Should the US and UK recruit mercenaries?

unclejunior

Should the US and UK recruit mercenaries to fight in afghanistan? I think it would be a good idea if both countries recruited people from third world countries, such as africa. If the mercenaries ever suffer any casualities there wouldnt be much of a media impact back home plus it would be far less expensive on the government. Since there is such a high population in the third world it would possible to re employ the human wave tactic, like korea and stalingrad. What do you think?

ChunkyLover_53

unclejunior wrote: »

Should the US and UK recruit mercenaries to fight in afghanistan? I think it would be a good idea if both countries recruited people from third world countries, such as africa. If the mercenaries ever suffer any casualities there wouldnt be much of a media impact back home plus it would be far less expensive on the government. Since there is such a high population in the third world it would possible to re employ the human wave tactic, like korea and stalingrad. What do you think?

Get off the Internet Mr. Bush, your term as President came to an end as per your countries constitution.

Get over it.

RMD

Considering the UK forces are currently making cut backs while there's still plenty of people trying to enlist there's no need to hire mercenaries. The UK forces are open to citizens from the commonwealth which covers many countries, there's no need really for mercenaries. The US forces are already so strong there would never be a need for mercenaries.

Warfare has changed completely since Korea and Stalingrad, "waves" are no longer needed. If a position is holding down troops to a point where they can't advance they can call in jets, helicopters or accurate artillery / mortars and deal with the position much more effectively at a much smaller cost.

unclejunior

RMD wrote: »

Warfare has changed completely since Korea and Stalingrad, "waves" are no longer needed. If a position is holding down troops to a point where they can't advance they can call in jets, helicopters or accurate artillery / mortars and deal with the position much more effectively at a much smaller cost.

the human wave would be a cost cutting measure. why use expensive military equipment when you can use cheap third world mercenaries?

LondonIrish90

What on earth do you do with a "human wave" in Helmand Province? Not sure it would be a worthwhile strategy against an enemy who use guerrilla tactics. Back to your age of empires

RMD

unclejunior wrote: »

the human wave would be a cost cutting measure. why use expensive military equipment when you can use cheap third world mercenaries?

I'm sorry but you have to be taking the utter piss? Willingly send men to their death in waves to safe money on ammunitions? As pointed out "waves" don't work when the enemy is using guerrilla warfare.

MickJB1989

Just to add to the opposition to the human wave suggestion:

Firstly, check the casualty figures at Stalingrad (and pretty much every Russian ww1 and ww2 battle for that matter). Steam roller works when you have low tech weapons against low tech weapons, and lots of reserves, especially reserves who have commissars standing behind them "not one step back comrades (or I'll have chrevchenko cut you down with his PPSH)" etc.

Mercs fight for money. If they don't think they'll live long enough to spend it, they won't fight. They can't be drafted and forced to go into battle, they aren't motivated by patriotism, and they aren't stupid.

For the record, they were deployed by both US and UK in Iraq (still are) in ridiculously high numbers, doing the soft jobs (e.g guarding diplomats, hunting bounties) rather than taking the fight to the enemy, and the US pays them about $200,000 per year, all for doing less than a sergeant in the US Army, who if I recall only gets around $80,000 per year. Of course, the chaps I refer to aren't called mercs, they call them Private military contractors now. Ironically, it's illegal for PMCs to operate in most NATO countries, yet the same countries pay em to work in others.

unclejunior

the fact that theyre from third world countries would suggest their limited understanding of military technigues and it could be easy to convince them that the human wave is a new military strategy. you could use the same tactic for clearing minefields aswel.

Nate--IRL--

unclejunior wrote: »

Should the US and UK recruit mercenaries to fight in afghanistan? I think it would be a good idea if both countries recruited people from third world countries, such as africa. If the mercenaries ever suffer any casualities there wouldnt be much of a media impact back home plus it would be far less expensive on the government. Since there is such a high population in the third world it would possible to re employ the human wave tactic, like korea and stalingrad. What do you think?

