Wednesday, November 26, 2014
Is Call of Duty Advanced Warfare on to something? Are PMC's the future?
Call of Duty Advanced Warfare.
If you visit my blog regularly, then you know I went high and to the right by the depiction of a military funeral in the game.
A buddy of mine loves it and told me that I should give it a chance. I told him nothing doing. Alright he said, then at least check out the story line via one of at least a dozen cut scene vids that have been put up.
I did.
I was shocked.
For a variety of reasons I can see the US becoming more and more hesitant to put boots on the ground. Additionally I can see more and more out cry from allied governments for US assistance.
Private Military Contractors can fill the void.
The big kicker is a bit simpler though. High intensity nation state combat is rare. Even regional conflicts are fewer. What is on the rise is bush wars.
The US and its allies are ill equipped to deal with those. Oh and for the SOCOM fanboys out there that will say that its their specialty I beg to differ. SOCOM has been bitten by the bureaucracy bug. The days of SOCOM living in austere conditions, doing missions with minimal foot print is over. They have become another service with all the bells and whistles that come with it.
The more I think about it the more I think PMC's are the future of warfare.
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the future is now , ISIS is the largest Foreign Legion PMC on the planet today..
ReplyDeletewell foreign legions are usually state sponsored so they're not PMCs. i guess you could count ISIS as a PMC, they have a religious bent but so did the Blackwater chief. but quite honestly if you want to look at it in that kind of light then we already have an example of what a powerful PMC could do.
Deletelook at the crusades. the Templar Knights were a kind of PMC
I wouldnt label ISIS with a label of "Private". I mean they do belong to Allah....or so they claim. They are a pure religious nutjob organization. Though they can be labelled "Contractors" as they are contracted to abibe by the rules and regulations of their contract with Allah (Quran). Off course what sick and twisted version of Quran they are referring to as a contract is highly questionable.
DeleteTold ya to try it Sol' it's not that bad and that funeral scene was rather short and without in my opinion too much emotion.
ReplyDeleteSome time ago I read that one of PMC's (maybe boss of ex Blackwater) said that gov's should let the PMC's off the leash and the problem of ISIS would end in a month or something.
And I wonder... if that would be real, not the leash thing but... do they have ability for that scale purification operation?
Blackwater at its most powerful could probably put together at least a battalion if not more of shooters. additionally they had air assets that did everything from transport supplies to conducting heliborne assaults. if Blackwater was brought into the here and now with just the assets it had on hand at the time of its strongest then i bet they could have put a serious hurt on them.
Deletebut the thing everyone forgets or ignores are the other players. they would either be brought in or bought out by BW and they'd be instantly larger. and if they wanted to acquire supporting arms all they had to do is put the word out and you'd find guys all over the country getting in shape to grab a big paycheck and a holdiay in Thailand, Kenya, Australia or Europe (probably Holland).
oh and Shas. you were right. it wasn't (the funeral) as bad as i thought.
Deletethe Polish PMC in ukraine is also pretty good, the rebels rated them as persistent and couragous fighters compared to ukraine military soldiers...
Deleteand i dont know blackwater CEO is a religious nut..
i didn't state it properly. that Prince dude saw a war between Christianity and Muslims. if you watch what ISIS is doing then you can say that war is on. he wasn't as much a religious nut as a "cause" warrior. he saw the US military being hamstrung by rules of engagement, political bickering and he saw his outfit as being able to take the fight to the enemy without those constraints.
Deleterapid expansion, a few bad apples, rapid success, jealousy and a news media looking for a scalp caused the company problems that they never recovered from. last i heard, Prince was in the Middle East trying to build up an Atlas type group. but thats just rumors.
What Polish PMC?! Is this is another fantasy of yours like Polish Mercenary fighter pilot?
DeleteYou have any proof that Poles PMC's fight there, show it.
My five cents of wisdom on an area I know a little:
ReplyDelete- agree with Sol, that PMCs will play an increasing role in missions that used to be carried out by a State's military forces. There are several reasons for this development (flexibility, accountability, plausible deniability, costs, etc.);
- modern PMCs first appeared in the US, but it is by no means an feature that is specific to the US alone. Other countries have understood the usefulness of these entities and have allowed for the establishment of tailor made PMCs of their own;
- in the present context of global instability and regional crisis, the likelihood of conventional warfare between two nation states has diminished and assymetric warfare is indeed on the rise. Doesn't mean the pendulum will never swing back but it's the way it is for now.
