WI the american army got privatized?
- Thread starter Gukpard
- Start date
aleasp
Banned
Private contractors, including Blackwater and Wackenhut, are performing duties traditionally assigned to members of the military. It seems that we can always find ways to fund military operations, such as Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention countless covert and clandestine ventures. This is but one facet of the military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned us about. Military contractors have provided the guns, planes, and bombs since day one, it's not much of a leap to hire temps to do the actual dirty work, and provide their employers with an additional source of profit. As long as we keep electing politicians who neglect the needs of our citizens and blame budget problems on domestic spending, this is unlikely to change.
Delta Force
Banned
Contractors are used to do things that require very specialized skills that the military has difficult recruiting for or for services that the market can supply (airport service, freight, etc.). Total privatization of the military seems impractical. Who would pay for private firms to maintain themselves during peace? What would stop them from operating overseas for the highest bidder, and who would determine what equipment they would be able to access? Would private firms be able to purchase equipment with classified components on them, or would there be no more classified components? If so, what would stop massive arms proliferation to countries unfavorable to the interests of the United States?
The US quickly declares bankruptcy and is then bailed out by the IMF (How I couldn't say)
The problem with a 100% private USAF starts with the massive (doesn't really begin to describe just how big such a cost would be post WWII) cost it would be to pay to maintain up to 100 bases across the world, plus salaries for soldiers (which would explode due to demand and danger-pay).
Add in Naval, Air, Nukes, etc you start to get the picture.
The problem with a 100% private USAF starts with the massive (doesn't really begin to describe just how big such a cost would be post WWII) cost it would be to pay to maintain up to 100 bases across the world, plus salaries for soldiers (which would explode due to demand and danger-pay).
Add in Naval, Air, Nukes, etc you start to get the picture.
I concur that they'd charge a lot if the US is actually at war.
But let's say the US turns back to isolationism (maybe after a Decisive Darkness-like TL?) with little to no external operations. Most of the army would be frontier control, the odd anti-terrorist operations... things like that.
The official army would become honorific and any dirty work (say in Latin America) done by mercenaries
No, in the game "army of two" there is a part were there is a aprt of the gameplay were we can see two senators debating about the privatization of the american military, so I wondered how that could be applied in real life
Deleted member 1487
We are sort of on the way to that in a lot of functions. Much of what the military did for itself in say the 1960s is actually now done by contractors, including private military contractors. Same for a lot of intelligence and cyber security/warfare stuff. I'm not sure if the country could/would do that totally for the reasons already stated (effectively having a mafia/mercenary force having a monopoly of power when it comes to national defense is a VERY bad idea). Likely for the increasing insurgencies contractors will have a large role, but it is impossible to ever see the US going to a mercenary force, so far even the Libertarians aren't that dumb.
The effects have already been tried out, in medieval Italy. As for a PoD, how about a revulsion to casualties after/during Vietnam leading to the US employing some sort of "foreign legion" of CIA mercenaries in a rather more open manner than in OTL?
One of the problems the French army ran into in the Franco Prussian war was when the contractors operating the supply wagons panicked and collapsed supply operations in several units at different moments. The teamsters felt their contracts void any time a rumor of German Ulhans reached them.
Perhaps if a politician gets heavy support from the army, I guess it could count being privatized? I don't know for sure but if any politician had the backing of the military, there is a much greater likelihood of achieving power, especially if that politician can utilize soldiers as bodyguards and carry out private missions.
It's like there was a point in history at which mercenaries realized that they could get paid without doing any fighting, and ever since, it's become financially impossible to find mercenaries who will actually go into combat.
I mean, I think most societies will outlaw that sort of thing for obvious reasons.