New York Times story

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Note that these kind of articles tend to be moved to the "pay-to-read" category after a week or so.

Nice article that gave me a lot insight into merc business today. Not really glamourous, despite the "rockstars like to work with rockstars" quote.

Awesome. Thanks for sharing, Jong!

It is an interesting read. You don't just see them in Iraq or doing goverenmental work though. When my dad was working for an oil company in Equador and Columbia they hired a British firm to provide security, the head honcho of which was a former SAS vetren of the Desert Storm. Most of their efforts were focused on training locals hired by the company but there was still a core of about 20 company members that provided security on the wellsites and for visiting VIP's.

I liked the line about the armored Mercedes that Triple Canopy bought from the Sultan of Brunei's collection, after they had been rented to rappers.

Wonder if they removed the sound system too.

This brings up an interesting question: Do SR megacorps rent out their forces? I mean, they're corps, after all, and as the Sierra Leone example shows, a small, dedicated force of well-armed and trained men can kick a much larger, but disorganised, force around quite efficiently.

In that respect, maybe the UCAS government could contract Ares' Firewatch teams to do some of their dirty work in the Caribbean or the border regions to Sioux, for instance. MET 2K is established as an army for hire, granted. But all megacorps have standing forces that don't quite generate revenue (ultimatly, that is what a company is interested in, isn't it) just standing around shining their armour and looking mean.

And to tie in with LA, the UN could, for instance, hire SK and other corporate forces to help protect a mission somewhere or to serve as a backup for blue helmets. Even the (ahem) Berlin upgrade in DidS2 could be cnsidered a German government action subcontracted to corp strike forces (though I'd like to see the city returned to state control. Corp states stink).

My brother used to work for Triple Canopy before they lost their contracts in Iraq. Than he did a stint with Black Water. Its funny that these things are just now getting attention, when Executive Outcomes was working in Africa you hardly ever heard about it.

Yes a very good read. It is an interesting question to think about the "erosion" of army special forces to private contractors. I got the feeling that the private companies mostly hire retired special forces, which is ok. But as the article says, when men start leaving their units for the higher pay (who can blame them), that sorta creates a problem I'm sure the governement is wary of.

IMHO the problem may come from the Armed Forces spending more focus on recruiting than on retention. Someone a little closer to the debate may be able to comment more intelligently than myself on that though.

Is that really a problem? Think of it this way: The government subcontracts it's special forces to some degree to private parties. If these soldiers are caught doing soemthing really nasty (like burining down villages, executing babies or something to that effect), it won't fall back on the government as mucbh as if that had been done by a giovernment team, and the government can just say "those wacky mercs" and award the firm's contract to another company. The soldiers, on the other hand, get better pay for the same work. A classic win-win.

In a way it's true that selling out these services are good. It reduces the costs to taxpayers significantly, helps us avoid bad PR, we're saving the number of people sent over who don't want to be over there (like all the national guard people who just signed up to pay their college debt off) and capitalism will encourage the contractor to be ingenious in ways the US military isn't always willing to try.

But the problem is that this is our MILITARY. Would you let contractors run your firewall and IDS if you ran a company? I wouldn't. There are some parts of your business you want to keep fully under your control.

Does make you wonder if the gov'ment might one day privatize things like law enforcement, watch out for Lonestar. Private corps are almost always more efficient than gov run institutions, so governments like to use them when they can. I used to work for Lockheed (as a bureaucrat not an engineer) and it's kind of odd to realize that the military’s fancy high tech equipment is designed and built by corporations (sometimes even foreign corps) rather than the military itself.

Over here in germany a few hospitals had been privatized and are much more efficent (in terms of costs) than most government-run clinics.

Actually, I don't really think private police will really happen in the forseeable future, largely for the reasons that SL James and hermit said, in general the gov likes to keep tight control of police so mercs are unlikely but who knows. And I knew that the military used contractors before I worked at Lockheed, but I was part of the interface between the gov and the company and it's a bit weird when you see it up close.

Besides, there's ZERO money to be made in government policing. THis isn't like running a prison or protecting a gated community. You can't offer to provide investigative services on the cheap because if you cut a corner and blow a murder case, the public will be all over EVERYONE'S ass from the DA to the mayor to the CEO of Cops For Cheap, LLC (People are weird that way).

