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2010-08-12 Iraq

Mercenaries to Fill Void Left By U.S. Army

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Posted by tipper 2010-08-12 07:03|| || Front Page|| [3 views ] Top

#1 executive outcomes

Posted by armyguy 2010-08-12 08:01|| 2010-08-12 08:01|| Front Page Top

#2 There's a long history of history of hiring reliable professionals from 'outside the family'.

Posted by Procopius2k 2010-08-12 08:31|| 2010-08-12 08:31|| Front Page Top

#3 I think that corporate mercenaries are the wave of the future, for low level operations, as opposed to extremely expensive standing armies, who will be much smaller, and reserved for serious wars and foreign policy muscle flexing.

This makes a lot more sense to older military personnel as well, because military pensions are also probably going to disappear, except for the most senior officers and NCOs. So they can "laterally transfer" to a mercenary corporation, and continue their career after 20 years in the standing army.

This also helps insure that the mercenaries don't become so mercenary that they turn on their own country. Much like why the French Foreign Legion have regular French Army officers.

Most of what such corporate mercenaries do will be like what they are doing in Iraq right now, plus low intensity, long term peacekeeping missions, to keep belligerents apart, and even humanitarian aid missions.

They might even be used for UCW against obnoxious revolutionary movements/criminal gangs like FARC in Colombia.

Posted by Anonymoose 2010-08-12 09:25|| 2010-08-12 09:25|| Front Page Top

#4 A country that does not fight its own wars will lose sight of the cost of war and the realities of fighting it.

Posted by 49 Pan 2010-08-12 11:58|| 2010-08-12 11:58|| Front Page Top

#5 49 Pan: Yes, but most of the activities of the military are not in war. And sending top notch combat forces, along with an intensive and extensive support mechanism, to keep poorly armed nitwits from offing each other with pointed sticks for 20 years is wasteful of resources.

Posted by Anonymoose 2010-08-12 13:13|| 2010-08-12 13:13|| Front Page Top

#6 No arguement that contractors are important to the success of any US operation. We simply could not afford to maintain a force sized to go totally in uniform. Combat contractors, IE security/PSD, or outright operators is what I was leading to. The last thing we need is a mercenarie force working for DOD.

I did not understand your comment about nitwits. If your meaning what is going on in Afghanistan I cant agree with you more. Once ODA555 was finished and the other units were done leveling Afghanistan we should have exfilled and gone home. Staying and allowing conventional forces to try to control the land was a mistake and unnecessary. They were not a nation of laws, they were tribes that barely got along at best. If we would have pulled pitch and gone home, they would have still been nothing more that a group of tribes and we would have been better off for it.

Posted by 49 Pan 2010-08-12 17:11|| 2010-08-12 17:11|| Front Page Top

#7 Once ODA555 was finished....

But General Dostum enjoyed playing Buzkashi with the team Pan. :-)

Posted by Besoeker 2010-08-12 17:20|| 2010-08-12 17:20|| Front Page Top

#8 one good thing about mercs is when they have too go into a war zone they pretty much already know the horrors of war and alot less like;ly will PSTD and you don't have as many kids getting killed not knowing what they where reaklly getting into.

Posted by chris 2010-08-12 17:30|| 2010-08-12 17:30|| Front Page Top

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