With so many focused on the threat of rising private military contractors, many are missing the importance of the rising “global citizen mercenary” that fights for a state as professional rather than a patriot. This type of warrior permeates the private and public sector, fusing the two together. This internationalist warrior ethos is effecting traditional and non-traditional institutions of arms in order to counter non-traditional threats and meet non-traditional political objectives.
Private contractors are not the only ones fighting missions for pay and thrill around the world—national missions often have nothing to do with patriotism or the protection of person and home.
Using the US national defense structure as an example for a larger international trend, below is a concise list of critical factors making possible the transition from national soldiers to global mercenaries:
Politicization of military and war
Although still controversial, increasingly, politicians send the military out for operations other than a clear and direct defense of the USA; in spite of claiming the contrary. Presidents are permitted by Congress utilize the Department designed for “defense” to engage in military conflicts or provocations overseas within other states without a formal declaration of war. Also, state militias are termed the “National Guard” and called up under the auspices of “international” guard capacities. All tighten the connection of the American soldier to the President and distance the soldier from the people.
Loss of civic duty function
American citizens find it harder and harder to serve in the military or security forces for strict patriotic and nationalistic reasons. With few exceptions, they are encouraged to join for benefits and adventure, rather than civic duty and honor. The security profession, both civilian and military is becoming a profession rather than a national calling.
Volunteerism and benefits
Recruitment methods for the US military are primarily based on enticements of salary, benefits, experience and adventure, where one’s mission may not be that of a citizen’s service to country, but to serve global objectives. “Mission First” replaces “nation first.” Sometimes these missions are very noble humanitarian operations, defensive, or rescue operations, but at other times this may be political or involve unjustifiable kill strikes.
Politicization of strategy and special interests
The national security strategy has become the cornerstone of foreign policy. US foreign strategy is influenced by a particular tier of society and not the people as a whole. The national security industry, the counterterror industry, non-governmental organizations, think tanks, security contractors, multinational corporations, banks, and even foreign states all lobby and influence national security policy under mixed objectives—all posing a conflict of interest imbedded within the national security infrastructure. These parties inadvertently act to further remove the fundamental concept of national defense and redirect policy planning and strategic outlook to a plural and often contradictory approach.
Globalist perspective of world
US leadership is increasingly labeling “global” interests as critical US national security objectives. They are often arbitrarily making these distinctions regarding the national interest. Many times this is done without a clear methodology or any convincing argument for such decisions as strictly beneficial to the US, when all things are considered and unfortunately, many times, in hindsight.
Global expectations
The rise of a global activist warrior without a state loyalty demands a counter model, yet the world embraces a global citizen mercenary to guard civilization from the threat.
Coercive globalist role of the US Armed Forces
To achieve globalist objectives, politicians have been willing to opportunistically use US military forces in operations opening and integrating closed states into the global system (e.g. Iraq and Libya). Anti-US critics focus on strict US gains, but actually, these actions benefit the global system as a whole and not strictly the US national economy. Even when the actions are beneficial to everyone, is it just to kill people for change and when do you do so? Should such a role be decided by the US president and conducted by the US military?
Industrialization of the US national security infrastructure
War is becoming more of an American led multinational industry. The Eisenhower era military industrial complex was replaced by the national security industrial complex of the long Cold War. That is still being brushed aside by the current counterterror industrial complex. The problem, of course, is that they are not shy about hyping any terrorist activity for profit and pushing industry related policies rather than purely nationalist ones. They trump all sound strategic attempts that interfere with a global economic profit model rather than the ones that make best political sense or that may be inherently more diplomatic. The idea of perpetual warfare doctrine is an example of this relationship and its hold on the US national security infrastructure.
War-fighting technology
The military machine becomes less human and more machine. This removes the human moral considerations further from the battlefield and makes warfare an mechanical assembly-line kill house rather than the noble cause of national self-defense. Pilot controlled sea, air and land drones are increasingly becoming more automated (i.e. they can function and operate intelligently with basic instruction and non-human direct control).
Advances in future technologies allow politicians to gain greater strategic oversight and justify more and more offensive wars with less and less human casualties. The national security industry and special interests will also encourage and sponsor this process. These disruptive technologies are proving more cost efficient and effective, but also supportive of a US global centric force.
Nature of war becomes smaller
The 21st century global “urban” warrior challenge requires military units to become smaller, more agile, and quicker. This additional capability to medium and large scale force structures allows greater use of special operations. Although the special operations units were always highly politicized from the start, they were at least in the past fighting for US national strategic interest. Now, they are taking on more and more roles within a new global interest calculus and presidents are allowed to use special operations abusively because they are of a covert nature.
The larger reality is that a US global warrior is in fact already not a traditional national soldier anymore. On the other hand, this soldier is not a traditional mercenary. This new breed holds more characteristics that are traditionally associated with mercenaries than soldiers for non-nationalistic reasons listed above.
All of the above are case study attributes to the new cultural and identity shift. Americans, weary of war are now financially strapped. Politicians are reluctant to downsize the military budget but cannot afford allocating such high funding forever.
Nevertheless, the scope of the US international mission and global resolve remains unwavering. The political solution is likely to enhance the role the professional military warriors and private contractors in achieving greater efficiency, while the old patriotic state citizen soldier defending himself and his country is left behind in the sands of time.
Increasingly Using Private Military Contractors
The use of Private Military Contractors (PMCs) in traditional military roles reached staggering heights during Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom. This has become a standard practice from transportation up to planning.
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