Mercenarizing the US Government

<p>The use of mercenaries to fight wars is an age-old concept. A new trend however is the evolution of the mercenary into the modern-day Private Military Company (PMC) which now provides not only peacetime-focused hardware and support services but also wartime-focused combat training and lethal combat services. This paper explores the phenomenon of mercenarizing the USG where USG increasingly relies on PMCs in scale (i.e value/number of resources) scope (i.e. range/type of services) and for their lethal combat services. Evaluated against the US's national security objectives the paper finds that that if left unregulated the trend of relying on PMCs will enrich the private sector but will negatively impact the US's national security by degrading the US's long-term and strategic warfighting capability discrediting the US's stand on justice and human rights as well as undermining the US's international credibility for democracy promotion.</p><p>This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore you will see the original copyright references library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world) and other notations in the work.</p><p>This work is in the public domain in the United States of America and possibly other nations. Within the United States you may freely copy and distribute this work as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.</p><p>As a reproduction of a historical artifact this work may contain missing or blurred pages poor pictures errant marks etc. Scholars believe and we concur that this work is important enough to be preserved reproduced and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.</p><br>