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nezumi
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/busi...icle2029023.ece
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/na...ack=1&cset=true

Looks like the Shiawise decision might come to pass in Moscow. Wow, how interesting will that be! And Iraq is already partially under a corporate police force. Really makes a role-player want to move to a third world drek-hole...
Angelone
Nice, however the second article won't show up for me could I get a summary.

EDIT- Btw I'm steal the "A third world drekhole" as my location because I'm actually in one so nah nah *raspberry*
mfb
QUOTE (nezumi)
Really makes a role-player want to move to a third world drek-hole...

eugh, are you kidding? i like playing bad people doing bad things in bad situations, i don't want to be one. that shit is seriously never as cool in real life as it is in entertainment.
nezumi
Having lived in Moscow and Venezuela, perhaps I have more appreciation for... 'cultural exchanges'.

The second article just says we now have more military contractors in Iraq than uniformed soldiers. It's becoming a corporate army.
Talia Invierno
Maybe it was different for American government officials, but I rather liked living in the glasnost Moscow -- though it was all too brief.
Adarael
That's actually true, but you have to realize that those numbers include people like my old co-worker Will, who spends all day bolting ECM pods onto humvees and testing their EW capacity by knocking toy helicopters outa the sky. He's not a soldier under any circumstances.
kigmatzomat
IIRC, Iraq's contractors also include some aspects of base management, like food service & supply.

It's still something a cluster but the contractors on the ground are far more functionaries than mercenaries.
Cain
QUOTE (Adarael)
That's actually true, but you have to realize that those numbers include people like my old co-worker Will, who spends all day bolting ECM pods onto humvees and testing their EW capacity by knocking toy helicopters outa the sky. He's not a soldier under any circumstances.

What, do you think all the soldiers in Iraq are front-line warriors? The army has its share of EW techs as well. Somewhere, I read that it takes 10 backup workers to keep 1 frontline soldier in the field. When you consider the number of medics, quartermasters, cooks, chaplains, and other "non combat" military roles, it's not a surprise that a lot of the army doesn't set out to fight.
Adarael
I'm aware of that. The primary difference here is that even secondary/support units in the army are still soldiers. At the end of the day, even if my friend RC is just a quartermaster's assistant, he's still trained for combat. He occasionally goes on manouvers and landing exercises. He practices with a rifle. He is not a stranger to the sound of gunfire, and is accustomed to hot zones. He's no front-line soldier, but if you hand him a rifle and tell him to suppress an area, he will.

Will, on the other hand, is a game QA tester from Nintendo. He's fired a handgun and a rifle once or twice, but at the end of the day, he's just a GUY. He has no training to fall back on.

Some training, no matter how rusty, is always better than none.
Kyoto Kid
...unfortunately a good percentage of those soldiers were called up from the ranks of the "Weekend Warriors". My home state's Reserve and National Guard units have taken a pretty huge hit there.

..."one weekend a month" my eye... sarcastic.gif
kigmatzomat
Ironically, this is probably closer to a pre-modern military force structure than what would be expected from a modern military. Back in the long-long ago, military forces had camp followers, which ranged from wagon drovers and laundry to prostitutes & pimps. These were rarely tallied up in the military force descriptions so any pre-19th century army was likely to include a sizable number of "irregulars."

Cain
QUOTE (Adarael)
I'm aware of that. The primary difference here is that even secondary/support units in the army are still soldiers. At the end of the day, even if my friend RC is just a quartermaster's assistant, he's still trained for combat. He occasionally goes on manouvers and landing exercises. He practices with a rifle. He is not a stranger to the sound of gunfire, and is accustomed to hot zones. He's no front-line soldier, but if you hand him a rifle and tell him to suppress an area, he will.

Will, on the other hand, is a game QA tester from Nintendo. He's fired a handgun and a rifle once or twice, but at the end of the day, he's just a GUY. He has no training to fall back on.

Some training, no matter how rusty, is always better than none.

A soldier is anyone paid to fight in a war, under uniform. Your firend Will is just as much a soldier as your friend RC. He might not be as well trained-- heck, he may not be trained at all-- but there's no magic training regimen that transforms Joe Civvie into GI Joe.
Zolhex
Extraterritoriality in RL!

No offence but you do know Wal-Mart has had this for a couple of years now right?
Kagetenshi
With Wal*Mart it isn't extraterritoriality, it's territoriality.

~J
nezumi
There definitely are some interesting things to note...

While it takes 10 support men to support one combat troop, we are most certainly hiring combat contractors as well. The thing is, congress is pressuring Bush to stop sending troops out into Iraq, but has done little or nothing towards stopping the hiring of more contractors. So most certainly, we have a lot of combat contractors out there, and that number will continue to grow (to the point that the SEALS have to offer $100k sign-up bonuses just to win people over from more lucrative deals with companies like Blackwater). The government just cannot compete against the private industry, it would seem.

Russia is allowing its oil companies to raise their own armies, likely to fill the gap that Russia itself cannot fill. It won't be long I suspect before we see more instances of this, for instance in the Niger delta, where oil operations are regularly attacked by the insurgent group there, and the Nigerian government is apparently powerless to stop it.

NATO is trying to hire itself out to protect oil interests as well. A bit counter-intuitive, but the government may be looking at privatizing a little bit more, contracting itself out.

All very interesting developments.
Adarael
QUOTE
A soldier is anyone paid to fight in a war, under uniform. Your firend Will is just as much a soldier as your friend RC. He might not be as well trained-- heck, he may not be trained at all-- but there's no magic training regimen that transforms Joe Civvie into GI Joe.


Were Will being paid to fight, that's true. He's got no uniform, and isn' t being paid to fight. He's being paid to be a mechanic. In the contract, he's actually under obligation not to fight. Not that it prevents most contractors from packing, as far as I've heard.
knasser

Governments like a monopoly on force. After all, that is where most of their power comes from. The examples given of private militaries, indicate that in these countries, the distinction between business and government has faded.

My opinion.

-K.
hyzmarca
QUOTE (kigmatzomat)
IIRC, Iraq's contractors also include some aspects of base management, like food service & supply.

It's still something a cluster but the contractors on the ground are far more functionaries than mercenaries.

Exactly. I wouldn't call the person who flips burgers at the Baghdad Burger King a soldier. (And yes, Burger King does have a contract to provide food services to the DOD, which includes having a Burger King restaurant on practically every military base in the world, including the one in Baghdad, which brings us this interesting juxtoposition of guys in desert camouflage huddled in tents and hugging their rifles while, in the muddle of it all, is a regular brick Burger King, just like every other Burger King in the world, manned by people in brown Burger King uniforms, selling fast food and giving away silly cardboard crowns. )
Zolhex
QUOTE (Kagetenshi @ Jul 6 2007, 05:21 AM)
With Wal*Mart it isn't extraterritoriality, it's territoriality.

~J

Actually Wal-Mart got granted Extraterritoriality in 2 states cause the citys they wanted to build in were blocking them from building.

One city won to a point the Wal-Mart was still built just not where they wanted it but Wal-Mart has said they belive the new site is better anyway more access to those who needed the store for it low cost goods.

But both stores now have Extraterritoriality heck in Florida the cops can't even go on Wal-Mart properity for minor crimes like hit and run I know I had someone hit my car the cops said sorry we have no authority there.
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