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ICI's deployment is part of a global trend of military outsourcing and foreign policy by proxy that has become far more common since the end of the Cold War. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the nature of international conflict shifted from U.S.-Soviet competition in client states to regional and ethnic conflicts requiring peacekeeping or other engagement. At the same time, the end of Cold War resulted in reduced superpower defense budgets, forcing even high-ranking military officers to sell their talents in the public sector. This collision of supply and demand resulted in a new age of military and security services on the world market.
In fact, a nearly two-year investigation by ICIJ identified at least 90 private military companies, or PMCs (as some of these new millennium mercenaries prefer to be known), that have operated in 110 countries worldwide. Most of these companies – defined as providing services normally carried out by a national military force, including military training, intelligence, logistics, combat and security in conflict zones – are headquartered in the United States, Britain and South Africa, though the vast bulk of their services are performed in conflict-ridden countries in Africa, South America and Asia. Eleven of the companies identified by ICIJ are no longer active, and the operational status of 18 others could not be determined.
"Mercenaries" are officially outlawed under Article 47 of the Geneva Convention, which defines them as persons recruited for armed conflict by or in a country other than their own and motivated solely by personal gain. However, few modern PMCs fit that definition and, indeed, spokesmen for such companies insist they rarely engage in combat and provide military skills only to legitimate, internationally recognized governments. The ICIJ investigation found that a wide range of companies – from large corporations that offer military training, security, landmine clearance and military base construction to start-up entrepreneurs offering combat services and tactical training – are in what has become the complex and multibillion-dollar business of war.
Since 1994, the U.S. Defense Department has entered into 3,061 contracts with 12 of the 24 U.S.-based PMCs identified by ICIJ, a review of government documents showed. Pentagon records valued those contracts was more than $300 billion. More than 2,700 of those contracts were held by just two companies: Kellogg Brown & Root and Booz Allen Hamilton. Because of the limited information the Pentagon provides and the breadth of services offered by some of the larger companies, it was impossible to determine what percentage of these contracts was for training, security or logistical services.
Originally posted by cryptorsa1001
No Response, Hmmmm......
Originally posted by Heartagram
Definition of Mercenary:
One that serves merely for wages,especially : a soldier hired into foreign service
[edit on 16/2/05 by Heartagram]
Cryptor
Should the Pentagon be prohibited from using private military companies or is this just good business?
the vagabond
The French Foreign Legion is not typically seen as a mercinary force but they are in the same spirit as mercs, and there is a reason the legion is kept far from Paris
shadowXIX
Standing armies fighting for a nation is a rather new concept in the history of warfare .
mahree
Did the cutting of our military budget and therefore our military personnel bring on these PMC's?
Is it a good budget move to hire PMCs instead of maintaining a volunteer military to cover all needs?
small integrated groups ready to go anywhere at any time,
Originally posted by Nygdan
shadowXIX
Standing armies fighting for a nation is a rather new concept in the history of warfare .
Standing armies, yes, but citizen armies, no. The roman legions were citizen-yeomen, along with the greek city-state armies, for example. Most tribal armies are, obviously, 'citizen volunteers' (more or less tho). Places like Carthage widely used mercenaries tho and certainly others did too. But mercenaries aren't the 'norm' really.