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How private armies will remake modern warfare

economist.com

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Re: How private armies will remake modern warfare

#61

Post by pav7en »

pav7en wrote: post #60
deepsun wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if the only thing you're fighting for is a paycheck, then you won't hang in there when it counts the most and hence are worth jackshit as a mercenary. Completely wrong. From what I heard from spec ops, professional soldiers are way better in fight. The main point, he said, is that outside people think that war needs courage, while really it's experience that matters. And proper supplies.

You misunderstood me. Whom do you consider a truly professional soldier? In my view it's a marine, a SEAL, or another military member of a modern state. Heck even a Pakistan army soldier is a professional soldier. So what drives these professional soldiers is not the paycheck, its the idea of patriotism or that they are upholding some set of values for their country, or the idea that they are protecting their country…

Oh and courage, well it's nothing. War is all about working effectively with fear, that's why the emphasis on training, the more and more you train, the better you're able to keep fear as a background process and not panic.

Re: How private armies will remake modern warfare

#62

Post by pjc50 »

woodman wrote: post #59
pjc50 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that an assassination market is facilitating murder, which is criminal and immoral and also destabilizing; you're far more likely to get a spiral of ill-targeted reprisals. (I can't believe someone describes "murder is wrong" as "whiteknighting")

You understand the context of this discussion involves: WMDs, state military and private military. So we are already talking about murder - and the scales aren't even comparable. How is a murder at the hands of the state less wrong than a murder at the hands of private assassin? That is why you are "whiteknighting", you are trying to defend the indefensible with an appeal to emotion. Waving about the bloody shirt of…

This is bizarre. The context is an article saying, among other things, "He is alarmed by the prospect, not least because he feels that in a truly free market mercenary armies might be encouraged to seek profits by starting new wars". You're the one who brought up assassination politics; in which anyone sufficiently unpopular would get a price on their head. This is not an improvement.

I'm not trying to defend anything other than the status quo, in which unaccountable private paramilitaries are fairly rare and frowned on.

Re: How private armies will remake modern warfare

#63

Post by woodman »

pjc50 wrote: post #62
woodman wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You understand the context of this discussion involves: WMDs, state military and private military. So we are already talking about murder - and the scales aren't even comparable. How is a murder at the hands of the state less wrong than a murder at the hands of private assassin? That is why you are "whiteknighting", you are trying to defend the indefensible with an appeal to emotion. Waving about the bloody shirt of…

This is bizarre. The context is an article saying, among other things, "He is alarmed by the prospect, not least because he feels that in a truly free market mercenary armies might be encouraged to seek profits by starting new wars". You're the one who brought up assassination politics; in which anyone sufficiently unpopular would get a price on their head. This is not an improvement. I'm not trying to defend anythin…

> This is bizarre.

I agree, people thinking other thoughts and drawing different conclusions can be unsettling.

The article also touches on the idea of efficiency, which you will see is the point of my top post - before you somehow linked assassination markets to Islamic terrorism. While I welcome a debate on the merit and feasibility of assassination markets, I don't think it would be a very productive conversation to have with you - as you've already expressed your interest in simply defending the status quo. Also, PMCs are not rare or frowned on - so your situation awareness is off as well (lets not get into a redefinition of "rare" or "frowned on" either).

Re: How private armies will remake modern warfare

#64

Post by mikerichards »

mercurial wrote: post #41
wtbob wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of course, anyone powerful enough to protect you in the absence of the state has no reason to work for you rather than enslave you. I think the libertarian point is that this same logic applies to states themselves. Note how recently polities have taken away the freedom of restaurants to choose to allow smoking, selling certain sizes of drinks; the freedom of parents to choose their children's education and so fort…

> Note how recently polities have taken away the freedom of restaurants to choose to allow smoking, selling certain sizes of drinks; the freedom of parents to choose their children's education and so forth. Terrifying. And it has been going on for a long while. Remember when shops in the US had the right to sell their wares to whoever they wanted, back in the good old days before the Civil Rights movements? Those wer…

More seriously, regulation takes some freedom away, but you have to look at the big picture. Smoking is harmful, even second-hand smoking, and public health efforts to reduce its effects should be applauded and not lamented.

Oh great, then just ban it completely. And ban alcohol and sugar, and all sorts of other things that are "bad" for us.

And it's silly to try and convince someone to applaud vs lament. Do you seriously think you're going to change anyone's opinion?

Some people just hate individual responsibility. You would think that on HN, it would be different, but even this place has been infected with destructive, freedom-hating statist thinking. What a shame.

Re: How private armies will remake modern warfare

#65

Post by 0x5f3759df-i »

icebraining wrote: post #51
0x5f3759df-i wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do understand how a representative government works?

Understanding how it works doesn't mean that one has to agree that it's democratic; it's at best a mix of democratic and non-democratic elements, and for some that might be equivalent to "not really democratic". And that's even assuming that the mechanisms are working properly, and not subverted - which is a big assumption.

And not agreeing that it's "democratic" doesn't mean a direct democracy is a better form of government.

Who decided more democracy creates the best government?

Re: How private armies will remake modern warfare

#66

Post by icebraining »

0x5f3759df-i wrote: post #65
icebraining wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Understanding how it works doesn't mean that one has to agree that it's democratic; it's at best a mix of democratic and non-democratic elements, and for some that might be equivalent to "not really democratic". And that's even assuming that the mechanisms are working properly, and not subverted - which is a big assumption.

And not agreeing that it's "democratic" doesn't mean a direct democracy is a better form of government. Who decided more democracy creates the best government?

knorby above, by implying that some policies were better because they were enacted by popular support.
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