Matters Blackwater (Merged thread)

[zenpundit]

There are all kinds of negative potentialities here but there are also positive ones in that small professional units operating under great power supervision may in some instances be better than:

a) Doing nothing

b) Relying on the most poorly disciplined, led and trained armies of the world to be at the forefront of UN peacekeeping.

c) Letting virtually unarmed UN peacekeepers become accesssories to atrocities via ineffectuality, as in Bosnia.

While Tom's caveats are well-taken the current system is nothing to write home about either.

[Bill Moore]

Like Tom I have a lot of concern about sending contractors to wage our nation's fight, but I think Zenpundit's points are valid also. I wonder how effective a force like this would have been in Rwanda? They probably could have saved thousands of lives, but instead the U.S. and the Western world was embarassed and shamed by their political paralysis to respond with small military force. Executive Outcomes reportedly did an outstanding job in bringing the killing to a stop in Sierra Leone before they were asked to leave. Perhaps a company similar to Black Water could have been more effective in Bosnia than the Dutch military, and other so called peace keepers that made a laughing stock of the UN, then again without the credible threat of U.S. airpower to provide protection, a company like Blackwater probably wouldn't last a week against a force as large, well trained, equipped, and motivated as the Serbs. Liberia, Somalia, Rwanda, Philippines, Mexico, or isloated areas within Afghanistan and Iraq they may have a role, but a Bosnia type scenario is probably beyond their means.

The danger of this type of company is they can be employed without going through the political process that would be required to commit military forces, yet the advantage of this type of company is they can bypass the political process, thus give the President, or perhaps the UN, other regional organizations (like ECOWAS), or even other countries an option that can be employed quickly and effectively with minimal risk politically to the U.S. government.

I just wonder what happens when they get in over their head (like in Fallujah) in an area where the U.S. hasn't committed troops? Will the U.S. government be pressured to respond to get them out of trouble, or do we sit by and let Americans who were doing our (the U.S. military's) bidding for us get their butt kicked? Of course it will depend on the uproar created in the press.

Companies like this present our government with numerous hazards, but I think they also expand our national security options if.......

[Tom Odom]

Bill and all,

The issue of using mercs is one of those that depends on the where and the why. My own experience in dealing with this issue came about in researching the 1964 Congo Hostage Crisis. Leavenworth Paper #14 resulted. Many have read Mike Hoare's Congo Mercenary and it was nomninally the basis for the film, The Wild Geese. Both are works of fiction; the film is more honest about its romanticizing than Hoare. The mercenary operations in the Congo were multi-level:

The Ground Force: the real organizer of the ground op was Colonel Vandewalle who had been the last head of security in the Belgian Congo before independence. He was Belgium's man in organizing the Katangan Secession under Mosie Tshombe with a variety of mercenaries including Hoare and Roger Trinquier. When Tshombe came back in the 1964 crisis so did Vandewalle and he ultimately lead the mercenary column into Stanleyville from the south to link up with the Belgian Paracommandos.

The Air Force: the CIA and the USAF set up a Congolese Air America using T-6s, T-28s, and A26s (AKA B-26s) and Bay of Pigs Cuban pilots to fly close air support.

The Covert Force: there was also a merc/black element attached to Vandewalle's column to extract key personnel from Stanleyville.

All of this worked and then it did not. The Stanleyville and Paulis ops did save a large number of hostages. But more hostages were killed elsewhere in the next year. The mercenaries ended up revolting against the new Mobutu government and fought their way out via Bukavu.

In 1994 I raised the idea of contractors to secure the refugee camps in eastern Zaire, given the large number of ex-Rwandan army and militia members active in those camps. I suggested the Israeli-Zairian security company SOZAIS and even had the retired Isaraeli colonel who ran the company come out to Goma to do a site survey. SOZAIS used active soldiers from the DSP (the Mobutu regime guaranteors trained by Israel) to provide contract security to businesses and indiividuals. Ultimately a form of what I proposed did take place when the UNHCR hired a force of nearly 1000 DSP soldiers with "advisors" to help improve security in the camps. This helped the international workers but did nothing about the larger security issues in those camps; the ultimate fall out was the 1996 clearing of the camps and the 1997 and 1998 invasions of Zaire with a current death total in excess of 3 million.