- SOCOM is not equiped to deal with the type of situations some PMCs can deal with, and besides, any future US administration might want to reduce the SOCOM 'footprint' when engaging certain situations.
So overall, the prospect of seeing more involvement of PMCs in various types of scenarios is quite high. The question that you're not raising Sol, is wether we gonna see (or have we already seen) a conflict in which a PMC is fighting a war against a nation state. And going further, will there come a day when the US will have to confront a PMC in a conflict zone ? In recent events, we may already have seen a glimpse of what this could look like, but I think this possibility needs to be examined further as the challenges for the US would be a very different from ISIS or other terrorist groups.
Just food for thought ...
those are all great points. riddle me this. the drug cartels have recruited former military..even some Mexican special ops to wage war against the government. is that a form of a PMC? are the definitions that we're using today to describe warfare like insurgency, narco-terrorism and the like actually keeping up with developments that we're seeing in this age of warfare?
Deleteare military theorist being lazy and not recognizing new trends in warfare?
an even bigger question is this.
HOW DID A FUCKING VIDEO GAME BRING UP A TOPIC THAT NO ONE...AND I MEAN NO ONE ELSE THOUGHT OF!!!!!!!
Good point about Mexico: you can use that example as a pointer of what we could face in the future, in other regions. You might certainly argue that 'Los Zetas' are a kind of informal PMC serving private interests (in this case, mexican drug lords). Funny thing, if you take a cynical stance, is that the 30 mexican SpecOps guys who started working for the Gulf Cartel in the late 1990s have gradually expanded their operations (recruiting more and more former and still serving military) and now run their own show. You might call them narco-mercernaries, or narco-terrosrists, but there's no denying that there are some similarities with PMCs (not from legal point of view of course, but from 'business' angle and reasons as to why military members would join such an operation).
DeleteAs for the more important issue of keeping up with new developments, I think some people are seeing the potential implications and have already alerted governments about this new trend. So it is being thought of, but there are all sorts of interests at work here, so that "war game" scenarios possibly involving a red force (PMC) vs blue (western type military) are not something you gonna get much publicity on. The other thing is, at a very senior level in government, some guys can't see the forest for the trees and unless they are confronted with a situation they HAVE to deal with, it's easier for them to deny the problem.
But when even US law enforcement agree that Los Zetas (which bascially started with just a bunch of guys deserting and going clandestine) are the 'most technologically advanced, sophisticated, and dangerous cartel operating in Mexico', that would qualify as a game changing development for me.
So will there ever be a day when US forces have to engage an opponent made partly of former US-military personnel ? I dont know, but there's room here for a Tom Clancy type novel or another video game ... Wouldnt be the first time a novel, a movie or another entertainment product acts as an eye-opener. Time will tell, but personnally, i wouldnt be surprized.
Actually, think the US did field a few PMCs, some of which turned into PR disasters. Besides the Blackwater scandal, there was also the US embassy scandal when it was found that some of the PMCs really cut lose when relaxing. Think it was "ArmorGroup"?
ReplyDeleteAfter those incidents, there seems to have been an avoidance of most PMCs. Once bitten I guess. In this case, it was twice bitten.
Think there was another one.. Dyncorp? Just search for these names with the tag "scandal" at the back to see the lists.
that is so false it reeks to high heaven.
DeletePMCs are alive and well and getting new contracts everyday. you see the old guys in 5.11's trying to be cool ... training contracts. you want to know the real story in Iraq today? PMCs are on the ground filling contracts.
Dyncorp is going strong. Xe is getting work. Triple Canopy is going hog wild. work is out there is you don't mind going to the far ends of the earth with no US govt support....which means you better pick a good outfit.
You mean those scandals didn't happen?
Deletethe scandals happened but they didn't cause the US govt to step away from using PMC's.
