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| Iraq |
| Mercenaries to Fill Void Left By U.S. Army |
| 2010-08-12 |
| As the U.S. military continues to draw down its forces in Iraq later this month and complete a full exit by the end of next year, analysts say the withdrawal will be a boon for the private security industry, whose employees will likely undertake more quasi-military functions such as defusing explosives and providing armed response teams. “They [private security contractors] are going to have to do everything that we expect soldiers to do without going out on patrols to engage the enemy,” says one former industry insider. “There are some pretty smart number crunchers in all the major contractors who are figuring out how much of this increasing pie we’re going to be able to get.” What exactly that pie will consist of remains to be seen. During the first four years of the war—the most recent available estimate—the U.S. spent as much as $10 billion on private security contractors, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Yet this occurred at a time when the military employed far fewer than the roughly 11,000 private security contractors that it employs today. Just how many will remain in Iraq when the U.S. leaves will depend on the conditions on the ground. Yet analysts say the number of mercenaries will likely remain stable and could even increase slightly. And, as these contractors expand into new roles, “the price of them goes up,” says Stephanie Sanok, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #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 |
| #7 Once ODA555 was finished.... But General Dostum enjoyed playing Buzkashi with the team Pan. :-) |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2010-08-12 17:20 |
| #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 |
| #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 |
| #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 |
| #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 |
| #2 There's a long history of history of hiring reliable professionals from 'outside the family'. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2010-08-12 08:31 |
| #1 executive outcomes |
| Posted by: armyguy 2010-08-12 08:01 |