Show me where we are 'privatizing our military'.

Don't just repeat the same gak, actually give some damned references.

Well, the abdicating authority bit is simple - you're getting the Kurds to fight a group who are considered to be a clear and present danger to American interests in the Middle East

You're getting the Japanese to crank up their military spending, when years ago, there would have been no need, as America seen itself as the sole guarantor of Japan's security...

You let Britain and France take the lead when they bombed Libya and overthrew Gaddafi.

Your president talked about red lines in Syria and did nothing when the other side danced all over them.

And you let Germany and France do the heavy lifting of talking to Putin about a ceasefire in the Ukraine, and you left the job of reassuring NATO allies in Eastern Europe that all was well, to Britain and France.

Need I go on?

As for the rest, I may need some time to get some graphs together.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 CptJake wrote:

 Jihadin wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
I respect the fact that you guys are military men who served your country, so understandably, your loyal to the flag.

But if you're privatising your military, outsourcing authority to contractors and abdicating responsibility as a matter of national policy, you can afford to turn potential recruits away.

After all, you're getting somebody else to do the fighting for you.

Cite me one source/organization/contract where the US Military has a legal binding for a "Organization" that is conducting Combat Operations on the US of A behalf.

Yeah, seriously, show actual examples of 'outsourcing authority to contractors' and 'abdicating responsibility as a matter of national policy' (assumedly to these mercenaries). Show me where we are 'privatizing our military'.

Don't just repeat the same gak, actually give some damned references.

Well, the abdicating authority bit is simple - you're getting the Kurds to fight a group who are considered to be a clear and present danger to American interests in the Middle East

You're getting the Japanese to crank up their military spending, when years ago, there would have been no need, as America seen itself as the sole guarantor of Japan's security...

You let Britain and France take the lead when they bombed Libya and overthrew Gaddafi.

Your president talked about red lines in Syria and did nothing when the other side danced all over them.

And you let Germany and France do the heavy lifting of talking to Putin about a ceasefire in the Ukraine, and you left the job of reassuring NATO allies in Eastern Europe that all was well, to Britain and France.

Need I go on?

As for the rest, I may need some time to get some graphs together.

You are all over the board

Where are the hordes of mercenaries in any of those examples, and how do they effect any of them?

I could address them all one at a time, but suffice it to say, they don;t back up any of your claims the way you think they do.


I'll use the Japan one as an example. Do you REALLY think it is the US responsibility to be the 'sole guarantor of Japan's security', or even in our national interest to do so? It is not our responsibility nor in our national interest to do so is the correct answer. Having a partner with their own capability they can bring to the table and having them take on a leadership role and work to build coalitions in the region is a lot smarter. And we're moving that direction for good reasons.

We could talk about the ABCT and the Airborne IBCT and the SBCT all conducting training and show of force ops in Eastern Europe, and the A-10 squadron that deployed as well (and ask where Britain and France's equivalent forces are, oh that's right, they can't field equivalent forces for a variety of reasons).

The rest of your wondrous examples are as valid (that is to say, not valid at all) for similar reasons.

Most of the time, the contractors the US employees that are armed are used to "train-up" local troops. For example, the LIberian(?) civil war was mentioned in the intial article.

We hired and paid for the contractors that disbanded the old military and retrained/rebuilt the new government forces.

The idea is for the US to be involved, without being "involved" if you know what I mean.

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:By outsourcing that tool to contractors, America is exhibiting the signs of a nation with a crisis in its own authority, and it's own moral purpose.

Wrong. Not just kinda wrong, but fundamentally and hilariously wrong.

It was a country determining it was more cost effective to leave the defense of static positions to temporary assets, thus freeing up its combat assets for offensive action.

Every contracted security guard manning a post is one more active duty Marine or soldier available for a military purpose.

National armies are a relatively new development in warfare, only really arising in the 18th and 19th centuries and reaching a peak in the 20th centuries.

Even then, it was not uncommon for nations to recruit contractors and idealists to support their goals from outside of the national military.

While support roles are the most common (for example a lot of ships running supplies past U-Boats in the Atlantic were civilian owned) combatants were also common (like the Flying Tigers and Eagle Squadron).

