
America's Addiction to Mercenaries - dthal
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/08/iraq-afghanistan-contractor-pentagon-obama/495731/?single_page=true
======
poof131
Personally, I feel this military contracting is a disgrace and a threat to the
democracy. Bring back the draft or don’t fight the war. Even in World War 2,
America’s paragon of a “justified” war, 61% of troops were drafted. [1]

Not only does it create private military forces with significantly less
allegiance to the country, it destroys the morale of active duty troops. When
I was in Iraq, it seemed like there were more contractors than troops.
Kenyan’s managed by dutch contractors provided internal security. Indian’s
worked in the chow halls. Filipinos manned the commissaries. And on and on.

The Special Forces soldiers I worked with had former SF soldiers helping with
the training of Iraqi forces. They considered them lazy and unhelpful in
general, taking none of the risk but getting paid $1k a day. Compare that to
the actual soldiers making a few grand a month, and you get the sense your
country doesn’t really give a shit about you and your just a dupe.[2] Get out
as quick as you can and get paid 5-10x more for less risk.

Throughout history, private military forces are the tool of tyrants. I don’t
want this for America. War is a last resort. Either we go together or don’t go
at all. Hopefully the latter, but contracting out the fight is stupid and lazy
and destroys the fabric of our country by slowly eliminating our citizen
military. Opposing the draft isn’t opposing war, it’s supporting war by
contractor and making wars easier to wage by politicians who’ve never served,
whose kids don’t serve, and who have no real skin in the game. Truly a sad
state of affairs.

[1] [http://www.nationalww2museum.org/learn/education/for-
student...](http://www.nationalww2museum.org/learn/education/for-
students/ww2-history/ww2-by-the-numbers/us-military.html)

[2]
[http://www.dfas.mil/militarymembers/payentitlements/military...](http://www.dfas.mil/militarymembers/payentitlements/military-
pay-charts.html)

~~~
yummyfajitas
Similarly, I feel that this educational contracting is a threat to democracy.
Either employ forced labor to provide education or don't have public schools
at all.

I understand the concern that mercenaries may revolt against the real
military, but is anyone really suggesting this is a danger to the US? I don't
see anyone making that case.

The article also brings up real issues that soldiers-for-hire are inadequately
supervised. This is a valid concern, but again the response to that should be
a measured cost/benefit analysis as to whether adequate supervision +
contractors or employees is better. Teachers-for-hire are, in many cases, also
not adequately supervised. That doesn't mean we should resort to forced labor
to provide teaching, it just means we need a better supervisory apparatus.

~~~
redstripe
It's not that mercenaries may revolt. It's that people are less likely to
support war if it will affect them personally.

The is a spectrum for military participation: conscription -> volunteer
professional -> mercenery. With conscription people will be more vested
because it can affect their families more personally even if they don't
support a war. With a mercenary army not only is the death of strangers easier
to ignore, but deaths are not always made public. Look how often we had stats
about army deaths/injuries reported daily vs how often you heard about
Blackwater deaths during the Iraq war/occupation.

~~~
yummyfajitas
People are also less likely to support public education, road construction or
cleaning up Flint's water if the result is that they will be victims of forced
labor.

If your goal is simply to bind an unpopular position to a policy you oppose as
a political maneuver, that's fine. But lets clearly distinguish political
strategy (sneaking your favored choices through democracy by removing
preferred choices from the voters) from a normative argument (we _should_ do X
because...).

~~~
freshhawk
Consider the fact you are categorizing armed conflict as labor in the first
place. Not as the collective action of citizens defending themselves, for whom
economic incentives would be dwarfed by more important ones.

If the draft isn't justified, how is the war justified? I'm having trouble
imagining an ethical system where forced labor is obviously unethical but war
for profit isn't.

~~~
yummyfajitas
I didn't say I supported war for profit. I said poof131's argument against it
[1] was flawed.

[1] I'm assuming he was making an argument against war. It's possible I was
misinterpreting him and he was merely suggesting an anti-democratic hack to
get around the populist support for war.

~~~
freshhawk
You keep referring to military service as labor, the draft as forced labor and
comparing it to other labor. That's an economic concept. The only type of war
where that is a coherent position to take is a war for profit. So obviously
the draft would be forced labor and unethical, because the war itself would
have to be.

Few people are pro-conscription, they are choosing between the incentives
present when conscription is the only path to war and when mercenaries or
professional soldiers recruited from those of lower status are used. If the
war is considered just by a democracy then many will want to fight, because it
will be obviously necessary, defensive, and those chosen must be chosen
fairly.