Perhaps a merc force could have sopped the geoncide if someone had had the will to deply such a force. But I would say that the world did have a force capable of doing just that (UNAMIR) on the ground with a Commander willing to do it and nothing was done. I doubt seriously that the RPA (the rebels) would have accepted a merc force on their turf because they were already dealing with the French intervention and French assistance to the former government. Later when the RPA did move on the camps in 1996 using client militias, the former government and the militias had hired Serbian mercenaries to help train and lead their forces. They fared poorly against the RPA; I suspect any merc force interjected into this cauldron in 1994 would have shared a similar fate.

the closest thing to standing merc force in the world is the Foreign Legion. It allows France to do things that the French public and the regular military would not accept. Sometimes that is good as in the case in Kolwezi in 1978. Sometimes it is not: French activities in supporting and training genociidal killers in Rwanda are well documented. The 1st REPs rebellion in Algeria was another case where the use of forces loyal only to themselves caused France great problems.

And we have used mercs from time to time as an extension or lead for our own policy. The Flying Tigers in China were true mercenaries, drawing bounties for each Japanese plane shot down. That is not to take away from the valor or reputation of the AVG; Read Pappy Boyington's book for a warts and all view of the AVG.

My take on mercs is always measured against our national interests. If it is sufficiently in our interests to get involved militarily, then it should be sufficienty important to use our established forces.

best
Tom

[Jones_RE]

Mercenaries can provide several things to their employers:

1) Expertise. Mercenary soldiers may be better trained or more experienced than national forces. This probabably doesn't obtain in the US (with some possible exceptions).

2) Deniability. Mercenary soldiers may be hired in order to conduct military activities that the national forces do not wish to be held accountable for. This doesn't help the United States in our current conflicts - international media is more than capable of pinning a "contractor's" actions on the United States government. It's questionable whether mercenaries provide even a shred of deniabililty in the modern, information rich environment.

3) Expendability. National forces may be sensitive to their own casualties, but not to those of the mercenaries. The United States might make effective use of this trait, but for the fact that most of our private military companies are staffed by Americans. It was the gruesome murder several Blackwater employees that initiated the First Battle for Fallujah, for example.

4) Numbers. National forces may simply lack sufficient bodies to accomplish a mission and mercenary units can fill out the roster effectively. This is why the US employers PMCs in Iraq and Afghanistan - there is an extreme demand for infantry who can conduct security operations of many different sorts. This demand is so high that jobs that would ordinarily go to riflemen or MPs are outsourced at six figure salaries.

I'm afraid that as long as there is a shortage of effective foot soldiers, and mercenary units are available (both financially, legally and politically) then the US military will make use of their services.

A "healthier" use of mercenary formations would be places in South Korea, where forces are unlikely to see ground combat. Similarly, using contract soldiers to accomplish various non combat tasks, such as security and maintenance duties at US bases, might free up individual soldiers who could be re trained as infantry.

[Tom Odom]

Mercenaries can provide several things to their employers:

1) Expertise. Mercenary soldiers may be better trained or more experienced than national forces. This probabably doesn't obtain in the US (with some possible exceptions).

2) Deniability. Mercenary soldiers may be hired in order to conduct military activities that the national forces do not wish to be held accountable for. This doesn't help the United States in our current conflicts - international media is more than capable of pinning a "contractor's" actions on the United States government. It's questionable whether mercenaries provide even a shred of deniabililty in the modern, information rich environment.

3) Expendability. National forces may be sensitive to their own casualties, but not to those of the mercenaries. The United States might make effective use of this trait, but for the fact that most of our private military companies are staffed by Americans. It was the gruesome murder several Blackwater employees that initiated the First Battle for Fallujah, for example.

4) Numbers. National forces may simply lack sufficient bodies to accomplish a mission and mercenary units can fill out the roster effectively. This is why the US employers PMCs in Iraq and Afghanistan - there is an extreme demand for infantry who can conduct security operations of many different sorts. This demand is so high that jobs that would ordinarily go to riflemen or MPs are outsourced at six figure salaries.

I'm afraid that as long as there is a shortage of effective foot soldiers, and mercenary units are available (both financially, legally and politically) then the US military will make use of their services.

A "healthier" use of mercenary formations would be places in South Korea, where forces are unlikely to see ground combat. Similarly, using contract soldiers to accomplish various non combat tasks, such as security and maintenance duties at US bases, might free up individual soldiers who could be re trained as infantry.

