Privatise the Military (4 Viewers)

[loquasagacious]

There quite a few problems with privatizing something as controversial as the military.

a) Mercenaries are not recognized as lawful combatants under UN Protocol Additional GC 1977. In such a case, in the countries that recognize the UN protocol, they will be subject to domestic laws. Their actions will be considered crimes, not acts of war. This means they can be thrown into prison, executed... etc etc, they will not be a prisoner of war.

Interestingly enough the UN hires mercenaries themselves. Also for the sake of the thought experiment lets assume that the legal issue is resolved.

b) PMCs will not be directly controlled from the governmental system we elect. Sure we might have partnerships and agreements, but we lose many political 'checks' in the system of decisions. This makes war crimes ambiguous, accountability is lost in the system of money. Remember there is a reason bureaucracy exists, its so that no one person or organisation gets too much power.

c) Another fundamental use of the military, is that they are ultimately controlled by civilians. If privatizing happens to an entire military force, we may be shareholders, but we do not control them, we have no idea what they might be doing, what they are hiding from us. Of course, this analogous to any totalitarian military dictatorship where civilians are always in the dark, but I'm coming from republican standpoint. This all raises another problem, to what laws and regulations (torture policy, civilian casualty policy, rules of engagement... etc) do the PMCs follow? If its a domestic PMC it will may follow the laws of the country, but what about an international PMC? Where it has bases everywhere and is willing to hire out guns and bombs to any country with the largest bid.

Why won't they be directly controlled? It's a paid relationship and subject to a contract. It's on a larger scale but really no different to paying a builder to construct a house. As the person paying the builder you are approving the plans, materials, etc and the builder is liable for any mistakes which they make (as distinct from mistakes which you approve). Similarly as a Government, paying a Military Services Organisation (MSO) you would be directing the MSO, approving plans, approving ROE, and monitoring for deviations.

Legally speaking an MSO is a company like any other. As with other companies it would be bound by the relevant laws of the country with which it had contracted. The country in which it was based may also apply laws to it.

d) How far are we willing to privatize military applications, where will it stop? Can you be comfortable with nuclear arsenal being controlled by a bunch of men/women driven by profit?

Why not? Afterall it is hardly in their business interests to launch the nukes. In fact that it is not in their interest might be the biggest problem - maybe they would refuse the order?

e) It's very dangerous, it's dangerous to government itself, if the entire military is privatized, it could very easily turn its back on its own country, very easy to do in times of chaos. It could even subtly do it, as PMCs get more and more powerful, as if to control the entire military, they will demand to be part of the government's foreign policy. (And why the heck not? If I control every single tank, aircraft, bomb, soldier, I should be able to control the foreign policy of my country.)

Lastly, its dis-honourable, but hey.. we've already thrown that out of the window, while we're at it. Let's privatize the government, and the legal system too. We can have a monetary anarchist country. Constitutional laws will be made by the highest bidder.

Having the ability to call up a private military organisation is a great political tool, but giving your entire military away to a PMC is just going too far in my opinion.

And this is perhaps the biggest problem. What would (or could) stop an MSO from taking over a country and creating a dictatorship? Afterall an unarmed populace is hardly well prepared or trained to fight off an army.

 

[CMCDragonkai]

Well they won't be directly controlled, because there is a great distinction between doing something yourself and outsourcing to someone else. With military affairs, the distance and vastness of operations have increased exponentially, its not like hiring out someone to build just a website. There are stipulations, I said that, but the level of control has decreased, and for such a controversial organisation such as the military, you want everything to stamped and under control. I would not want my PMC to go around the world doing clandestine operations without my approval. You may say, why the heck would they want to do that. They're company, driven by profit, if it is profitable and easy to do something (for example, stealing other country's technology (the stratagems of war are endless..).. etc) , they will do it.

About the laws thing, I said that under domestic situations a company may follow the domestic laws. But in an international situation, they do not need to. They are not accountable to the degree that an officially instated government of an official country is. A country has many things to be shamed about, while the company can simply say someone paid to do what they did.

The use of deadly force such as nuclear arsenal should not be reserved for profit mechanisms regardless of how efficient the country's profit is. War was never meant to be a business operation, it an issue of the highest moral and ethical concerns, it is to be a last resort of struggle between conflicting aims. Not profit. I'm sorry, there is no rational reason I can give you to disallow companies to use NBC arsenal, maybe thats because there is absolutely nothing rational about war, I am emotionally tied to it and feel too strongly about it for you to convince me that a company should possess any NBC arsenal.

Lastly, nothing can be done to stop PMCs from taking over the country if they are the only ones possessing weapons. The army is the symbol of strength, discipline and security for a country, you lose that, you lose it all.