Matters Blackwater (Merged thread)

[Tom Odom]

Lovely idea. Then we could hire mercs to engage in conflicts with no effect on the US scene beyond the bottom dollar. This seems to be a dangerous commercial extension of the drive to develop "lighter, more rapidly deployabe forces" in the interest of getting to conflict zones without a parallel--or more serious--effort at determining why you want to go in the first place. Faster is NOT always better.

I have studied and worked in environments where mercs get involved. We have already had serious side effects from merc security companies operating in Iraq.

Sounds rather Roman. I still believe that if a nation is not willing to put it's citizens and its policies at risk, then it should refrain from using mercs.

Tom

[GS]

Executive Outcomes and Sandline certainly come to mind.

[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