I believe they are called "Private security contractors" these days. Lots of 'em in Iraq and Afghanistan, among other places.

Nate

Manic Moran

Lads, he's taking the piss. Stop biting!

NTM

Locust

OP - as pointed out, i think you are piss taking... ...back to your thread on 'international relations'

getz

unclejunior wrote: »

Should the US and UK recruit mercenaries to fight in afghanistan? I think it would be a good idea if both countries recruited people from third world countries, such as africa. If the mercenaries ever suffer any casualities there wouldnt be much of a media impact back home plus it would be far less expensive on the government. Since there is such a high population in the third world it would possible to re employ the human wave tactic, like korea and stalingrad. What do you think?

the UK does gurkhas,

shaneybaby

getz wrote: »

the UK does gurkhas,

Gurkhas aren't mercs. They're paid the same (and less after retirement) as the rest of the british army. As a regiment they're identical in command structure etc to the rest.

getz

shaneybaby wrote: »

Gurkhas aren't mercs. They're paid the same (and less after retirement) as the rest of the british army. As a regiment they're identical in command structure etc to the rest.

i do know just where you are coming from,i love the gurkhas one lives near me with his family and every year collects money for the gurkha charities,but you also have to remember the gurkhas also fight for other countries,that to me says mercenary

Donny5

getz wrote: »

i do know just where you are coming from,i love the gurkhas one lives near me with his family and every year collects money for the gurkha charities,but you also have to remember the gurkhas also fight for other countries,that to me says mercenary

Well, you're all messed about the Gurkhas, but anyway, fighting for another country doesn't make you a mercenary. All mercenary means is that you are hired to fight in a conflict, that you engage in combat, that you are in it primarily for the money, that you are getting paid substantially more than soldiers of similar rank and function, that you are a national or resident of any country involved in the conflict, that you are not a member of the armed forces of any country in the conflict and that you are not a member of another unconnected country's armed forces who has sent you.

The Gurkhas are not hired to fight specific campaigns, they are not paid substantially more and they are members of the British Army, and so are not mercenaries.

getz

this was headline in the express sept 5 2010,gurkha veteran and spokesman,chhatra rai has warned that ghurkhas will fight for other nations if their brigade is axed from the british army,as countries like austraila are ready to hire them,according to the express they could flood the ;gun for hire ; merconary market in the worlds war zone,australia tried to hire them in 2009,at this moment they only fight for both india and britain, it depends on what you think is mercenary.

shaneybaby

Donny5 wrote: »

Well, you're all messed about the Gurkhas, but anyway, fighting for another country doesn't make you a mercenary. All mercenary means is that you are hired to fight in a conflict, that you engage in combat, that you are in it primarily for the money, that you are getting paid substantially more than soldiers of similar rank and function, that you are a national or resident of any country involved in the conflict, that you are not a member of the armed forces of any country in the conflict and that you are not a member of another unconnected country's armed forces who has sent you.

The Gurkhas are not hired to fight specific campaigns, they are not paid substantially more and they are members of the British Army, and so are not mercenaries.

Whatever about motivation for being involved the point in bold above is especially relevant. The Geneva Convention says as much anyways (Article 47(c)) http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/full/470?opendocument

Donny5

shaneybaby wrote: »

Whatever about motivation for being involved the point in bold above is especially relevant. The Geneva Convention says as much anyways (Article 47(c)) http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/full/470?opendocument

Geneva also dictates motivation.

getz

the tricky word is HIRE

Donny5

getz wrote: »

the tricky word is HIRE

No, it's not, getz. You can hire soldiers from another country to fight in a specific war and if you pay them the same rates as your own soldiers, they're not mercenaries. Mercenary isn't what you feel it should be; it's laid down in law.