They could contract patrol officers. I know people who've been pulled over and ticketed for moving violations by USC's campus police five blocks away from campus on city streets. Shit, I know people who've had guns pulled on them by UPDs (not just SC's). I can't drive between any two major cities here in "PCC" without having to worry about local, county, state and tribal police, plus the Border Patrol, all (excepting BP) of which have the legal authority to pull me over on the interstate because states can given police powers to whomever they want (and the states get this particular power from the federal government to police interstates as state right-of-ways). This is the same way Shaq is a Deputy U.S. Marshal, BTW, and Richard Clarke was one until he retired from the government. Police powers are a fundamental sovereign power of the State, and the State can extend that power to whomever it likes.

I know there's a whole industry, and a whole history of private security doing everything from close-protection security (bodyguarding), force protection, rsik management and mitigation, and investigations. I knew this before I read the Times yesterday (It's more fun to read the panels like they're to a comic book with the NYT Magazine in one's hands. Pthbbt). I knew this the morning I reloaded Executive Outcomes' website and it went black (EO, IIRC, is now part of Sandline) becausing I was reading about the UN investigating human rights abuses in Sierra Leone, and the Russian helicopter pilots DeBeers hired to protect their mines. I'm just waiting for when these guys come back to the U.S. and are providing close-protection security for VIPs, or supplementing local or state or even federal Homeland Security personnel the next time there's an Orange Alert.

To share my own story, a long-time friend who just came back from Iraq mentioned dealing with some ex-SF mercs whom he described as, "overweight forty year-olds who are better than you at everything" which I found amusing for some reason.

Just for a little thread necromancy and fun, thought I'd throw out a link for Frontline's Private Warriors documentary about private security contractors in Iraq. You can either watch in online at the site or there are torrent files of the show floating around. It's not half bad.

Oh and the NY Times story for anyone interested but not wanting to pay to read it.

Hey Flak, bitchun link, I'm gonna watch that at my next post!

Just don't let your mercenaries come into contact with enemy officials.

Well, mercenaries are outlawed by the Geneva convention anyway. I don't see why they were, but thats notwithstanding. Assuming the US keeps following the Geneva conventions, at least in regards to things that aren't torture, the only mercenaries we face as it is will be enemies. So theres a bridge we just crossed.

And with the soft power of the American economy, people who do hire mercs against the US will end up being pariahs(other than being hailed as heroes by other outcasts, but...)

I think looking at the private contractors in Iraq and elsewhere as strictly Mercenary, and taking into account the old Machavellian concepts that they can't be trusted, are only in it for money etc, Is a mistake.

Most of the guys in these Security contracting companies are nationals, and former serviceman of the countries they are working for. Americans working for American Companies on American Contracts, trained and (i'll risk the word) indoctrinated in the American Armed Forces. Even if the enemy forces (I'm an American, so my country's enemy anyway for those of you from non-affiliated countries) were to have enough money to hire them, its somewhat absurd to think that they would take it.

Despite the quest for cold hard cash, (and you can't ignore that element), the people doing this work do have a degree (even a strong degree) of patriotism/nationalism.

Even if you want to say that the Corporations that dole out the contracts, or the smaller companies that take them, are multinational, their people aren't.

Now, in a un-related operation, where the contractors are serving someone other than their actual "home" country, things might get a little more questionable.

You mean like the mercs working for DeBeers?

Also, the article mentions that even in these American companies there are also a lot of foreign national (Ukrainians, South Africans and South Americans) working for these corps as the sub-"rock star" level. British merc companies have hired a lot of Russians and national from former colonies from India to South Africa to "miscellaneous".

Argh...apparently I was too slow to see this, and it's pay to read now.

Ares' pro-UCAS stance is only valid within the UCAS, remember. The megacorps try to look "local" wherever they are.

Linkage.

I intend to get a career as a mercenary. It seems like a fun job.

The only good part about it is the money.

The travel, don't forget that part.

~J

And meeting new people!

The travel, the adventure, the money. It sounds like a lot more fun that pushing paper all day.

Although, to be fair, I am a teenage male so I might moderate as I get older.

And killing them.