How private armies will remake modern warfare

http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21638096-how-private-armies-will-remake-modern-warfare-return-hired-gun?fsrc=scn/tw/te/pe/ed/returnofthehiredgun

by rbanffy • 12 years ago

75 64 12 years ago

economist.com

pav7en3• 12 years ago

Hmm, mercenaries, 'soldiers of fortune', a very romantic concept. I'd like to be one, but then not.

Military training is tough and if the only thing you're fighting for is a paycheck, then you won't hang in there when it counts the most and hence are worth jackshit as a mercenary.

Most private armies worth anything consist of ex-soldiers of a republic. In essence these companies are subsidized by a/the republic's taxpayers.

So they are not a major threat to established governments, but still constitute a worrying trend. For if the world becomes sufficiently fucked, these will be the only dignified jobs left.

Hence, need to be regulated and monitored heavily by established governments. In no way should these emerge as alternates to democratic state power. As is modern democracies face an onslaught of challenges-look at freedom of expression. And I can only laugh at the ludicrousness of this term 'freedom of expression' if these private armies metastasize into something powerful.

deepsun• 12 years ago

if the only thing you're fighting for is a paycheck, then you won't hang in there when it counts the most and hence are worth jackshit as a mercenary.

Completely wrong. From what I heard from spec ops, professional soldiers are way better in fight. The main point, he said, is that outside people think that war needs courage, while really it's experience that matters. And proper supplies.

pav7en3• 12 years ago

You misunderstood me. Whom do you consider a truly professional soldier? In my view it's a marine, a SEAL, or another military member of a modern state. Heck even a Pakistan army soldier is a professional soldier.

So what drives these professional soldiers is not the paycheck, its the idea of patriotism or that they are upholding some set of values for their country, or the idea that they are protecting their country. That is what allows them to hang in there when it goes well beyond limits of human endurance.

Refer the marine campaign of Iwo Jima 'http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Iwo_Jima', where soldiers went for 3-4 months without adequate food, rest or even barely human conditions against a fanatical enemy. Or for that matter any campaign during the world war. Or any other war worth something for the parties involved.

And my point is you can't get such kind of men or women to fight for money as mercenaries. And if I'm paying for mercenaries I want people like the ones who fought Iwo Jima.

So, if you look at the recruiting for the private armies most of them are ex-soldiers of a nation-state's army.

After a while some guys come to view it as any other profession. And then probably start working for a private army.

But even then I'd be surprised if private armies would be able to hold up their own against national armies or even if their members expect to.

rayiner2• 12 years ago

The author fears that the world is entering an era of “neomedievalism” in which the state loses its monopoly of legal force and instead other wealthy groups or individuals fund private military adventures.

I've seen a narrative in few places, often from libertarians who don't embrace the state but also don't believe that people would live peacefully without it. They posit some variation of: the wealthy don't gain on the net from the security provided by the state, because they could provide their own private security more cheaply. Of course, anyone powerful enough to protect you in the absence of the state has no reason to work for you rather than enslave you. John Galt, the engineer, isn't a free man without the state. He's a slave to a warlord, one who puts his talents to work amassing wealth for himself.

That's what makes the possibility raised by the author terrifying. Because in the long run, when private armies take over for states, the "wealthy groups or individuals" aren't Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. They're feudal lords--people who earn their position in society by being skilled in war.

wtbob• 12 years ago

Of course, anyone powerful enough to protect you in the absence of the state has no reason to work for you rather than enslave you.

I think the libertarian point is that this same logic applies to states themselves.

Note how recently polities have taken away the freedom of restaurants to choose to allow smoking, selling certain sizes of drinks; the freedom of parents to choose their children's education and so forth.

knorby• 12 years ago

Note how recently polities have taken away the freedom of restaurants to choose to allow smoking, selling certain sizes of drinks; the freedom of parents to choose their children's education and so forth.

