[UnderseaLcpl]

Originally Posted by Platapus

Is this also your opinion of the United States Military also?

Most certainly. I'm amazed that isn't your opinion already. Have you already forgotton the multi-billion dollar defense-spending scandals of the past.....forever? Do the lives of soldiers that were lost due to inadequate training, equipment, and tactics not weigh upon your assesment of US military performance?

You'll have to excuse me for implying that you would be so callous or imperceptive. I get a little riled when it comes to this topic. I'm sure your position is a lot more complicated than that, but this is one subject that means a great deal to me, so if you'll just give me a moment to climb on my soap box......

The quality of the US armed forces is not in doubt. One way or the other, the United States posseses the most powerful military force the planet has ever seen, and it a force comprised entirely of volunteers, which sets it apart from many of its rivals.

However, it damn well should be the best fighting force in the world with what we spend on it. I can't remember the exact figure and I can't be bothered to look it up right now but the US defense budget is greater than or equal to that of the next...what, ten countries or something? It's almost seven-hundred billion dollars! That's absolutely outrageous. With that kind of spending the US military should be eating every foe and crapping faberge' eggs........ but it doesn't, and why would it? Despite all the trappings and traditions it is still a federal agency and the waste and frivolous spending associated with any federal agency are part of the bargain.

I think it is pretty common knowledge that the performance of US armed forces has always been less than acceptable. If you dispute the point I'll invite you to provide me with a single example of the US ever entering a significant conflict in a prepared fashion, wherein it did not suffer unacceptable casualties. I'll also invite you to consider the current conflicts. Take, for instance, the "troop surge". What brilliant strategic mastermind dreamed that garbage up? Zhukov? Grant? Mao Zedong?
I've wiped my ass with better strategies than that; "Hey, here's a thought, let's quell the insurgency by throwing a bunch of men at it! That's sure to provide a cost-effective long-term solution!" The troop surge worked, but at what cost?

Now you're probably asking yourself what brilliant strategy I would propose. I have to say, I really don't know. It isn't like anyone has ever experienced the problem of an Islamic fundamentalist insurgency before. It's not like we could learn anything from history. At least, I assume that was the line of thought pursued at the Pentagon.

To fight an insurgency you must fight......an insurgency. That does not mean adopting the failed conventional tactics that have been used thus far. If your foe hides amongst the populace you must become the populace. To put it in a more readily recognized form: "The first rule of jungle warfare is to eliminate the jungle". That means placing counter-insurgency agents around long before any regular military boots hit the ground.

The US military is a broadsword, not a scalpel (I'm pretty sure I heard that in some movie), and broadswords are meant for killing, not surgery, hence the tremendous amount of collateral damage that has been incurred in Iraq and Afghanistan. I've said it before but I'll repeat myself becuase I like the point: I would have loved to be a fly on the wall when the decision was made to use naval assault infantry to garrison Fallujah; Gee, what could possibly go wrong? It isn't as if a bunch of kids with guns who have been trained to kill everything in sight could possibly incur some kind of discord in an area rife with sectarian violence. Go ahead, send in the Marines! And that is just what they did, and we predictably failed utterly. We killed and imprisoned a lot of people, and some of them were actually insurgents, but most of them were relatives of people who are now really pissed off, and who will doubtless cause us a lot of trouble later.

The inadequacies of the US miitary aside, it is difficult to find a good comparison of mercenary and government forces, mostly because mercenaries have not existed in force since, like, the 16th century. They were outlawed by governments in most cases. There are a few exceptions, such as the Swiss Guard and the Hessians, but for the most part the world's states have preferred to keep military force to themselves.

There is, however, one really good example in the form of a modern company called Executive Outcomes. EO managed to broker peace agreements in Angola and Sierra Leone in a matter of months, and it had its contracts in both countries terminated mere months after it succeeded due to diplomatic pressure from the UN. Angola and Sierra Leone have since been occupied by UN peacekeepers and remain in conflict to this day.

State militaries of any kind are subject to the same mechanisms that any state agency is subject to. They are driven by politics, not performance. Have you learned nothing from the laments of great generals who were driven to destruction by the states that governed them? Do you not remember MacArthur or Rommel? Udet? Anyone?

Private comapnies on the other hand, must deliver acceptable results or they will be fired. Leave it to Skybird to provide a perfect example;

Originally Posted by Skybird

Blackwater, anyone?

Okay, what of it? Blackwater was once involved in a scandal where its troops killed a dozen or so Iraqi "civilians" in the midst of an ambush. The incident was regrettable, and Blackwater paid heavily for it. The company no longer exists. It has been restructred under the name of Xe or something and it has changed many policies.

The US military, on the other hand, kills civilians by accident all the freaking time, but I don't see any press outrage about that. I have personally witnessed more civilians being killed or having been killed by the US military than Blackwater was ever deemed responsible for, and that was in one nine-month tour of duty, so where is the outrage? Why have the US Marines not been outlawed and forced to restructure? Where is our accountability?

I'll tell you where it is. It has been drowned in a political sea, lost to the whims of politicians eager to please their constituencies and journalists fearful of reprimanding the conduct of the amred forces. It has become custom to hate the war, rather than the troops, but in doing so we have not only sabotagued the efforts of our troops but the war itself. It is pure madness. It is also curious to note that the PR lessons from the Vietnam war have stuck with us through the decades while the military lessons did not. The US never lost a battle in Vietnam, but US forces hamstrung by restrictive rules of engagement and poor training managed to lose the war anyway.

Private companies are not subject to such perpetual foolishness. They are hired by clients and they are expected to perform. If they fail, they are fired. If they are fired often enough, they cease to exist. Not so with state militaries. They can fail and be wasteful time and time again with no immediate consequence. In time the populace can change the legislature and the generals it appoints, but nothing ever changes the flawed structure. Generally, troops do not give a flying crap about the political careers of their officers. We can change generals and Rules of Engagement and what have you until the end of time but it will never result in a truly effective fighting force until we use a soldier-centric tactical doctrine, and that will never happen so long as there is political control of the military.

We have learned these lessons already, and the US armed forces support a doctrine of small-unit leadership in name, but not in practice. As a Marine NCO I can tell you that NCO stands for No Consequential Orders. That's not the cleverest acronymn but it's the best I could do at the moment Nonetheless, it is true. As politicians become more involved in warfare we are actually regressing to the kind of military thinking prevalent in the Crimean War. That is, we are entrusting war to field-grade officers and politicians, not to the men who are actually fighting. The lessons that the Wehrmacht of 44' taught us have already been forgotten in favor of the ever-popular belief that some central authority can somehow orchestrate such complex matters with greater efficiency.

Originally Posted by Platapus

Private companies are concerned with profit first, second, and third.

The last thing we need is to put our security in the hands of corporations not interested in security but in profit.

And I suppose that the TSA puts altruism and public service first, second and third? Maybe you should tell that to the TSA employees and administrators, as they seem to be pissing everyone off by offering unsatisfactory service at a ridiculous price.

What, exactly, makes you think that a person serving a government agency is any less driven by profit than a person serving a private compny? TSA employees go to work every day because they are paid to do so. TSA administrators lobby congress for more funding for the same reason. There is no nobility in their actions, just a purported nobility in order to justify additional funding.

What makes all this very bad is that we cannot get rid of them if they fail. If the federal government were to employ private security agencies, those agencies would live in perpetual fear of being dismissed from service for failing to provide stisfactory results. They would also live in fear of customer complaints. It only takes a few dissatisifed customers to apply political pressure to a government-sponsored company. Politicians have elections to think about and constituencies to satisfy. To fund a company that is not doing its job is political suicide. As such, the companies they choose to employ will be treading on eggshells to provide the best possible service at the best possible price. They cannot do otherwise or they will be gone.

Originally Posted by Platapus

You must have a very low opinion of the Military. Not to mention Fire Departments/EMS.

I do have a very low opinion of the military. I have served on the front lines and seen men killed for no reason other than the failures of the men who commanded them. I have personally wasted thousands of dollars' worth of taxpayer money because the military made it expedient to do so. I have also wasted thousands of dollars' worth of taxpayer money in a futile effort to protect my troops. We can talk about that more if you would like.

I don't really know anything about the fire department, but I do have a very low opinion of the EMS. The EMS was more than happy to shuttle me to a hospital two blocks away when I had a motorcycle acccident... to the tune of $500! To be fair, they did examine me and determine that I did not have a broken hip (after a lot of pressuring) for free, and I commend them for that, but their insistence that I take their ambulance to the hospital and pay a half-thousand dollars for the trouble was ridiculous. I'd rather crawl there myself.

Originally Posted by Platapus

We will have to agree to disagree on this.

Perhaps, but I'd much rather encourage you to question the nature of the state you place so much faith in. In the end, a state is comprised of people, no different from those who make a living from private enterprise.
Why would you assume that they who are employed by the state are any different from the rest of us? Is their cause somehow more noble because it is dressed in the rhetoric of politicians? What is it that makes them different?