PMCs: What is the media missing?

[marct]

Hi Lea,

I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but - really - why is it that people outside of this particular forum are so hesitant to talk about this issue? Any ideas?

Well, I have a suspicion that it has to do with several forms of groups dynamics. I think that 120mm's post pointed to one form of this - people flow back and forth between being a "contractor" (loosely defined) and a being active. If you look at it in that way, you can see that the PMCs and the active forces are really a single professional area, at least in the US, in the sense used by Abbott (Andrew Abbott, The System of Professions, 1988, University of Chicago Press). The expansion of PMCs since the Iraq war has, IMHO, just expanded and reinforced this connection (you can see it in some of the HR stats, say re-enlistments amongst junior officers and the use of re-up bonuses).

Now, I'm looking at this as a civilian academic (I'm a Canadian Anthropologist) who has never been in the military, so I could easily be wrong . Still and all, the US does have a pattern of having dual professions, one private and one state, in a umber of areas (e.g. law enforcement and private detectives is one example). I think that this pattern of dual professions is now being replicated in the military area more heavily than it used to be.

Now,you asked why people won't talk about it (outside of here ), and I would suggest that it is a matter of group dynamics and the interplay between the two professional areas. Most strongly bonded groups don't talk to "outsiders" and, I suspect, as the ties between PMCs and the active services get stronger (via a whole slew of routes such as personnel, contracting, shared service in the field, etc.), they are becoming "closer" as a single group and this "don't talk to outsiders" trait is becoming stronger.

Marc