Perhaps you think this is an argument for the continuation of American global
continuous war combined with conscription? Because it's very much not. It's a
statement that the only just wars would inevitably result in conscription also
being just, even without the incredible moral hazard present when democracies
can vote for wars to be fought by labor.

~~~
yummyfajitas
I agree with you that tying a policy choice you oppose to a horrible poison
pill like forced labor is a potentially effecitve way to subvert democracy and
prevent popular policies you dislike from being enacted by the public.

I said so two comments up, and reiterated this in the very comment you replied
to:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12286281](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12286281)

The tone of your post suggests you disagree with me about something. Am I
misinterpreting? If not, what do we disagree on?

~~~
freshhawk
I guess we're just not arguing at the same level of abstraction?

You keep referring to it as forced labor, and missing the central point while
labeling the elimination of the moral hazards inherent with mercenaries as a
"poison pill". And referring to subverting democracy.

If a fighter in a war is ever remotely close to being labor then they should
not fight, in fact they should probably be fighting those trying to send them.
I'm not arguing for a poison pill of forced labor, that isn't on the table.
Ever.

Do you disagree that there is any form of conscription that isn't "forced
labor"?

For example: defending your own home or community or democratic nation from an
invading army is not labor, it's a non-economic activity. Say a contract of
mutual defense with your fellow citizens in the case of an invading army? I'll
go fight if they invade the east coast even though I live on the west coast
because of a legally binding reciprocal agreement that is in all our best
interests? In that case we are all called in to serve and organized to fight
effectively. Our neighbors who can't fight take care of our kids while we're
away. Is that forced labor?

~~~
yummyfajitas
_I 'm not arguing for a poison pill of forced labor...Do you disagree that
there is any form of conscription that isn't "forced labor"?_

I think that by definition, taking people and forcing them to do work they
don't want to do is forced labor. I don't subscribe to your Orwellian
redefinition of soldiering as not being labor, simply because you label it
"non-economic".

I'm also not sure of the relevance of this redefinition. Whether or not your
poison pill is redefined to be forced labor or not, it's subverting democracy
because the public wants a war staffed by volunteers and mercenaries. You want
to remove that choice from them.

 _In that case we are all called in to serve and organized to fight
effectively. Our neighbors who can 't fight take care of our kids while we're
away. Is that forced labor?_

If we've all contractually agreed to it, no. If we are forcing people who
didn't agree to the contract to join us, yes.

------
benmarks
Obligatory link to Eisenhower's farewell speech, warning about the rise of the
military-industrial complex, eerily prescient about current state of affairs:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knBEQnuJNiI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knBEQnuJNiI)

~~~
arca_vorago
I think one of the keys to remebering that speech is to remember the original
draft called it the MICC or the military industrial congressional complex.

~~~
praptak
That's almost a tautology. With the system rigged to depend on unlimited
campaign donations, every "complex" has the "congressional" part.

------
opaque
Interesting article. Pretty terrible writing/editing though.

"Contracting is big business, too. In the 2014 fiscal year, the Pentagon
obligated $285 billion to federal contracts—more money than all other
government agencies received, combined. That’s equal to 8 percent of federal
spending, and three and a half times Britain’s entire defense budget. About 45
percent of those contracts were for services, including private military
contractors."

Without knowing what percentage of "services" are PMCs this doesn't tell us
anything and the comparison to Britain's spending is therefore meaningless.

The entire phrase "were linked to murder, kidnapping, bribery, and anti-
Coalition activities" is repeated twice in different paragraphs...

I expect better of the Atlantic.

------
gumby
The English parliament's use of Hessian contractors for security and
skirmishes in their American colonies was one of the colonists' specific
complaints.

Ironic that this has come full circle!

------
sschueller
In the end we will be fighting wars to keep people employed (probably already
the case) just like for profit prisons strongly encourages incarcerating more
people.

It is a very sad world where we favor profit over lives and suffering.

~~~
ArkyBeagle
Is it sadder than a world where people are subject to the draft?

Should the US be "the world police"? If not us, then who?

~~~
dsabanin
An international entity, with representation from all countries, under the
guide of international law that is just.

US as a world police is heavily biased to it's own interests, and not to the
interests of peace and coexistence.

~~~
ArkyBeagle
Let's define the IWP as "The International World Police" \- the IWP. For any
given single-human actor within an IWP, they then have to carry two sets of
methods of accountability. One, to the nation-state they call home. Two, to
the IWP.

The (military historical) literature is full of examples of this not working
well. Making it Canada instead of the US, and using the UN as an IWP, the
rules of engagement in Bosnia led to ... extremely widespread dissatisfaction.

I don't think an IWP is consistent with the mores and reality of the nation-
state.

------
maverick_iceman
Why not Congress simply grants them Letters of Marque as allowed by the
Constitution instead of contracting them?

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1024core
> The U.S. government does not track contractor numbers in war zones.

Because they don't _want_ to.

------
DominikR
I like that the writer asks why there is a need for (often foreign)
mercenaries and correctly states that there are not enough volunteers willing
to join the army.

But instead of following this thought and asking why there are not enough
volunteers he proceeds to teach us why using mercenaries is bad for a country.
(as if we didn't know)

It would be important to widely discuss this and get to the bottom of this
problem because I believe it is caused by very bad government policies of the
last decades that ultimately could lead to the downfall of Western
civilisation itself.

My personal opinion on that is that we have basically removed all incentives
for men to do what traditionally was their role in society - building and
maintaining civilisation itself and protecting the society from threats.

Call me sexist but the fact is that roads, houses, airports, planes and all
kinds of infrastructure is built and maintained almost 100% by hard working
men. So is internal (police) and external (army) security.

So why do men have no incentive anymore to do this important work for society
and instead choose to withdraw to some escapism like excessively playing video
games, using drugs or watching porn?

Traditional families as a goal in life was or is in the process of being
destroyed and bad economic policies have on top of that created an environment
where most men, even if they wanted to, can't acquire the necessary resources
to support a family anymore.

Even if you get a great education you'll start your life with massive debt
that barely enables you to pay rent if you get a good job. So men withdraw
from society, almost nothing is manufactured anymore in the West (wealth
creation) and the economy enters a fatal downward spiral.

And for people that are still successful the outlook isn't much better. I
myself came from a former Communist country to the West and made it to the top
1% in the EU country I am in even though I started out with nothing. But I am
not willing to marry my girlfriend (and I have told her this) because we have
here laws that would basically give her the power to dominate and destroy me
at will if she ever felt like it.

Don't get me wrong, I highly value marriage but I'm not willing to enter a
deal where I'm having to give up everything to her and can not expect to get
anything in return for it. For example if we married and divorced (without
children) she would be entitled to 40% of my net income as long as I am alive.

If I then decided that it's not worth it anymore to work so hard just to have
all profit taken away from me (or god forbid, my business could fail for other
reasons) the government could punish me (literally put me in prison) because I
intentionally do not make the kind of money I made before that she is for some
reason entitled to.

And that only covers what could happen to me if she played fair. Divorce
lawyers would likely suggest to her that she accuses me of abusing her
physically to extract more money out of me.

So sadly for me starting a family is currently out of question in the West.
Maybe Trump wins in the US and turns the ship around (by ending Socialism and
promoting Patriotism and Capitalism again) and I'll cash out here and go
through the legal process of moving there, or I move at some point to Russia
because they are right wing Capitalists there too.

But the EU is pretty much beyond saving in my view, there's no perspective to
have a normal life here anymore. If there was no perspective for me to cash
out and move to a better place in the future I would have stopped working so
hard already. I could easily survive by working only 10 or 15 hours a week
because I personally don't need much and slaving away to have more resources
only makes sense if you plan on starting a family. I definitely don't, at
least not here.

~~~
mytddu
This is so wildly off-topic.

~~~
DominikR
Why? I try to explore why we need mercenary armies in the first place. Why are
not enough people volunteering? What makes them withdraw and what could this
mean for our future?

There are many comparisons that you can draw between the US and fallen empires
that had to rely on mercenaries before they finally collapsed internally.

The last time Western civilisation collapsed at a large scale (Roman Empire)
it took the West almost a thousand years to recover from it.

~~~
mytddu
> Why are not enough people volunteering?

Because these particular wars are pointless and immoral? Your segue from
briefly discussing mercenaries on to gender roles, marriage, Trump, the EU,
etc. just doesn't follow. It's obvious that your steering the conversation
toward a certain set of talking points. The last 3/4 of your comment probably
would've been arrived at no matter the topic at hand.

~~~
DominikR
> It's obvious that your steering the conversation toward a certain set of
> talking points.

I'm obviously biased as everybody else is. So I interpret the direction our
society is moving towards (and articles like these) according to this bias.
You can enter a discussion or ignore my comment, it's up to you.

But what I'm definitely sure of is that we don't really need to discuss why
needing mercenary armies is bad for a society. Most people will agree that
mercenary armies are a bad thing.

It's better to discuss why we do we need them in the first place and what can
we do about it. The article suggests legislation to ban this, but you can't
simply legislate societal trends away that created the problem in the first
place.

Someone will eventually have to do this job, it's just that there aren't
enough persons willing to do it. So if you ban use of mercenaries some other
entity will likely take power where we left a power vacuum. (like ISIS did in
Iraq)

And if at some point we can't even find enough volunteers to provide internal
security (which could happen) then we are probably all finished.

Edit: Btw I agree that most of these wars have been immoral and wrong.

------
nxzero
Article lacks any real valid argument for why outsourcing to contractors is an
issue.

Simple fact is that most wars do not need to be fought, so the idea that how
they're fought matters is irrelevant; which is to say that I'm not aware of
any war the US has fought since WW2 that was vital to future operations of the
US.

