According to a WorldTribune.com article, Blackwater USA now has a brigade-size force (1500–3500 personnel) available for low-intensity conflicts. While speaking at the Special Operations Forces Exhibition in Jordan, J. Cofer Black, vice chairman of Blackwater USA, stated:
- “There is clear potential to conduct security operations at a fraction of the cost of NATO operations.”
Blackwater USA is most noted for its roles in the current Iraqi conflict and in the Hurricane Katrina aftermath. While the conditions that resulted in this company’s marked growth are clearly the consequences of state-sponsored military action, everyone basically agrees that Blackwater and other private military corporations (“PMCs”) are far more cost-effective than government-administered military forces for virtually any engagement.
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CMB, the President can’t deploy government military without Congress sticking its nose in, at least eventually. PMCs provide a quick and easy way to simply “contract out” the work on a lark.
Unless I am completely mistaken, much of the American “combat” forces in the drug interdiction effort outside of the US are “private” contractors.
So the Executive Branch has discovered the usefulness of outsourcing.
When Sulla leads his legions across the Potomac, we’ll all know history repeats.
In Ancapistan, the military hired by the plutocracy will be extremely efficient.
CMB: No one would argue that innovation cannot take place in a bureaucracy. Mikhail Kalishnikov is but one example of a creative genius whose innovations were made at the behest of a socialist state. State militaries employ effective tactics in many cases because at least some of the people that work for state militaries want to be soldiers, airmen, etc., and are interested in military theory enough to make novel changes to the last generation’s tactics.
I would argue that the flexibility of Blackwater USA, et al. in the PMC business makes them better able to quickly become useful in a particular tactical environment. Feedback from your in-the-muck personnel can affect specific plans for future endeavors by the organization if it is dynamic. Bureaucracies just don’t have the right incentive structures in place to rapidly, reliably, and efficiently adapt to new situations.
My point is not that Blackwater USA is necessarily some bastion of the free market. Rather, my post was meant to show that even in the area of protection services—the services perhaps most often cited as making a government necessary—private organizations are simply more efficient at producing the service.
Curt: You are right about PMCs doing a lot of drug interdiction stuff. There are a least a few companies that do marine interdiction work. DynCorp (now a subsidiary of CSC) also does a lot of aviation work in South America defoliating coca fields, marijuana fields, and (occassionally) food crop fields.
Reactionary – and in Demagogueland, a clever put-down trumps a rational argument.
Go back to your troll cave, buddy. There’s nobody to impress with your antics here.
Hmm, perhaps we should hire one? Pool some money, and kick out some tiny third world murderous tyrant that nobody cares about. Install a government that is forced to use a gold currency, whose constitution mandates free trade of goods and labor, respect of property rights, mandates privacy especially of employment and income, a real right to bear arms, and specifically forbids and criminalizes:
social security and other mandated retirement schemes
any attempt to impose a mininum wage
public funded medical care
publicly funded schools
publically funded/coerced wars on drugs
publically funded/coerced attacks on personal vices such as gambling and prostitution
and publicly funded care for the poor
Wasn’t Blackwater involved in some sort of corruption scandal lately?
Exactly how is Blackwater more efficient that the US military?
I am not questioning whether they are, but why they are. Therein you may find that they do not have many of the safeguards and necessary mechanisms in place to adequately repreent and defend a country.
What I am suggesting is that what they ‘economize on’ may be essential items in a government military force.
What sort of paperwork to I have to file to become a one-man Private Military Corporation? Will I be allowed to buy machine guns once I fill this paperwork?
Frank, armaments and rules of engagement are dictated by the country who’s paying for your contract. It’s not a free pass to do whatever the hell you want.
Too bad. Better luck trolling next time.
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