Mercenaries

According to Webster's dictionary, a mercenary is one who merely serves for wages, especially a soldier hired into foreign service. Mercenaries have been around ever since monarchs contracted out their warfighting. The Hessians hired by the British during the American revolution are perhaps the an example familiar to high school history students. Another example is the French Foreign Legion. Legionnaires are all from foreign nations which gave the French government the option of denying culpability should the legion commit actions deemed illegal, immoral or simply unsavory.

Mercenaries allow governments to immediately summon armed soldiers when needed and forgo the cost of maintaining a large standing military. Sending one's military into an area implies all types of liability issues that can be avoided through the use of mercenaries or what is now commonly referred to as private military institutions (PMI). These "contractors" can be hired by anyone with enough money and can be used to avoid obvious ties with their employer. You can't hide the fact that the 10th Mountain Division or 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit represent the United States. Their presence and actions represent the larger intentions of the United States government. On the other, those the mercenaries represent are far less clear cut. Often it is difficult to determine even which contractor is responsible as the mercenaries direct report may be a sub-contractor from another PMI.

PMIs entice former military personnel with lucrative contracts. In 2004, I met some going into Afghanistan. For 2 years in-country, they would make $200,000 which is quite a supplement to their E-8 retirements. Their are no health benefits for these contractors, no retirement plan and no survivor benefits. If you survive, you get a nice paycheck. Get hurt or killed and you get nothing (to be sure, there is some working compensation benefits for those who get injured but this is a far cry from what military personnel are used to under the DoD system).

It is disconcerting but not really surprising that there are now more private security firms even with the exploits of Blackwater making the news. Even Blackwater is still around, albeit under a new name. The article points out the Secretary Clinton had promised Blackwater (now renamed as "Xe") would be barred from all federal contracts. While I'm no fan of Secretary Clinton, I can't see her being able to keep her promise given the inordinate amount of money that has changed hands between Erik Prince (founder of Blackwater) and the federal government. He just knows too much about where the bodies are buried to be barred from getting additional contracts.

What is perhaps the most concerning of all though is the use of Blackwater and other PMIs during domestic disaster response. Blackwater sent a huge contingent of armed personnel and equipment to Louisiana during Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The lucrative disaster relief market is just too good for these contractors to pass up. If you think about it for a moment, it makes some sense. Most of the workers sent to disaster sites are aid workers with little to no military training. The aftermath of a large scale disaster usually means lawlessness, theft, and general chaos. Using soldiers to maintain the peace is fraught with peril. Soldiers shooting or abusing US citizens makes front page news and could lead to bigger problems. Contractors on the other hand can be summarily fired and should the need arise, prosecuted and sent to jail....end of story.

Mercenaries are nothing new and will with us as long as we have some form of government. We just need to be vigilant of their presence and actions.

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