All "good" business arguments. And many of which work counter to training, fielding, and maintaining a national military force that reflects the national society.

Tom

[Jones_RE]

I wholeheartedly agree. Note that mercenary strengths are only useful in the face of national weakness. A well trained, politically supported, and sufficiently large national force does not require mercenary help. Sufficient use of mercenaries, however, would naturally tempt policymakers to believe that there is no need to correct deficiencies in their force structures. Our current reliance on private military companies stems directly from a failure to pay attention to intangible factors in the national defense: soldier pay, recruiting and information operations as well as errors in the composition of the force (i.e. too much reliance on reserve and national guard forces, incorrect allocations of light units, etc).

[shloky]

The arguments presented thus far are based on the assumption that the state has a monopoly on violence and PMCS's are extraneous to legitimate and effective forms of utilizing violence. (That is the impression I've gotten anyway)

That is true -currently PMC's are tools to be utilized by nation states, few others can afford or have a requirement for a brigade.

But if we look to the future we see current PMC's are innovators on the adoption curve because their target customer base is so small (marked in yellow). They've been at this stage for quite some time, but as this article illustrates, they're attempting to get better at what they do.



As the PMC market evolves we'll see the positive attributes Zenpundit highlights become points/areas of competition. (Marked in red)

The major impact made by private security market will come as the state evolves (market state, decentralization driven by security concerns etc), which will increase its customer base, amount of primary participants and
competition.

Just some food for thought. It is not my intention to hijack the thread.

Regards,
Shlok

[SWJED]

Lecture notes from the Foreign Policy Research Institute (w/ video) - Private Military Companies and the Future of War by Deborah Avant.

The topic “private military companies and the future of war” is a big one. Both parts of the title—“private military companies” and “the future of war”—are phrases that can be disputed. In my recent book, which examines the privatization of security and its impact on the control of force, I label these companies “private security companies” (PSCs) specifically because they provide a range of services, some of which are hard to categorize as military, per se. And while PSCs are integral to war efforts—more than 1 of every 10 people the U.S. deployed to the Gulf in the lead-up to Operation Iraqi Freedom were PSC employees—some of the more controversial uses of private security have been in the aftermath of the “war.”

While all might agree that infantry soldiers should not be contracted out, in the midst of the insurgency in Iraq some PSCs have provided services that are nearly indistinguishable from what an infantry soldier would do. So it is in the grey area between what we would all describe as war and other violent settings that we can find the most interesting grist for thinking about the role of PSCs in the future of security. Indeed, PSCs have been in the news of late not because of their activities in Iraq, but because of their activities in New Orleans. Below I will offer a brief description of the market, discuss some of the benefits and risks it poses and suggest that their impact on the future of war depends, in part, on the strategies the U.S. and others undertake to manage the risks. I will end with what I see as the best avenue for moving forward...

Hat tip to Zenpundit

[SWJED]

Humanitarian Affairs Review - Should Humanitarians Use Private Military Services? by Peter Singer.

Private military services have taken part in conflicts from Bosnia to Iraq, supporting the work of governments, corporations and NGOs. Is this a healthy development? Peter W. Singer, from the Brookings Institution, warns the humanitarian community to be business-savvy before they take the privatisation plunge.

[SWJED]

23 May Associated Press - Amnesty Urges U.S. on Iraq Contractors.

[SWJED]

19 May Heritage Foundation paper - When Should the Government Use Contractors to Support Military Operations?.

Military contractors are currently assisting militaries around the world with missions that range from training and supply chain management to fighting in battles. Military contractors are seen as having inherent advantages over militaries in resource constraints, manpower, and flexibility. Yet relying on military contractors has its share of risks, including potential shortfalls in mission success, concerns over the safety of contractors, loss of resources because a capability is outsourced, loss of total force management, and problems of compliance with administrative law.

With the increased use of military contractors and the advent of privatized military firms, the question is how to determine the right force mix to complete a task or mission in the most effective and efficient manner. Sometimes, military contractors may be the best choice; however, they are not a perfect fit for every mission or the right solution for all skill and manpower shortages.

When considering the use of military contractors, U.S. military leaders should assess the risks of employing the various options and then choose the best one. The Department of Defense (DOD) should adopt comprehensive guidelines for making these decisions, using a risk-based approach...