Any policy related to the things you've mentioned were or were not enacted by popular support, on those issues in particular. Brutal slaver warlord can take away restaurants, high fructose corn syrup, and your children with a single vote.

mercurial• 12 years ago

Note how recently polities have taken away the freedom of restaurants to choose to allow smoking, selling certain sizes of drinks; the freedom of parents to choose their children's education and so forth.

Terrifying. And it has been going on for a long while. Remember when shops in the US had the right to sell their wares to whoever they wanted, back in the good old days before the Civil Rights movements? Those were the days. </sarcasm>

More seriously, regulation takes some freedom away, but you have to look at the big picture. Smoking is harmful, even second-hand smoking, and public health efforts to reduce its effects should be applauded and not lamented.

meric2• 12 years ago

1. As the state slowly becomes encumbered by politicians who are controlled by a tiny minority of individuals who control key sectors of the economy, and the influence on policies from the democratic majority is reduced to zero, a 'country' controlled by warlord factions and private armies may be closer to the 'market' equilibrium by eliminating the waste of the bureaucratic middleman. No need to use roundabout ways and Kafkaesque policies to dominate the people and compete with other factions, just do it outright. You can read an example here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warlord_Era As you can read in the article, private armies are cheaper and just as effective (Possibly due to government overpaying weapons manufacturers controlled by friends or relatives of public bureaucrats). This efficiency may in the future outcompete public armies.

2. Eventually conflicts between warlords lead to increased inequality between various private 'states' and thus consolidation - and from this monopoly of private armies a state emerges. To maintain this monopoly and to maintain stability and create a sense of legitimacy (and thus preventing new competing warlords from arising) it introduces policies like public bureaucrats only indirectly controlled by the individuals who have actual power, who act for the benefit of the public; and depending on the era, an emperor that governs for all, or allow the public to elect some officials, - the economy prospers and generate more taxes for the rulers.

3. This morphs into a more or less fair and democratic and equal society that may last for several decades or even centuries, as the economy booms, inequality is introduced. More affluent individuals are able to afford better education and better connections to their children, who are more able to compete for positions of power. The state slowly becomes encumbered by politicians who are controlled by a tiny minority of individuals who control key sectors of the economy. Go to 1.

"The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has ever been" - Romance of the three kingdoms

With a couple of exceptions, I have thus described the revolving history of China from the Zhou to modern times.

542458• 12 years ago

Do nuclear weapons (or equivalently massive weapons) not change this equation, by making incumbents incredibly difficult to oust?

Alternatively, would nuclear weapons not make conflicts between warlords either token or devastating?

Does the reliance on extremely high-cost support and weapon systems (satellites, aircraft carriers) not make the barrier to entry for warlords impossibly high?

While the idea of history always repeating itself is appealing, I fail to see how this example can apply in a modern world. Too much has changed, and short of a "mad max" regression, I don't see how feudal China can repeat itself here.

electromagnetic• 12 years ago

Except the evolution to this point requires complete inaction on the parts of the governments.

Yes, some businesses have more money than entire countries. Because we allow it.

It was the King who decided who was a Baron, an Earl or a Lord, and it was on the King's grace that they kept that position. Piss him off, act disloyal and you'll be stripped of your rank. If your subjects stay loyal... well then you get things like The Harrowing of the North.

The US Congress has 535 members, and we're not talking about individuals we're talking about corporations, which themselves are made up of shareholders. There's no formal loyalty structure.

Your feudal Lord granted you land so you could provide for your family, and in return pay rent to him. When your kid went missing in the woods, it was the reeve and the Lord's men who helped search. When your barn roof collapsed, it was the reeve and the Lord's men who helped dig out your animals, and it was your Lord who stabled your animals. It might have been mutually beneficial, but it was still at his will.

A shareholder is invested in a company because they think it will be profitable, but most large shareholders are more invested in the industry than the individual. So if they think something might jeopardize their investment, they'll jump and go invest in another company. The managers and employees? To them it's just a job, if they think their company is going to go up against the US Government they'll be out the door and pretend they've never even heard of the Globex Corporation, even if they're wearing a company emblazoned jacket.

I see no loyalty structure that would be capable of supporting anyone trying to be a neolord. When the US government decides your company has gotten too big, it'll just nationalize it or split it.

Edit: Nice HN, act like reddit. You can't come up with a valid argument against my post so you downvote it.

Yes we get it this is some distopian idea, but it'll never happen. The closest we've ever come to an organization like this was the White Company, and they--like these private contractors will--stayed on the good side of the super power of the time, the Papacy, because their existence was entirely predicated on the grace of being allowed to exist.

widdershins• 12 years ago

It was the King who decided who was a Baron, an Earl or a Lord, and it was on the King's grace that they kept that position. Piss him off, act disloyal and you'll be stripped of your rank.

And sometimes the Baron raised an army, killed the King, and took the throne for himself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_VII_of_England

nl4• 12 years ago

It was the King who decided who was a Baron, an Earl or a Lord, and it was on the King's grace that they kept that position. Piss him off, act disloyal and you'll be stripped of your rank.

This dramatically understates the dependency a King had upon his Lords. Yes, a King could strip someone of his rank, but if he did it too often or too capriciously and he'd soon been replaced.

You see this in democracies too: interest groups (whether they be companies or other groups) are quite happy to remove their support for a member if their interests no longer align and if another credible candidate appears that is more aligned with their interests.

digi_owl2• 12 years ago

Most shareholders today are passive institutions. They don't care as long as the dividends show up on time etc.

In between those you have individuals that are active. Just consider the jockeying between Dell and Icahn when Dell announced plans to take the namesake company private.

ecobiker• 12 years ago

Is it really possible for someone to find motivation to risk their lives to fight for a paycheck? It would definitely motivate a few but can it motivate a large enough population making private armies feasible?

kijin• 12 years ago

Most rational people will choose life over a paycheck if it's only their own life, and their own paycheck, on the balance.

Rational people, however, may choose to die for a paycheck if said paycheck would help feed their children, parents, friends, and/or significant other. Assuming, of course, that the employer has a reputation for honoring their contract even after you're dead.

Needless to say, people who live in societies with a robust social safety net will be less motivated to fight for a paycheck. In most parts of Africa, on the other hand...

JabavuAdams3• 12 years ago

Absolutely. If I were younger and didn't have a family, I'd be tempted to do this.

I sometimes feel like I missed my era. Not so good at going in to the office, but might have been a decent warlord. Then I wake up and realize I'd probably just be hung from a tree in any era except this one.

JabavuAdams3• 12 years ago

Why do people free-climb? Why do they climb Everest or K2? Why do they ride motorcycles and base-jump? Modern, peaceful life is boring for certain personality types.

cpwright• 12 years ago

People are motivated to be commercial fisherman, roughnecks, lumberjacks, and roofers. They are also risking their lives for a paycheck.

lclarkmichalek• 12 years ago

There was an article in the Guardian recently that expands on just how dangerous jobs at sea are in general: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/10/shipping-disast...

XorNot• 12 years ago

There's a pretty big perceptual and practical difference between environmental hazards and sentient, active, adversaries.

cellis• 12 years ago

Is it really possible for someone to find motivation to risk their lives to fight for a paycheck?

See: pretty much all of history. Generals routinely promised wealth from invasion of neighboring places. In fact, rare is the case where the promise for fighting in a large scale war was not one of wealth, but of some derivative resource ( freedom, religious reasons, pride ). That is a relatively recent construct (maybe last 200 years).

tsotha2• 12 years ago

Mercenaries don't fight pitched battles. Mercenaries will go home or even switch sides if it looks like they may take nontrivial losses, which is why nobody likes to rely on them.

jordanpg• 12 years ago

State-sponsored defense spending of the kind the US government engages in is safe from being replaced by the private sector, ever. The cost is astronomical. Individual units like carriers, submarines, and bombers cost hundreds of millions up to several billion. The author of the article (and maybe the book?) don't make this distinction.

Instead, these private mercenaries raise the possibility that non-state actors of great means could accomplish minor military objectives using small amounts of conventional force. And I doubt very seriously that American private military firms can take action without the tacit approval of the someone in the United States government.

I'm much more worried about the possibility that these firms are being paid with laundered tax dollars to accomplish objectives that I don't know about or wouldn't approve of. See the Iran-Contra affair.

sien• 12 years ago

The author makes this point at the end:

"In the end, though, Mr McFate tends to overstate his case. Private armies may indeed play a role in failed and failing states, but it is unlikely that modern mercenaries will become more important than the standing armies of NATO or China soon."

tsotha2• 12 years ago

And that should be obvious, too. Mercenaries aren't supported explicitly by any state, so they only fight where they're guaranteed to win, and they tend to be prosecuted for offenses official soldiers will not be prosecuted. They're not covered under most of the Geneva conventions, either.

Also, most of the people being labeled mercenaries these days aren't mercenaries. There's a big difference between people you hire to fight a battle and people you hire for base or convoy security.

nl4• 12 years ago

Most modern wars are fought using little more than ground vehicle mounted weaponry[1]. There's even a war named after the trucks that both sides used[2].

The weapons acquisition program strategy of the US is defined as much by the defence industry as by the needs in the wars the US is actually involved in. You see US soldiers buying their own weapons, and even on a larger scale you have things like the US buying Toyotas off show-room floors to take to to Iraq[3].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_(vehicle)

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_War

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_(vehicle)#Iraq_War

colechristensen• 12 years ago

This is because modern wars aren't really wars. When was the last time America fought a war against an enemy whose weapons were designed and manufactured in any significant way by the enemy? When was the last time America fought a war against an enemy with remotely comparable military strength?

The reason that "real wars" aren't fought any more is the weapons we have (nuclear weapons, aircraft carriers, ships, planes, etc.) and the weapons our potential opponents have as well as experiences in the world wars together convince everyone that open war is absolutely undesirable. We build and maintain advanced weapons for the explicit purpose of not needing to use them.

The weapons accession strategy has much to do with maintaining the ability to manufacture advanced weapons to use against an advanced enemy so that we can continue to prevent such a war.

Spooky23• 12 years ago

The problem with the big weapons systems is that they really need other nation states to fight with, and the biggest systems require dominance of the area to function.

Carriers are being challenged by hypersonic missiles that keep them offshore. Those billion dollar bombers have incredible capability, but advances in things like drone technology threaten their ability to operate in the long term. I think we've already reached the point where there aren't any credible opponents to have a big tank battle with.

Technology may be a great equalizer. Between nuclear proliferation and the advent of lots of tiny sensors and computers for low cost, operating a standing army will get difficult.

hristov• 12 years ago

This is something of great concern indeed. Back in medieval Europe there was this nasty practice related to mercenaries that went a little like this: An ambitious noble would borrow a bunch of money from an unscrupulous banker at high interest and use the money to fund a mercenary army. The noble would use his new army to conquer a new land. He would then steal everything he can from the inhabitants, and levy maximum taxes. He would then use this money to repay the banker. If he is successful, he may continue to conquer another land.

It was this practice that kept ordinary people in abject poverty in middle ages and kept economic growth down for hundreds of years.

If this practice is revived, there will be a lot of suffering.

This is yet another one of the screw-ups of George Bush. He recruited tens of thousands of mercenaries (hundreds of thousands by some counts) at a great cost for his Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and now these people are all over the world's problem areas looking for work.

The article mentions the possibility of mercenaries doing humanitarian work, but this is not very likely. The world's poor and weak are the ones least likely to be able to afford mercenaries.

nazgulnarsil• 12 years ago

Ideally these mercenaries would be used to keep order in places with poor property rights and then be paid from the resulting productivity boom, but because this looks like colonialism nobody is willing to do it.

JabavuAdams3• 12 years ago

Overall, not much here, but I found the idea of setting up humanitarian refuges defended by private security interesting.

I've thought a bit about whether it would be technically feasible to air-drop a tele-operated fortress seed into denied territory. This could form a kernel around which to build a safe zone.

The problem I keep running up against is that it's not a technical problem. All you need is a few infiltrators to make life unbearable in a refugee camp. The security forces are likely to turn against the civilians, leading to massacres, as we've seen whenever the line between combatants and non-combatants is blurred.

hellbanner• 12 years ago

The difference between a "state" and a gang is that states print money, right?

tibbon• 12 years ago

Not to make light of this, but doesn't this sound like the plot to Metal Gear Solid 4? Private armies and all?

Not sure I like it when reality mimics fiction like this.

WatchDog• 12 years ago

That was immediately what came to my mind as well. Metal Gear Solid 4 was being developed around the time that PMC's were gaining a lot of public attention for their work in Iraq and the game seems very inspired by that. Perhaps the author of this article has played the game, rather than being life imitating art, it could be reporter imitating art.

mylons• 12 years ago

ah! came to post this. I don't think reality is mimic'ing fiction. MGS4 came out ~7 years ago. Blackwater already existed, and the USA had been relying on them pretty extensively in Iraq.

hackuser• 12 years ago

One definition of sovereignty is a monopoly on violence by the government.

Otherwise, who decides when it's ok to physically assault someone, and how are they accountable to citizens?

te_chris• 12 years ago

Where do the Mexican cartel armies fit in among this? True private mercenary units with no humanitarian consideration whatsoever.

donavanm2• 12 years ago

Private armies aren't new. The very term "company" was originated as an organized, private, group of men under arms.

I haven't read _The Modern Mercenary_, but it sounds a bit myopic. For example, calling out potential actions in africa ignores 50 years of PMC work there. As far as proliferation in the last 25 years ... I suppose we've seen in increase in "market share" of defense dollars spent. Off hand I'd have to say mid century african bush wars and the 1990's "executive outcomes" era were notable for having tangible results. Most of the 2000s mid east work seemed like cash grabs shrouded in "outsourced logistics" work.

I'd definitely recommend PW Singers _Corporate Warriors_ for a thorough history of private force. http://www.amazon.com/Corporate-Warriors-Privatized-Military...

woodman4• 12 years ago

If you're looking for an efficient security apparatus, you'll have a hard time topping an assassination market. [0] You combine that with intelligent software agents and crypto currency to create a policy of mutual assured destruction that scales :)

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_market

pjc503• 12 years ago

It's only a week after the assassination of cartoonists, this is in extremely poor taste.

woodman4• 12 years ago

lol, wait - how is this anything like that? This might be the most hamfisted attempt at whiteknighting I've ever seen.

digi_owl2• 12 years ago

Neomedieval eh? Personally i have taken to consider the modern corporate world as neofeudal. This in the sense that corporations are fiefdoms, and CEOs acting as custodians for absentee lords.

cmdkeen• 12 years ago

It's interesting that the potential UN peacekeeping use of private military contractors is mentioned given that is pretty much what happens anyway.

Many UN peacekeeping operations are carried out by nations which are reimbursed by the UN at $1,028 USD per solider per month. If the nation chooses to pay its soldiers less than that it can turn a tidy profit.

For instance UNAMID in the Sudan has the largest troop contingent from Rwanda which pays its privates $40 a month. I'd wager that the UN gets $40 worth of effort from that soldier, not $1000.

JRox• 12 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatocracy

anonbanker• 12 years ago

If one looks at H. Ross Perot's wikipedia page, you will see he was one of the pioneers of private armies during the Iran-Contra crisis.

Seems the Economist is about 30 years late to the game.

How private armies will remake modern warfare

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