Geneva Convention equivalent

[AnotherDilbert]

Please use the IMGW tag, something like:
[IMGw=800]
https://image.shutterstock.com/shutterstock/photos/1408015925/display_1500/stock-photo-a-man-in-a-military-helmet-with-a-broom-instead-of-a-rifle-on-a-white-background-military-humor-1408015925.jpg
[/IMGw]

 

[vegas]

Your welcome. Remember Voltaire's advice.

Especially on CotI. o:

 

[McPerth]

No they don't. Listing the order of battle isn't against the rules. That is like me saying I cannot say the Gulf war happened and French Foreign Legion troops were used in the drive into the North of Iraq. Or that Turkey sent troops to Korea to fight.

So it is safe to assume you know of NO recent (100 years) instance of the US hiring mercs (a professional soldier hired to serve in the army).

[m;]Yes, they do, and he knows better. Speaking about current use of mercs is too likely to become politic, if not being political per se. past times ae OK ,as all political matters[/m;]

 

[vegas]

In the CBO document I posted on p13 lists mercs employed for every US conflict going back to the revolutionary war. There is a long discussion of the security role they play. If you don't want to call them mercs due to some technical definition, thats just semantics and you are making a distinction without a practical difference. I think the reality is "private security contractors" do meet that definition, though I suppose you could try to hang your hat on how to construe "fight" and adequate demographic information is not available.

Janitors with guns. You're funny. Don't call the Blackwater guys that to their faces.

OK, over and out. No more semantics for me.

 

[Condottiere]

Hessians would be a clear demonstration of governments renting out their military as mercenaries.

Arguably, privateers would be mercenaries.

It really depends on the type of contract established, and what we'll call the chain of command.

 

[aramis]

[m;]Infractions and public warning[/m;]
Due to a number of political posts, the instigator has received two infractions.

The discussion on PMCs is inherently political, discussion of them after 1965 is restricted to the pit and/or the Twilight 2000 areas of the board, and real world post 1992 are off-limits outside the pit.

[m;]any further mentions in this thread of post 1965 mercs and PMCs will receive a week off from posting.[/m;]

If you read this after posting, mark them for deletion and you won't be infracted.

 

[whartung]

Is a PMC a "Private Military Corporation"?

 

[vegas]

Yes, sometimes. Its "Private Military Contractor" too or "Private Security Contractor" - mix and match, all the same idea.

 

[Enoki]

The question here is why would mercenaries be necessary? Who would hire them?

I can understand private corporations who need a temporary army or security force doing it, but governments are a bit different. It seems throughout history that mercenaries were hired by governments generally for one of three reasons:

The government needed specialists who could operate specific military equipment that the government's own military couldn't get in sufficient quantity. For example, artillerists in the late Middle Ages or Renaissance. The French hired crossbowmen from Genoa to support their knights at battles like Crecy.
In Traveller, such mercenaries might be hired by low tech worlds or polities to supplement the local troops with high tech weapons and equipment that can't be afforded on a continual basis.

The second is hiring foreign troops to supplement their army due to lack of numbers within their on citizen base. Late Rome did this as the population fell off filling legions with foreigners because of lack of Roman citizens both in number and willingness to serve.
The British did it a lot. From colonial troops to things like the King's German Legion (aka Hessians) in the Napoleonic period and somewhat earlier.
This would be in Traveller, a polity that can't get citizens to join the military easily or where there is a shortage of warm bodies. The former could be the citizens have become accustomed to peace and a quality of life that makes them reluctant to take the hardships of military service.
It's quite possible that the core systems of the 3rd Imperium, much like late Rome, are filled with citizens who see military service as beneath them and war as some distant thing that isn't coming to their world any time soon. Thus, the leadership of such worlds can't recruit the manpower they need to fill military obligations and a draft would result in public unrest.

The last reason for these were because they could be used where citizens themselves might be reluctant or refuse to go. The French foreign legion has always been that way. Their deployment was outside France and being foreigners and volunteers made them the go to force for distant wars.
The Spanish conquistadores are another example where the government didn't want to spend the money exploring so left it to essentially mercenaries who operated on the expectation of getting loot and social privilege.
This one is obvious. It is the Traveller motif so-to-speak. A mercenary unit gets hired by a government to carry out some mission on the basis that they get ample rewards beyond just being paid to do it.

 

[vegas]

Enoki,

There are more reasons than your list. Since this discussion is now off limits, let it suffice for me to say their is a pretty large academic and professional literature on the use of mercs - history, IR, law, economic disciplines as well as policy makers have all made offerings on it. There is plenty in the popular press too if those are too nerdy for you.

Up-thread I glossed a few more reasons for you to consider that dont seem to be covered by your list:
state actions are illegal or policies are unpopular;
evasion of state responsibility is highly desirable; or
states are weak in their capacity or are less strong than their societies so they can deploy them for the purpose of bolstering their coercive capacity

Those are all real-world uses and they easily translate to Traveller scenarios.

I like the third reason on your list as it acknowledges that there are political limits to the use of conscripts, so just because a govt could draft them doesnt mean its the best/easiest/preferred course. Nevertheless, there are more reasons than "citizens refuse" to prefer a merc to a conscript when choosing your force composition.

 

[Condottiere]

1. George the Third was Elector of Hanover, and while I couldn't say what the exact composition of the Legion was, I assume a lot of them were refugees from Hanover.

2. Motivations vary, and troops need to get paid; but, it really does depend as to with whom ultimate allegiance lay, whether King, country or corporation.

3. The problem with the Roman legions in the late Principate period, is that it became really a question of who paid them, and sometimes they made that selection themselves.

4. Interstellar polities, specifically those represented in Traveller, should have no problem finding enough qualified personnel for their militaries, without resorting to mercenaries, considering the size of their recruiting pools.

 

[vegas]

4. Interstellar polities, specifically those represented in Traveller, should have no problem finding enough qualified personnel for their militaries, without resorting to mercenaries, considering the size of their recruiting pools.

And yet we are told canonically that they do and the CT-era is the "Golden Age" of the merc. If availability of recruits (your point above) or conscripts (Enoki's point up-thread) were the only thing that mattered in the calculation, explaining how there could be a such golden age would be hard. Fortunately there are a host of other reasons for choosing mercs. And for plenty of polities in the setting, lack of boots available in the population could exactly be the problem.

EDIT: I almost deleted this post as I am just repeating myself. I think y'all have read enough from me so I'll stop spamming.

 

[aramis]

Yes, sometimes. Its "Private Military Contractor" too or "Private Security Contractor" - mix and match, all the same idea.

Contractor is the usual, not corporation, especially since most of the ones I've read about during the pre-1965 Vietnam weren't corporations, but sole proprietorships.

 

[aramis]

The question here is why would mercenaries be necessary? Who would hire them?

For early Vietnam-war era (pre-1965), it was a mix of the US CIA and the French government. Some of those hired were Hmong, some were US citizens, some were "other"...

 

[vegas]

Contractor is the usual, not corporation, especially since most of the ones I've read about during the pre-1965 Vietnam weren't corporations, but sole proprietorships.

Well, as long as we are being pedantic, "private military company" is more common than "contractor" and "private security company" is by far the most common of all, though it is a broader terms refers to more organizations than just mercs. Source: google ngram

 

[kilemall]

In the war between Texas and Mexico, Mexico ran about half native naval captains, half British or American contract captains, and Mexico hired out an entire British crew for the two then new high tech steam warships they bought.

 

[Condottiere]

1. Contract sounds about correct, for a function, core or otherwise, being outsourced.

2. Military civilian social compact resonates to a deeper relationship and mutual obligations.

3. Feudalism can extend beyond aristocratic household troops, to megacorporation company men.

4. I think Stirling introduced technoninjas into the CoDominium.

5. As regards the Golden Age of mercenaries, Pournelle spells it out, standing armies are expensive, especially well trained and equipped ones.

