All-Mercenary service?

[Stratiotes]

Someone should use this Creveldian/PMC plot in a sci-fi novel. The ideas will spread like wildfire.

Yes, I had thought the same thing some time ago - before I knew Chet was writing his book actually. I wish there was more time in the day and that I had more talent to deliver the idea.

[Stu-6]

It seems that an all mercenary service is the wave of the future, but by doing so states will risk lose what legitimacy they have left. A state that relies on a corps of mercenaries will have given up it monopoly on violence. The state also runs the risk of creating a powerful enemy by empowering mercenaries.

[Stratiotes]

Last night I was watching Thomas Barnett's Blueprint presentation on video and it occurred to me that some sort of balance would need to be struck between protecting the homeland and projecting power. Mercenaries might be a good solution for projecting power but not necessarily desirable for defense forces - for several reasons, not least of them being fear of military coups but such a force. Many have advocated a well regulated militia for national defense - i.e., not a professional service like the national guard so much as an armed citizenry as with Switzerland. I think such a system could give us the best of both solutions. Every system is going to have flaws but this one seems to me the most cost-effective and also has the benefit of giving all Americans greater stake in our country so it should improve more involvement of the people in political movements. Seems a win-win to me.

[Stu-6]

Mercenaries are useful when the state needs deniability or expendable soldiers, I worry about a government that thinks it need either. A militia, like you described, would be the exact opposite and something that would inspire a lot more confidence with people like me.

[Fabius Maximus]

Mercs or militia? Perhaps opposite directions for US forces in the 21st century, or perhaps complementery.

Here is my article on the role militia might fill for US forces:

"Militia: the dominant defensive force in 21st Century 4GW?"
12 pages
http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/pdf/fabius_..._militia-1.pdf


Comments appreciated!

[Stratiotes]

Fabius -

I am a DNI site addict and I have enjoyed all your articles posted there. This one is no exception. It is good to have you here.

I think a mercenary/militia mix could be ideal.

As for the deniability of a mercenary force - I'm not so sure. To hire mercenaries for any purpose, a president would have to seek congressional funding and he would have to have an estimate of the cost along with the thinking behind the estimate. It would be a built-in check/balance in that the president would find it difficult to hide his true purpose when he has to open the project up for discussion with the representatives of the people. Not impossible, just more difficult. I would contend that congress voting moneys for a president to wage war as he sees fit and giving him a blank cheque to do it is something that has already been done on several occasions since WWII anyhow - a mercenary service would not make that more likely.
In the current structure, the NSA or CIA or who knows what other orgs can, in effect, act as such mercenaries at the whim of the president....I don't see how this would be any different. If anything, it would be harder for him to wage war without more congressional oversight.

[Stu-6]

Fabius Maximus

Well first of all let me say that like Stratiotes I am a regular DNI reader and have enjoyed your writings there.

As I expressed earlier I am more than a bit leery of the use of mercenaries. On the other hand I have often wondered why we don’t make more use of militia type units. This was obvious after hurricane Katrina and the lawlessness that ensued. Had there been sometime of militia or reserve police force they could have reinforced the police. Such units would only need some basic law enforcement training since they would all most always be side by side with regular police officers. After the initial training, the cost would be minimal since they would only need small arms, some riot control gear, and maybe few trucks. Since they would only be one or two days a month so they would need to be paid a lot just enough to they don’t lose money on the deal.

[TROUFION]

One of the suppositions of this thread has been that PMC's would be working for the US, Western States or more traditionally underdeveloped countries. Do these arguments remain if the Chinese hire Mercenaries to fight in Nepal? Or to protect their growing Oil interests in Zimbabwe? So far as I've read this argument has been entirely inward looking. Perhaps before we decipher the value of Mercs and Militias we should look at how our competitors would use them. I doubt the Chinese would feel comfortable issuing AK's to the populace.

Second thought: The UN relies on states such as Bangladesh to provide troops, these are state sponsored Mercs no different than Hessians at the turn of the 18th Century. Here is a good opportunity for a Blackwater like company to step in and offer a more professional security force. Of course they would have to compete with the rates the Bangladesh Army receives. AND they would have to follow UN authority for command and control.

Third thought: As for Militia, the US does not need a Militia. A more appropriate response would be large bodies of trained volunteer Emergency Responders. If Katrina taught us anything, it is that organization and coordination to any catastrophe, natural or man-made, is far more important than mobs of armed people roaming around without supervision. And the most valuable assets in that disaster where rescue helicopters, trucks and small boats for rescue and recovery. Major difficulty arose from an inability of the various operations to talk via radio to one an other, also in language, the USCG Lat Long for GPS locations while ANG used MGRS and the many PD’s and EMS’s used local street names, what happens when the militia shows up? The arguments that the Police could benefit from an armed auxiliary supposes that the Police are already well trained and that the auxiliary would also be well trained and subordinate to the Police. I do not believe the New Orleans PD lived up to that assessment.

-T

[Jones_RE]

Fabius -

A very interesting article. However, I wish you would spend more time on the missions which we would require of these militias. Ultimately, force design has to rest on the mission requirements. Counterterrorism and antiterrorism operations are specialist jobs. So is SWAT, although the teams of many smaller departments are strictly part time - serving regular patrol duties as well as occasional SWAT requirements.

Homeland defense consists of more than a body of men armed with machine guns. Especially an ill trained and poorly disciplined body - this is the security fallacy of the third world. Today, the threat from suicide bombers, vehicle borne IEDs, hijackings and hostage takings can't be forestalled by a force that requires even fifteen minutes to deploy, let alone the twenty four hours and more it can take a 'Guard or similar unit to form up. Our notional militia must have very different training from the expeditionary forces of our military in order to succeed - training in spotting the tell tale signs of a suicide bomber in action, in spotting surveillance activity at a high value target, seeing a vehicle driving erratically, etc. If we want them to take action, they'll need intensive direct action training as well - close quarters marksmanship, fast draws and concealed carry. These skills, and the vigilance to use them properly, are perishable. Only a select few have the ability to develop and use them wisely.

Ultimately, I think a more appropriate solution is a return to the sorts of Civil Defense wardens of the second world war - a time when an American city might well come under attack from air or sea in such a way that locally armed militia couldn't respond - but you still needed a coordinated plan to cope. Trained in countersurveillance, first aid and equipped with the technology to communicate rapidly with first responders and national intelligence as needed a modern civil defense warden's best weapon might well be a Blackberry . . .

As to the problems of mercenaries, it's a matter of regulating the market. Market forces are powerful, but they are not unstoppable. No human force is. Note that Swiss mercenaries have served the Vatican for centuries without incident. By tightly regulating who may employ PMCs and for what purpose, we will be able to limit the market and still make use of soldiers whose special skills we may require even after their enlistment ends.

[Stratiotes]

My understanding is that the militia is not intended to deal with antiterrorism - antiterrorism would be the role of mercenary specialists. A militia is, by nature, a defensive force.

The debate over if a militia primarily of light irregular infantry not being able to hold off a foreign attack is, I believe, based on a couple of presuppositions. One is that the militia purpose is to defend and hold territory - I'm not so sure that's the case. I think they are more a poison pill defense - any invader will be attempting to swallow an armed camp. Such an invader would have a counterinsurgency on his/her hands that makes Iraq or Vietnam or Malaysia look like choir practice. Such is, I believe, the reason Switzerland's militia has been so effective - any potential enemy knows that he will have to deal with an automatic weapon behind every tree, rock, barn.... He may make progress fighting a conventional war in the beginning and may even take a great deal of territory but then he will have the problem of holding it when the militia begins to carry out its primary mission - being a thorn in the side of any invader.