Two Friends Discuss Military Contractors

I wrote to my friend Bob:
I am thinking about a post on the U. S. mercenary army. Below are my thoughts to this point. I would really like to know your thoughts about this (since your military and political experience are far greater than mine).

Now that U. S. combat troops have left Iraq, I cannot help wondering if the U. S. Government's private army also has left. The New York Times stated in an article today that the State Department will increase its private security force in Iraq to 7,000, a number that does not seem TOO outrageous, if that is the total mercenary count. But is it? And I still want to know WHY oh WHY does the U. S. Government need a PRIVATE ARMY in addition to the highly trained and dedicated U. S. Military?

Troublesome answers suggest themselves to me:
1. A private army is not easy to oversee by our elected officials.
2. Paying for a private army can be couched in deceptive terminology like "military contractors" that hide its true purpose.
3. A private army is a useful tool for conducting unpopular, even unsanctioned missions.

Bob replied:
I would not argue with any part of your rationale. Most of the contractors have specific and limited assignments such as dignitary protection. The vast majority of these folks are prior military that make dramatically more money in their new roles. I would guess that the 7,000 referenced are only a small percentage of the number of contractors left in country, ostensibly for protection not aggression.

This concept is new, together with such things as contracting for food service. Being a member of "Cynics of America" I always suspected that was a methodology to understate the number of military folks in country. By example, if civilians are doing KP, then a private in the army need not be in theater. If one added all of the civilian contractors doing what has historically been done by the military, one could get an actual count of the number of Americans in the conflict. To not do so is to understate the numbers.

I wrote:
To recap: using private contractors enables understatement of the numbers actually deployed in country?

How do you think they impact the mission itself? The chain of command? Military morale?

Also, during Iraq and Afghanistan the State National Guards have been widely deployed and exploited. Does this weaken the Guards, which are in essence our militia (vis a vis the Second Amendment)? Could this be intentional downgrading of the "peoples' army?"

This really troubles me: Who commands the loyalty of the private contractors: the U. S. Government, the President, the State Department or the company that hires them?

At this point, would it even be possible to disband them and return to traditional support?

Maybe I should just forget it and trust that our government knows best?

Bob answered:
Well, trusting the government is challenging.

In my day, the services did mess duty, laundry and other tasks only tangential to the fighting. I personally, believe contracting is positive in that soldiers can concentrate on soldiering and not KP and can focus on their jobs.

My point is that if these tasks were to be performed by military personnel in theater, it follows that additional military personnel would be required. Having civilians perform the tasks allows for the stated number of forces in theater to be less than if "traditional" methods were employed. It is much more politically palatable to declare the lowest number of people in harm's way possible.

One shudders to think what number of military personnel might be required if contract service jobs were performed by the military. I believe it would require a draft.

As for our contract fighters, there is no question in my mind that they owe allegiance to the firm that hires them and then places them.

I don't worry about the ultimate client for protection, it's the giant firms that hire the contract warriors that give one pause.

The issue of chain of command is interesting. Instead of company and field grade officers being responsible for, let's say mess, the contractor is responsible to the general service, their relationship delineated by contract documents. A company commander is responsible for feeding his troops but he (she) is most likely restrained by a contract forged on a golf course rather than a battlefield.

The Guard has always been required to be prepared to take a combat role. Historically it has never happened on such a scale for such a time. Ironically, the result is the best trained reserve force anywhere in the world. This level of service is not, I can assure you, what Guard members signed up for.

I wrote back:
Do you ever think it odd how a conservative Republican like you and a liberal elitist Democrat like me so often end up on the same page?

My friend replied:
80% of us are somewhere in the middle with only 10% at the extreme left or right. The challenge is that 10% of 300 million people is a sizable number of "true believers" trying to move an agenda.