DeleteBaah....Humbug to Xe and all and sundry. You are all amateurs. Now step aside take your parchments and quills out and learn from the Masters. The English East India Company and our equally illustrious though slightly less successful competitors The Dutch East India Company, who not only invented the concept of Shareholders/Joint Stock Holding but mixed it all with global domination. For every Prince, we have 10 Robert Clives. Muhahahah.
ReplyDeleteImagine that being said in an evil tone in a typically English Accent by a guy wearing a white wig wearing a red coat with a musket to boot. Kevin Spacy has a lot of ground to cover here.
well then imagine that guy with English accent, wearing a white wig and red coat, being wrestled to the ground, restrained, getting his musket stuck up his ass, and left out there to dry ;-)
DeleteAnd on a more serious note, I do believe that if any Govt. out there wants to survive then they must have an "Absolute Monopoly over Violence". The more they rely on PMC's the more they are distributing and scattering this monoploy. One can be a capitalist country with a Privatization outlook but if one wants to survive as that, then that monopoly should be held on to with both hands.
ReplyDeleteYe olde School British may argue by pointing to the great successes they achieved by unleashing "Privateers" on everyone else during the Colonization of America but just look at how bad and confused the situation on the ground became. Whole Islands and territories became ancient equivalents of modern day NWFP, FATA and Afghanistan with no Home Govt. control over these territories and them running parallel establishments.
No way. Violence is a Govt. Monopoly.
I'm not gonna argue on the merits of your declaration of principle, but that ship has sailed a long time ago ! State monopoly of violence - wether domestic or foreign - is a thing of the past, in the US in particular.
DeleteIt all started with the privatization of intelligence gathering and analysis and you have now a situation where public and private entities work so closely together that you would have to shut down most security operations and organisations if you wanted to reverse that trend overnight.
Warfare has turned into an entrepreneurial activity in America and this trend is going global, with some cultural, legal and military differences.
True that. Especially when it comes to intelligence gathering. After all, werent all those honey traps and mata hari's private individuals or working on contracts. Inteliigence has always relied on a large number of private indivivuals. But for our nations Hecate, nations other than USA....we tend to still overwhelmingly rely on the Govt. for this type of violence And i dont think that this will change anytime soon.
DeleteAnd on the opposite but equally destructive end of this spectrum is the Pakistani ISI and its horde of Private Military Contractors like Hizb-ul-Mujahedin, Harkat-ul-Jihad, JKLF, Lashkar-e-Toiba etc. Unlike Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, the other organizations mentioned here still are under the reins and control of the Pak Army. Shit happens when they slip out of control of the Govt. or National Army thus the necessity for Govt. to have a complete monopoly over Violence and instruments that cause it.
The Rothschilde brothers in unision provided some of the best intelligence during the napoleonic wars. True they were operating under the Kings Commission but their enterprise and organization to collect and filter that information was indeed very private. As were their operations relating to trading of gold all over Europe even during the conflict.
DeleteI get your points Sarabvir, but just to make sure we all talking about the same thing: PMCs is a legal term that refers to a specific type of company, that operates under certain guidelines and rules, both in relation to their standing with regard to international law, business regulations of their activities, and working contracts of their employees. The reason we don't like to be labelled "mercenaries" is not just because it's used as a derogatory term to discredit the serious crews working in this business, but also because there would be legal implications for some PMCs if they accepted that terminology: thus it's "security contractors" or "private military contractors" as far as I'm concerned, not "mercs", especially because of the UN's convention prohibiting the use of mercenaries in conflicts.
DeleteI would also take issue with qualifying terrorist groups funded by ISI as pakistani PMCs. These organisations are certainly pakistani proxies, using terrorism and insurgency tactics to further Paksitan's foreign policy goals. But a PMC is a private business operating under a contract that may have been signed with government (usually it's not even your own government) or a private organization in order to provide security and military services. It's not always a trojan horse for foreign (i.e. US) involvement in crisis countries. The example of Iraq, Blackwater, etc., shouldnt be the only marker for us to look at the way PMCs operate. Like in any business, there are good outfits, very good outfits and also bad outfits (and I'm not talking about Blackwater/Xe/Academi here).