PatsytheNazi

I'm not getting into a silly game of word play on whether they are regarded as mercenary's or not. But probably the main reason the French govt have held onto the Legion is the deaths of foreign soldiers in the service of the French army doesn't have the same impact on the French public. Just maybe a tiny note in the paper that say, Prv XXXXX from YYYYYY died on military service. End of story.

getz

PatsytheNazi wrote: »

I'm not getting into a silly game of word play on whether they are regarded as mercenary's or not. But probably the main reason the French govt have held onto the Legion is the deaths of foreign soldiers in the service of the French army doesn't have the same impact on the French public. Just maybe a tiny note in the paper that say, Prv XXXXX from YYYYYY died on military service. End of story.

same as the spanish foreign legion.

Beano

getz wrote: »

same as the spanish foreign legion.

Not true. To join the Spanish Foreign Legion you must be a spanish citizen or from a former spanish colony.

Kinza

Has anyone heard of a PMC or 'mercenary' company Executive Outcomes? They were a group of mainly South African and British mercenaries given a contract by the Sierra Leone government in the nineties to stop the government being toppled by a rebel group the RUF. A team of 200 well-trained mercenaries and several helicopter gunships managed to stop the rebel advance and effectively bring peace to a country where thousands of civilians where being killed by this rebel group.

Although within a couple of years international pressure on the Sierra Leone government meant Executive Outcomes's contract was cancelled and the UN troops moved in. A repeat of the rebel advance then threatened to overrun the capital while the UN troops (numbering something like 17,000) were powerless to stop them, more than 500 of them even being taken hostage by the RUF themselves. It was only the intervention of the British army that prevented this from happening.

It makes you think what a trained Private Military Company like Executive Outcomes could do if mandated by the UN or a particular nations government where atrocities where being carried out on the civilian population just like Sierra Leone at that time.

Donny5

EO was a very interesting company, although it's doubtful that their actions would have been acceptable to UN paymasters. They're weren't known for their peacekeeping.

Kinza

Donny5 wrote:

EO was a very interesting company, although it's doubtful that their actions would have been acceptable to UN paymasters. They're weren't known for their peacekeeping.

True, the UN would have been one of the most vocal opponents to the involvement of EO at the time. Also what they were involved in could hardly be seen as peacekeeping but in a conflict such as that in Sierra Leone at the time or for example during the genocide in Rwanda a company like Executive Outcomes could have prevented some of the atrocities that the UN seemed powerless to do. When you compare the money spent on both in Sierra Leone for example, EO were contracted for only several million dollars, the UN mission at the time ran into the hundreds of millions.

Donny5

Yeah, you're definitely right that they got results much faster and cheaper than the UN could, but they had different goals and the UN simply can't do what the mercs could, which is engage in war.

MickJB1989

On the note of EO, a good fictional account of mercenaries in action is Dogs of War by Fredrick Forsyth. Very detailed, very accurate, although naturally dated given that it was written and set in the 70s. Principle of expertly trained, well-prepared and well-led small force routing a much larger, poorly equipped, barely trained force is well demo strated.

shaneybaby

The Sandline affair by Lt Col Tim Spicer is a decent book about Sandline international, another pmc

47

unclejunior wrote: »

Should the US and UK recruit mercenaries to fight in afghanistan? I think it would be a good idea if both countries recruited people from third world countries, such as africa. If the mercenaries ever suffer any casualities there wouldnt be much of a media impact back home plus it would be far less expensive on the government. Since there is such a high population in the third world it would possible to re employ the human wave tactic, like korea and stalingrad. What do you think?

Firstly..its unethical

Secondly.. poorly trained mercenaries wont get the job done.. Simply because no army in modern history has succesfully conquered Afghanistan, they'd be more succesful invading the sun or some other star or gas giant orbiting Jupiter. So what chance does a poorly trained mercenary band have? Governments would still be throwing ridiculous amounts of money at a war that they wont win.

Lastly, Africa isn't a country OP. :rolleyes: