What works better, Private Military Forces or the UN?

Discussion in 'Security & Defenses' started by Hoosier8, Sep 30, 2012.

  1. Hoosier8

    Hoosier8 Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Jan 16, 2012
    Messages:
    107,541
    Likes Received:
    34,488
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Well, back between 95 to 97 a private security force called Executive Outcomes using about a force of 100 quelled the uprising in Sierra Leone at a cost of 20 million a year where the international community had refused to do and been incapable of doing in the past. This caused a lot of misconceptions and anger in the international community and EO was eventually forced to leave the country through intimidation to the leaders of Sierra Leone by the UN and the US and was replaced with up to 18,000 UN forces at a cost of 1 billion dollars a year. After EO withdrew, the UN stepped in and the revolutionary front started up again and the UN was powerless to stop it which resulted in thousands being killed and tens of thousands of people maimed.

    This is the first time in the world that a private company was hired to fight wars for profit.

    Opinions?
     
  2. IgnoranceisBliss

    IgnoranceisBliss Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Oct 9, 2009
    Messages:
    5,201
    Likes Received:
    41
    Trophy Points:
    48
    UN peace keepers are of very limited quality and effectiveness. Most of their forces are made up of poorly trained soldiers from places like Pakistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh. These soldiers can make significantly more working for the UN than they can for their host countries, so they flock to the UN. The UN has some much bureacratic tape and casualty aversion that it's impossible for them to be effective in anything but minor non-kinetic police actions. I think their failures in Rwanda, Srebrenica, and Somalia prove this. In my opinion, the majority of UN peacekeepers are just vastly underpaid, underqualifed, and poorly led mercenaries without the negative stigma attached to private security companies.
     
  3. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jul 13, 2009
    Messages:
    12,494
    Likes Received:
    2,420
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    Actually, it was not. For most of the history of our planet, mercenaries have been common. Even the term "Company" and "Captain" date back to it's use by mercenary forces. Renissance Italy was full of Condottieri armies (also commonly called Free Companies).

    In the mid 1980's, when I was very involved in 25mm led armies, I actually made a 500 figure force of Condottieri. Everybody else I played with made Imperial Roman, or Norse or other classic armies (one even did a late era Egyptian), but I was attracted to the Condottieri both because of their early use of muskets, as well being able to use a wide variety of differing figures (from heavy knights to pikemen, peasants and crossbowmen).

    The Swiss provided so many mercenary companies that they are not only mentioned in the works of Shakespeare, but finally banned by their own Constitution in 1848 (with the exception of those that still guard the Pope).

    This may be the first case of such in recent history, but it is far from "the first".

    As far as the UN itself, over the years my opinion of that organization as "peacekeepers" has steadily declined. There the troops are only as good as the country they come from, and more often then not they are choosing to stay out of a conflict instead of trying to find a solution (which is why in the last few decades NATO has been much more important in peacekeeping then the UN has been).
     
  4. Hoosier8

    Hoosier8 Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Jan 16, 2012
    Messages:
    107,541
    Likes Received:
    34,488
    Trophy Points:
    113

    I realized when I wrote that I was probably wrong, but in the modern MSM world, it is probably true.
     
  5. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jul 13, 2009
    Messages:
    12,494
    Likes Received:
    2,420
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    That is because there is no money for the most part in mercenary armies.

    You can't just take a peasant from behind a plow, hand him a pike and a few weeks of training and turn him into a soldier. And battles are not determined by who has the most soldiers, but who has the best training, tactics and equipment.

    The only place where mercenaries might be of use is in a war of attrition. But once again there is no money in that. You would be working for the side that is already obviously loosing the war, and the cost in men would be prohibitive to maintain as a "company".

    By the end of the Renissance, mercenary armies were pretty much dead. The Napoleonic wars was probably the last gasp for this kind of organization. Not even the naval version (Privateers) was of any real use past the mid-1800's.
     
  6. PropagandaMachine

    PropagandaMachine New Member

    Joined:
    Sep 20, 2012
    Messages:
    1,574
    Likes Received:
    11
    Trophy Points:
    0
    UN forces are good for nothing, a waste of money, and an enabler of injustice due to their inefficiency. That's when they can put aside petty politics enough to actually assemble in places that they deem themselves needed.
     

Share This Page