Finally, regarding the use of PMCs around the world, I'm afraid you're mistaken in the sense that PMCs are already a feature of conflict/crisis management in over 50 countries around the world. So saying that your country will stick to goverment monopoly of violence may be what you wish for, but it's definitely not the way the world as such is going. As a side note, don't understimate the fact that your security interests are very regional and you don't need any overseas power-projection capabilities to defend them. Besides, you don't have these capabilities anyway. And you rely on others (mainly the US) to act in order to defend your strategic interests in areas like free trade on sea, provision of raw material and fossil fuel for your economy. To Europeans, who argue for total State monopoly, i would say, you should increase your defence budget then, as 1,5% of GPB won't do it for you in the long run ... If not, you'll be bound to rely on PMCs in the long run when it comes to an operation far from the mainland/homeland. And there we get back to sqare one, PMCs are a feature that is here to stay.
Definately not comparing PMC's to Terror/Proxie organizations. Just comparing the end results of both. And the end results of both are-
Delete1.) The Initiating Govt. can claim non-involvement/deniability for any event intiated. Especially the events that Solomon is refering to here.
2.) Both have a much lighter footprint.
3.) Worst case scenario, as mentioned above somewhere both can be abandoned/hands washed off in a worst case scenario.
4.) Both cannot come up without active support of and partnership and full knowledge of the initiating govt./army.
5.) Both allow intiating country to bypass (even cheat in some cases) some of the toughest obstacles in diplomacy and legality.
To the educated man like you and me, we can identify and classify such organizations and know which is which. But to the ordinary folk and other illiterate/semi-literate or just plain ignorant people who comprise the majority of people, these people will classify and understand these organizations not on legality or contracts but on End Effect/Result.
And it is this majority Voter/citizens association with End Result/Effect that Governments in power worry about. An angry mob at Central Square does not listen to a Govt. Lawyer shouting out legalese to defend his client assumed innocent till proven guilty. They want a hanging.
I am definately not equating you to a Terrorist or Mercenary but just voicing the opinion from a country that has been on the recieving side of the above mentioned "End Effect/Results" a bit too much.
Ultimately such Call of Duty type organizations or Paki type proxies never work because somewhere down the line they always evolve. And with every evolution cycle, the initiating Govt. makes a newer set of compromises and losses control.
Fair points, agree with that. Just don't forget that it's not always governments who require services of PMCs. It's private business too, that needs to be factored into to any opinion on the topic.
DeleteRegarding your other points, makes sense. As for outcome, all situations are fluid and transitional so best is to leave the 'expected outcome' box as general and empty as possible :-)
"Fluid and Transitional", 'expected outcome' ....lol...since when did you become an International Management Guru ?
DeleteIt's a business, and like in any business, you need good skills in BBS ... Besides I've been a
DeleteCertified chairborne warrior since 2009 so believe me I've got all the lines narratives and stories covered LOL
You're calling them 'PMCs', but the proper term is 'Mercenaries'.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to see what an over-reliance on Mercenaries leads to, just look at middle-ages Europe. Especially the wars in Italy around Venice.
A state, to survive, must have a monopoly on force. It's the entire reason we have (and put up) them. To keep the peace and fight off external threats. Mercenaries, by their nature, owe allegiance to nobody but the highest bidder.
PMC, mercenaries, whatever you call them it is the best professional soldiers available. Of course you can't send them into meatgrinder to cover your inability to proper plan and support military operation. This is really infuriating armchair generals who think that if you attack you MUST sacrifice 3 of you soldiers to kill 1 enemy soldier.
ReplyDeleteMartin Van Crevald already dealt with this back in the 90s.
ReplyDeleteWith the rise of non-state threats like AQ, ISIS, Hezbollah, drug cartels, etc., the state is either unwilling or incapable of defending itself or its people so it other non-state actors arise e.g militias, PMCs, etc.
I remember reading about a South African PMC call Executive Outcomes. As I rmember correctly they stabilized the country of Sierra Leone and beat back the entire rebel force called the RUF which numbered 20000 strong at its peak with only 300 men during the civil war there and proved to be far more successful than the 6000 UN soldiers that were deployed there.