 

[Enoki]

Well, the recruiting is pretty obvious. Assuming that a cap of about 5% of the population can be pulled for military service normally--at most--and possibly less, it breaks down for just about any sector this way (based on a sample off Traveller map):

Systems with a pop >= B supply 90% or so of the recruits.
Systems with a pop = 9 or A supply 9%.
Systems with a pop < 9 supply about 1%

A planet with a population of 5 to 7 will supply a few thousand men, at most. Anything less and you are looking at between a few and maybe a couple hundred at most.
A 9 or A will supply millions. B+ can supply billions.

Then there's the technology problem. There is no match between population and tech level really so you can end up with billions of potential recruits that are from TL 6 -7 worlds which may be considered less desirable for service due to their lack of exposure to technology.
All of this could come back to mercenaries being highly skilled specialists for hire to back up the "cannon fodder." A mercenary hired to operate high tech, complex equipment with low risk of death could be a very desirable job.
The hiring government or corporation gets the skills they need when they need them and don't have to keep them on the books continuously so it saves them money.
Thus, most of the mercenaries hired are doing jobs like repairing equipment, operating complex systems, manning very high tech weapons the local recruits will take forever to learn to operate, that sort of thing.
Even the core of an independent mercenary band would likely be the same thing filling their ranks out with cheap, plentiful, low tech bullet absorbers for the close combat. We're the support. We'll back you up with our heavy weapons, but it's your fight...

Or one of those great quotes from a war movie...

The sergeant major is looking at the latest lot of replacements, "On glance at the stupid looks on your foolish faces tells me you'll make crack troops![/i]

 

[Timerover51]

The maximum number of persons a government may commit to a military is 10%, and that is risking breaking the economy. Smaller governments may have a problem trying to get to 10%, while very Low Tech worlds, 1 and 2, can push that a bit.

With respect to deploying troops, the Marine Brigade was sent to Iceland in the summer of 1941 to relieve the British Troops occupying it for service elsewhere. The Marines were sent because they were an all-volunteer force, while by Congressional action, draftees could not be sent overseas.

The American Volunteer Group, better known as the Flying Tigers, were essentially a government sanctioned mercenary organization working for the Chinese Nationalist government.

 

[Enoki]

The maximum number of persons a government may commit to a military is 10%, and that is risking breaking the economy. Smaller governments may have a problem trying to get to 10%, while very Low Tech worlds, 1 and 2, can push that a bit.

With respect to deploying troops, the Marine Brigade was sent to Iceland in the summer of 1941 to relieve the British Troops occupying it for service elsewhere. The Marines were sent because they were an all-volunteer force, while by Congressional action, draftees could not be sent overseas.

The American Volunteer Group, better known as the Flying Tigers, were essentially a government sanctioned mercenary organization working for the Chinese Nationalist government.

That's in wartime at a maximum. 10% is going to hurt the economy and be hard to support. For the most part, 5% is a pretty heavy draft of people into the military. Most nations in peacetime have no more than 2 or 3% serving.

I used 5% for my estimates because that's the max for peacetime or wartime where you aren't losing massive casualties or POW's.

At 5% in a peacetime situation any world below a 9 pop is going to only be able to supply a pittance in troops. It's almost not worth the effort to recruit them other than by volunteer service. On a B+ world a draft is possible on a continuous basis on two reasons:

First, you'll probably only be drafting 1 or 2% to meet quota which is almost nothing and possibly met with volunteers alone.
Second, a planet with billions of population is likely one that's over populated to begin with and military service would be seen as a way out, particularly for those at the lower end of society. The recruiters probably could pick and choose who they take and a draft might not even be necessary.

Mercenary service after having some official military training and experience would be an alternative to returning to an over populated world with few civilian job skills for many of those who selected military service.