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Monday, August 10, 2009

The Raw Material of Private War

I've mentioned that privatized war is certainly on the horizon.

The building blocks are there as militaries around the world return to historic methods of contracting many jobs to civilian outfits:

In the last half century, conscription has fallen out of favor, but volunteer troops are too expensive to be used for a lot of support jobs, so more and more of these chores are contracted out to civilians.

Even if you're in Iraq or Afghanistan, you often won't even notice a lot of the contractor civilians. They often wear army combat uniforms, without any rank insignia. Some are armed. They work for the army without being in the army. But the truth of the situation is that the military has been going back to the past to find the future.


When the big wars are finished, these contractors will seek other work. Some of that work will be to wage wars--or just military-style strikes--for private groups or individuals who don't see their own government fighting the right (from the private entity's point of view) enemy.