All-Mercenary service?

[Fabius Maximus]

In my "militia" article (link given above) I discuss mercs, and give what I consider a pretty decisive 390 words on why we should not use them.

If anyone has a rebuttal, I'd appreciate seeing it.

I await receipt of Chet Richard's book to read why I am wrong. Although I've discussed it with him and still remain convinced that this is the wrong path for us.

[zenpundit]

A comment on mercenaries, PMC’s and militias:

Mercenaries have their uses and what constitutes a “ Merc” depends on the definition you care to use. John Keegan has pointed out that our professional soldiers are technically speaking, mercenaries. So is the Foreign Legion. So were the British Army Ghurkas. According to the UN’s ridiculously torturous definition of mercenary activity, virtually no one fighting for pay under the color of authority of a state is a “Merc” unless you are “Mad Mike “ Hoare or Colonel Bob Denard.

Frankly, PMC’s with real military capabilities like the old Executive Outcomes are damned useful in the Gap where the dramatically outclass local fighters, be they rebels or state military conscripts. We would get far better results in, say, Darfur, using full-blooded PMC’s against the Janjaweed, under the supervision of Core state military officers than say, by bribing OAU states to send 25,000 ill-trained, poorly equipped
“ Peacekeepers” who will rape, murder and loot. Or Bangladeshis, who though better disciplined, need a huge amount of foreign logistical amd material support.

While I have reviewed Dr. Richards brief that is based on Neither Shall the Sword and found it provocative and intellectually useful for challenging outmoded assumptions, replacing the Defense Department with all-PMC’s or a mix of PMC’s and militia is simply not going to happen for any great power. A small state, like a Gulf Emirate, might find such a policy useful as their militaries are useless for anything beyond maintaining internal order but a great power treads in dangerous waters if it were to try that policy. It is simply a bad idea for all the reasons listed by Machiavelli.

Militias have their uses but lets not go overboard with this concept either. Militiamen are not going to maintain and fly fleets F-16’s, operate attack submarines or be given control over tactical nukes. State militaries are always going to have a place at the table and suggesting otherwise is a preference for an isolationist foreign policy that disregards the stabilizing effects of military security on the global economy. You have to count not only the obvious costs, enormous as they are, of the Leviathan “ Big War” American defense establishment but the expenditures that we do not make because states take the preponderant power of the U.S. into account for their calculations.

Absent that military hegemony of the U.S., the world would have a) far more state vs. state wars and b) the economic costs of interrupted trade.

[Stratiotes]

I await receipt of Chet Richard's book to read why I am wrong. Although I've discussed it with him and still remain convinced that this is the wrong path for us.

Fabius - Ah, the mystery of the web - from the first article of yours I read I had suspicions that you and Chet were one and the same person.

zenpundit/Jones_RE and others - I agree that you have made some good points about limitations of the militia. I don't think a militia is necessarily the the answer all by itself but I think the assets it would provide make it a very important (if not the most important) part of a national defense. With a militia, any other fulltime force such - Mercs or otherwise - could be substantially reduced and provide less of a danger of abuse (the very argument of many of our founders). At the same time, I think we have become so used to a large fulltime force that we have made an assumption that it is required or that it is superior to all others.

As an aside, I do not see the connection that some states do not go to war because of US strength. I see a lot of war still going on despite the threat of US intervention. And, at times, such as with Kuwait, our political maneuverings cancel out the threat and lead potential badguys to think we will do nothing - leading to our intervention and another war we would not have had otherwise.

[Stratiotes]

Sorry to dominate the thread but I just remembered somebody had mentioned a militia would not work well because of the size of our country.

To me, the size of our country is simply a geographical challenge that can make it more difficult for the militia or for the invader depending on how it is handled. The Swiss example is more analogous than it might seem - their area is smaller but its also very mountainous - they have a geographic challenge as well. They have learned how to use that challenge to their advantage. We could use the geography of our country - size being one factor of many - to our advantage. I just don't see how this is something that makes a militia necessarily less effective. If anything, it is an even greater challenge to any potential invader since he has even more territory he has to try and hold.

[Jones_RE]

I think you mean me, Stratiotes. And now that I think about it, I recall that the top strategists for the Empire of Japan ruled out any large scale seizure of US territory in part because so many Americans owned guns. So the poison pill factor does still apply to us. (Tangent - if we'd known how many Iraqis owned AK-47's would war planners have set things up differently?)

"Herd immunity." It's a term coined to reflect that fact that when you immunize a certain percentage of a group against a disease, that disease is no longer able to affect the group. That is, you don't have to reach a 100% immunization rate in order to protect the group, because diseases must pass from individual to individual and cannot do so under a condition of herd immunity - infected individual comes into contact with another susceptible individual.

Herd immunity is the sort of thing we reach for with a militia/poison pill strategy. We don't have to arm everyone, just a sufficient percentage to deter attack.

I think a sort of herd immunity is the desired end state with any 4th Generation conflict - a level at which individual actors or cells may be capable of violence, but incapable of spreading and reproducing more cells to follow their line of operations (to borrow from Maj. Strickland - the enemy has LOOs too, after all). All of the usual techniques of counterinsurgency are really seeking to reach this end state - but we haven't had a term for victory before.

[Stratiotes]

I think a sort of herd immunity is the desired end state with any 4th Generation conflict - a level at which individual actors or cells may be capable of violence, but incapable of spreading and reproducing more cells to follow their line of operations (to borrow from Maj. Strickland - the enemy has LOOs too, after all). All of the usual techniques of counterinsurgency are really seeking to reach this end state - but we haven't had a term for victory before.

I agree with you. And, on the AK count in Iraq - days before the war began I had read a report on AP I think about how Sadam's regime had given away automatic weapons and ammunition to citizens and required that they learn how to use them. I think there was some knowledge of how many there were but perhaps they thought none would be used against "liberators." A gross underestimation of the potential I would think.

On the insurgent side, their task is substantially easier than the counterinsurgency. The insurgent has to only install the thought that a physical occupation of their land does not necessarily mean they have to accept occupation in their hearts. They are occuppied physically but not mentally. It reminds me of the part in the movie "Hanoi Hilton" when the Cuban torturer is mocking an American prisoner with, "Don't you realize I can make you free, man?" to which the American responds defiantly, "I'm already free, man!" So long as the herd immunized to never accept physical defeat as the final defeat, they continue to have the seeds of resistance.