Technically the Free French forces in World War 2 were soldiers of fortune on the allies' side as their national army had been ordered to stand down. More than a few times after the French surrender the British and Americans found themselves fighting against the actual French military.

There isn't a major power in history that hasn't used mercenaries or proxies to fight on its behalf. The Romans recruited large numbers of barbarians into their legions, the Persians hired Greek hoplites, the Byzantines had the Vargnarian guard, the British sent privateers agains t the Spanish treasure fleets, the French recruited Native Americans for raids against the 13 colonies then sent 'military advisors' to support the American Revolution, the Americans recruited Native Americans to fight other Native Americans during the westward expansion, the Confederates hired privateers to raid Union commerce, the USA would recruit forces for fighting in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos in the 1960s and 1970s and would do so again in Afghanistan in the 1980s. The Arab states and Iran would fund competing groups fighting in Lebanon and Palestine...

It goes on and on. Hiring people to fight your wars for you is the norm of human history. National armies are the anomoly.

Yeah, private militaries are actually the norm. Rather than the exception, as far as history is concerned.

In fact, even during the 18th century when national armies were becoming the main thing, many regiments were actually the property of the commanding officer. He was responsible for equipping and training everyone in the regiment, and he got paid to keep the regiment's services. This is why it was fairly common for there to always be a few ghost soldiers in a regiment, so the commander could pocket the wages for the non-existent soldier.

And when a regiment's services were no longer needed, the unit would often sell their services to another nation. Heck, entire kingdoms often rented their armies out to the highest bidder. You made money and got your soldiers practical battlefield experience without needing to actually engage in a war. The Hessians that got sacked at Trenton are an example.

A lot of the mercenaries were technical experts. From Leonardo DaVinci providing military engineering services to Venice to the Flying Tigers providing air and ground crew to the republican Chinese, having an uncommon skill put you in demand.

So, the argument is essentially that post-WWII National Armies were the exception and not the norm. Now, we are reverting back.

That seems to be a common theme in a lot of areas, socila, political, demographic, etc.

I don't think that is accurate at all. Top end war fighting gear is the stuff only states can afford to develop and field. And the stuff even the Blackwaters and Executive Outcome types can bring to battle cannot hold up against what even most 3rd world armies can field.

And none of them have anything close to the force projection/forced entry capability the big militaries have.

I wouldn't say we are even reverting back. If you look at the Cold War, both sides funded fighting forces to wage war against the other side's interests. Ignoring national proxy actors like South Vietnam you see the CIA funding various tribal groups in South East Asia to fight the ccommunists. Revolutionaries and Counterrevolutionaries across Africa and South America were bankrolled by Moscow or Washington. Hezbollah and Hamas were both also proxy armies paid for by other countries.

One of the blind spots is the idea of separating paid warfighters from idealists who support a cause. Many of the soldiers of fortune around the world are actually tied strongly to a faction before a paycheck becomes involved. Its hard to be willing to risk your life for something just because of the money. likewise a lot of these forces dont recognize themselves as proxies fighting on behalf of another power but instead as independant actors in their own struggle.

Also, these things are fluid as well. At the start of the debacle in Iraq, the Kurdish militias could be considered paid forces supporting the western powers actions against Saddam and later keeping order during the occupation. Now, with IS having essentially broken the power of the central government over the northern portion of Iraq, the Kurdish forces are essentially a national army in their own right.

The PMCs aren't mercenaries as long as they're US citizens, at least not according to the Geneva convention.

 Easy E wrote:

 Manchu wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
dead soldiers have more of an emotional impact than dead private contractors

Fascinating point. If it is true, I wonder why.

They talked a bit about this point in the interviews. It basically boiled down to stereotypes.

Troops= Our loyal boys and girls who are selflessly putting the national interest above themselves. Their death is a tragedy!

PMC= Dirty, filthy, greedy Mercenary scum. Good riddance.

Edit: Also good point about backign away from our committment and ability to project power. As a nation loses this ability, it is natural to turn to Mercenaries. Therefore, the use of Mercenaries could be a sign of national weakness. Interesting.

When I was in Iraq, I didn't interact with too many American mercenary companies, there were a few I would deal with while I was a ECP NCOIC, but primarily they were brits, at least the ones that fit the stereotypical mercenary ideal. We did hire a lot of civi companies to help with logistical matters, I.E. Cooking, maintenance, etc etc.

