I've mostly seen Robert Kaplan's article on PMCs for The Atlantic's website characterized as a defense of the contractors, and since I typically disagree with Kaplan about policy matters I wouldn't be surprised if that's how he intended it, but it's really a very non-polemical piece that basically just lays out how absolutely integral contractors have become to the defense establishment as it currently exists. Given that our main actual ongoing military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan aren't going very well, I think this mostly supports the conclusion that building a heavily contractor-dependent military has been a mistake.
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Kaplan on Contractors
02 Oct 2007 11:51 am
Comments (14)
Attached is a link to a post in Ed Braytons' blog containing information about the right wing connections of the founders of the Blackwater company. Mr. Don Williams should be more concerned about these guys then about Hiam Saban.
Attached is a link to a post in Ed Braytons' blog containing information about the right wing connections of the founders of the Blackwater company. Mr. Don Williams should be more concerned about these guys then about Hiam Saban.
Sorry, forgot the link.
http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2007/10/blackwater_hearings_today.php#more
Salon has some excellent coverage of this issue today. In short, the massive reliance on contractors is a very recent phenomenon and it is extremely lucrative to well-connected individuals and corporations. It doesn't save money--in fact, the current practices are generally much more expensive than having the US government perform the services currently performed by contractors. And most of all, the use of contractors has a severe negative impact on the military and diplomatic mission.
The Democratic party needs to get cracking on this issue. The use of these kinds of contractors has been an absolute disaster--as has so much of the privatization that's gone on in the past 20 years. Can we please start a campaign to make "privatization" a dirty word?
The military uses contractors for the same reasons businesses do: it gives them greater flexibility in hiring and firing and thereby enables them to expand or contract their workforce as needed with less hassle and expense.
The problems we're having with contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan have more to do with the fact that they are operating in legal limbo and thus have no accountability for their actions. As long as they achieve the basic objectives specified in their contracts they can do anything they want, up to and including murder. It would not be difficult for the Bush Administration or Congress to create a legal framework that would close this loophole, if they wanted to. The real problem here is that they don't.
to continue in joel's thread ... it was and will continue to be a manpower issue w/r/t base logistics. The military cannot effectively staff up for short/intermediate term operations like the KBRs can. As well, soldiers that hit their 20 or 30 year retirements are 40 or 50 years old -- young enough to start a new career or exploit the expensive training they received at government expense. I'd imagine that working for a contractor without the chain of command and BS that is entailed in a military command would be attractive. I don't understand the legalities but it is probably similar to standard contracts that claim a particular jurisdiction for any issues that arise. It doesn't excuse excessive force and/or "cowboy" behavior but that is a matter for effective oversight of any contract -- maybe that is the place to start.
mistake?
do you know how many millions well-connected Republican thugs have made here?
mission accomplished!
> t was and will continue to be a manpower
> issue w/r/t base logistics.
Again - the Army has been contracting "base logistics" since the Revolutionary War. During the Civil War the Union's advance scouts would often arrive in a town to find a quartermaster's assistant already there buying supplies and leasing hotel rooms. This is not new.
What is new is contractors flying around in armed helicopters taking uncontrolled offensive action and claiming that they have the authorization to kill. THAT is the issue.
Cranky
Mercenaries cost too much. That's why I started Crown Mercs.
My guess is that once this crap boils over - the high cost of hiring these fellows, the human rights violations - even right-wing nativists in Congress will be enamored of the idea of contracting third world armies on the cheap and giving them a path to U.S. citizenship. In case it isn't obvious this is what empires do.
There's still a chance Democrats in Congress could stand for something like republicanism, demand that countries and regions start paying for and providing for their own security. But just because Robert A Taft had better ideas about the UN and foreign policy than Roosevelt or Truman doesn't mean anyone listened and of course the Democrats aren't even at the point of having better ideas yet.
Given that our main actual ongoing military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan aren't going very well, I think this mostly supports the conclusion that building a heavily contractor-dependent military has been a mistake.
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We've had a similar reliance on contractors in activities in the Balkans since the mid-1990s. Since things seem to be going okay there what would you say the effert of contractors on operations in the Balkans would be?
The American military relies on goods and services. Almost without exception, we have always had contractors supply the "goods" part of the military. Other nations like China actually have their military in the goods-making business.
The services end is slowly transforming. The US has always had some "contractors" doing services dating back to the Revolutionary War when "camp followers" trailed the military units and offered services like food, transport of supplies, prostitution, uniform mending, laundry, medical care, burial services, legal services...sometimes for Gov't pay, sometimes for private transactions..
We sort of reversed when we had a huge draftee military starting in WWI with a cheap labor pool where we could take the less qualified and put them in services jobs - peeling potatos, mowing lawns on bases, doing repairs.
When we went to a low population volunteer military where labor became high cost, it made no sense to have soldiers doing scutwork and the trend for contractor services accelerated.
I don't see that stopping. The only way Lefties now sneering about "Mercs" would get their wish and have soldiers take over all services jobs is through the one magic word Lefties fear more than any - the "Draft".
Joel is right: The problems we're having with contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan have more to do with the fact that they are operating in legal limbo and thus have no accountability for their actions...... It would not be difficult for the Bush Administration or Congress to create a legal framework that would close this loophole, if they wanted to. The real problem here is that they don't.
Before individuals with contractors launched legal challenges, contractors were under military command. They were subject to the orders of the CO (commanding officer) and could be placed in military custody for infractions until passed off to the Feds for possible prosecution. The problem was the Courts made certain rulings in favor of the name of "civilian contractor rights and separate military from civilian authority" that ended that and created the present "black hole". Where in a war zone, we have US and other nation civilians we don't want under the Shiite death squads authority from Interior ministry or Iraqi courts for safety's sake - but are legally blocked by past US civilian court decisions from being under military control in the name of "American civilian rights".
Those court decisions - made on presumption that a civilian contractor could easily be brought to a US civil or criminal court if problems arose at a nearby base in Georgia or Colorado...make now sense in remote war zones.
Ideal solution would be:
1. Civilian contractors working for the US military shall be protected by the same Status of Forces legal agreement we make protecting soldiers from being ensnared in the local nation's justice system.
2. Civilian contractors are required by Congressional law to agree to once again be subject to relevant elements of the UCMJ. Put under military authority outside their contractor bosses job performance criteria, subject to arrest or restriction by the military under relevant UCMJ code - but then handed off
at earliest opportunity to US or their own nation's civilian justice systems for prosecution.
3. In certain countries where relations are good and we have confidence in their justice system meets US due process requirements although not our Constitution in it's legal system functions, the Status of Forces agreement may not need to apply - and US soldiers and civilian contractors may be turned over to host nationals for prosecution. Germany, Japan, Britain, Singapore, Australia fall in that category. Iraq does not.
There are mercenaries and mercenaries. The critical question is: who are the officers? If they are independents, what you are hiring is a band of condottieri with their own agenda, basically (a) survival and (b) money. Not good. But if the officers are regular soldiers in your army, high-quality soldiers can be made out of all sorts of tribesmen (Gurkhas, Zouaves, the Khyber Rifles, Highlanders), peasants (the sepoys of John Company), and miscellaneous riff-raff (the French Foreign Legion). The UN needs a standing force of Gurkhas.
> The critical question is: who are the officers?
If we are going to abandon the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and formally declare ourselves an Empire, sure. Otherwise the critical question is, has the United States authorized mercenaries to kill in the name of the US?
Cranky
One big difference with, say, the Revolutionary War is the pay rate combined with the stress on the troops. The private market is snapping up experienced soldiers at a high pay rate. The military, thanks to Dubya's war, is putting more pressure on troops (longer deployments with less rest). That means we are losing the vital, experienced NCOs at an unstainable rate.
It also means that US taxpayers are paying to train the mercs, but that is a different issue.
Comments closed October 16, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
The United States military has used contractors since before the Articles of Confederation were signed, so that is not new or the issue. The Air Force in particular has even used contractors for very complex semi-combat operations, such as refueling over the United States and even aggressor squadron training (there is a contractor out there that bought a bunch of A4s, which are useful for this purpose, on the scrap market and rebuilt them). That is a bit edgy but OK I guess.
What I think is absolutely unprecedented since the time of the Hessians is the use of contractors as "shooters" with authorization not only to kill but to set their own rules of engagement (and I guess also be immune from local law). That is a new development and is terrifying to me (see Lindsey Beirenstein's piece about Blackwater in New Orleans after Katrina).
Cranky
Posted by Cranky Observer | October 2, 2007 12:04 PM