What will our Mercs do when our wars wind down? Who will hire them?

Via Looking in the Mirror

Summary: Again we turn harsh lights on the future of America. The US government has created a pool highly skilled mercs (on a base of people the government itself trained). What will these people do when our wars wind down? To create serious trouble only a few need sell their knowledge and experience to unfriendly regimes and criminal gangs. Executive Outcomes has its roots in the Apartheid-era South African Special Forces. A more disturbing warning comes from Mexcio. Their gang wars went into hyperdrive with the formation of the Los Zetas Cartel from Mexico’s Special Forces, followed by the arrival of the Kaibiles (ex-Guatemala Special Forces). This post summarizes previous posts about mercs.

For good reason mercenaries have been called ”the dogs of war”. Since the end of the Thirty Years War in 1648 the major western nations have worked to eliminate the scourge of mercenaries. But changing circumstances have brought them back, as they have the ability to adapt more quickly than conventional military forces.

Roberts made the interesting observation that the great military revolutions throughout history generally coincided with the predominance of mercenaries. They possessed the necessary discipline and professional skill to create a revolution …
— from the entry on “Military Revolution” in the Oxford Companion to Military History. Refers to Michael Roberts (1908-1996), historian and author of The Military Revolution 1560-1660 which described the ”revolution in military affairs”.

Under the stress of the Long War, the Bush Jr Administration thoughtlessly accelerated the resurgence of mercs (aka Private Military Corporations). The dangers of this are obvious to anyone watching events in Mexico.

Our finest troops now have an alternative market in which to sell their skills, one paying far more than America. We have created a conflict between our soldiers’ patriotism and their families’ needs, a challenge whose dimensions cannot yet be seen – only imagined. At the very least, we now bid against ourselves for their services. This will likely move beyond our control, as markets usually do.

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