I don't think that it is because we are shrinking in our ability to project power though.

For every Civi that we have working over seas, that's one more soldier that is freed up to do their job. For example I was a CH-47D-F mechanic, we typically worked 14 hours a day on the aircraft, and while we usually were able to keep up with the workload, there were times where we were really short-handed.

If we didn't have those civis helping us, we would have had to task soldiers to various jobs that aren't MOS related, such as; KP, Tower Guard, ECP, QRF..etc etc.

Also, many of the "armed" Mercenary groups had jobs such as escorting VIP's and transporting equipment. During the height of the war, we had a hard time staffing enough soldiers to complete these jobs without violating "Dwell" time back home.

I mean sure, we could deploy more soldiers to a warzone, but politically, if a president can deploy a smaller amount, they will to save themselves from being called a "warmonger" anymore then they already are.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
I don't care if it was the boy scouts of America who were hiring these contractors!!

All this talk of justice departments, defence departments, security departments and national parks departments, misses the fundamental point:

Violence and authority is a nation's most powerful tool, and for obvious reasons, nations try to hang onto that.

By outsourcing that tool to contractors, America is exhibiting the signs of a nation with a crisis in its own authority, and it's own moral purpose. The collapse of the Soviet Union has left America wondering what it hell it should do. Luckily for America, the rise of China will give it back that purpose.

In the meantime though, Jihadin and CptJake keep saying that these contractors are only cooks, or hairdressers, or whatever.

But, that overlooks two things:

1) The USA like a lot of countries can't convince people to join its armed forces, as people remain unconvinced about the political case for American force projection/defending American interests overseas

and

2) Washington has to pay mercenaries money to do its work for it. Again, signs that it lacks a moral or political purpose.

To be honest, while there are times it is difficult to recruit, we haven't hit a point where we couldn't get the numbers we needed, if that was the case we would have seen the draft. If you look at the benefits the U.S. military offers its service members to join, it isn't a bad gig. I'm out now, going to school, but including my GI-Bill, and VA pension, I make over 3k a month...just to go to school, which is completely paid for by the Gov't.

As far as the morale goes. Maybe, All I ever worried about was my fellow soldiers, that was all the morale I needed.

Wait, are you telling me PMC are not bad guys and that an army of them is likely to do jack squat?
Call of Duty lied to me.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Wait, are you telling me PMC are not bad guys and that an army of them is likely to do jack squat?
Call of Duty lied to me.

Play Army of Two instead

Contractors in the military needs to be seen in the context of modern organisations, where outsourcing is routine, and increasingly common. The first reason for this is that companies see little value in managing operations outside of their core competency. If you're a legal office, odds are your managers, knowledge and organisational culture aren't the best fit for managing cleaning staff, so you hire an outside contractor to do that. And it isn't just peripheral stuff, essential functions like payroll are probably outsourced by about 50% of organisations these days, government and private.

The second reason is that companies are increasing keen on flexible structures. This is seen as both cheaper and more effective. Cheaper because you only employ these groups when you need them - no point having a full marketing department when you only roll a product out once every three years, better to engage an outside marketing firm each time. And more effective because each time you employ a marketing firm, you can engage the one best suited to this particular product, instead of just accepting whatever abilities your own marketing dept has.

The military obviously isn't exactly like other organisations, it isn't even that similar to other government organisations. But it still exists in the modern world, and follows the same logic and same management trends as everyone else. And so it privatises, the same as everyone else.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
1) casualties. In my view, America likes starting wars, but doesn't like it when the body bags start coming home. Who does, but I think this effect is more pronounced in the USA. Vietnam was arguably the first example of this instance. The employment of mercenaries negates this. Yes, mercenaries get killed just as well as Marines, but dead soldiers have more of an emotional impact than dead private contractors.

I think this is one of the great myths of history, to be honest. Every country hates soldier deaths, and that's never really changed. The relevant factor is whether people belief the cause is worth the losses, and whether the cause is being won. The issue with Vietnam (which was not as unpopular as popular culture likes to portray) was that the cause was vague and had little relevance to the people back home, and the war dragged on.