ReplyDeleteSo far PMCs only worked in limited counter insurgenca type warfare and as advisors leading bunch of locals. Problem is they they are not very reliable ,don't have firepower to combat state supported actors . PMC are outlawed in many nations and in the end they do relay on poaching the men that were trained by state millitary .
ReplyDeleteYou can use ex soldiers in PMC roles now(they act more or less up as armored& upguned security guards) but once you grow them to units large enough that need some sort of command structure you are in whole different ballgame. And again PMCs have hard time spending $$$ training their own .They are cheap only so far as they are able to get trained men that only need a refresher course. I can imagine PMCs in limited war capacity or working in small units but large scale open warfare ? Plus who would cover the costs, war is expensive but PMCs once you have them do the job equal to millitary will be wastly more expensive .
Damn. Sorry Sol, I never thought it would get you worked up that hard. I myself had some issues with that scene, but in general, its hard to me to take them seriously. I had some programming training, and some of my family members work in IT, so its hard for me to treat what is in essence a collection of math and algorhytms as something real. I myself delled on the scene for a few minutes, and then moved on, since there are far more extreme cases of developers being stupid in gaming.
ReplyDeleteThat said....its not so much the PMC part that got to me. It's how real they portrayed the helplessness and frustration of governments when it came to dealing with thoose new threats. Mercenaries always existed, and always will, as long as there are wars, there will be people who will fight for money in thoose wars. Its the portrayed will of people and governments to give their safety to the hands of guns for hire, just so that they can keep living in their bubble of illusions, of "good life" semblance, willingly. Just so that they can keep whatever they have, without having to fight and make sacrifices for it.
This game got me thinking....lots of people from "civlised world" know that in order to have nice things, you need to work hard, and fight for your prosperity. But just how many of them realise, that you also need to fight to keep whats yours? How many of them realise, that what they see is not for granted, and is not taken away because there are people who are willing to deliver violence on their behalf, and what happens when thoose people simply stop doing that?
PMCs are the future, and are among the original "timeless professions".
ReplyDeleteViewing them from neither a good or bad perspective, as long as the US and our banking/corporate "benefactors" have interests in particularly inconvenient little hellholes around the world, there will be a necessity for hiring professional warfighters without the goopy stickiness that comes with deploying our men and women in uniform to those locations.
Essentially the same reason why mercenaries have always existed: they give the nation the luxury of taking a anti-militarist or least-controversial/appeasing stance, while having the ability to secure interests with force of arms if necessary.
Not many know that the modern PMC was the result of "ho hum" all-over-the-place, indecisive, and cowardly western foreign policy (politically correct and appeasing) in response to events like Rwanda and Sierra Leone. Since there are many interests and power brokers that desire results, even if national governments dont, they turn to soldiers for hire. Pre-industrial era Europe all over again; plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
So while many assume wrongly that the blackwater and dyncorp scandals hurt the viability of PMCs in the future, they hold their place in the future of realpolitik. Especially with the rather perilous future of western militaries politically and financially.
PMC's....can we just call them mercenaries?...Have been around since the Bible (King David worked as a merc for a philistine king at one point) and were a recognized if often loathed necessity. The US constitution has an overlooked clause for issuing letters of Marque and Reprisal to let privateers--legal pirates--seize ships. I often wonder if issuing Marque would be an effective means of dealing with Iran...make it legal to seize Iranian oil tankers and not only would you have plenty of private corporations doing it with , it would be more terrifying to the Iranian economy than a US Navy that just sits and stares at them from international waters.
ReplyDeleteI heard Prince speak about using mercs...excuse me, contractors... for dealing with ISIS. One of the things he emphasized is that the men he would hire would be nearly all ex-Spec-Ops, and all with combat experience. We forget how many hardened vets there are out there. He also emphasized using them to mostly help the Kurds. The biggest advantage they have over standing military is they can form a group of combat hardened troops who don't have the insanely complicated bureaucracy, cost overhead, and politically motivated ROE.
I have to admit to a slight bias in favor of PMC's because I grew up reading military Sci-fi which extensively featured mercenaries like Jerry Pournelle's Falkenberg's Legon and David Drake's Hammers Slammers series.