The United States should use private military firms abroad to pursue its military objectives.

Pro is correct that PMCs can be involved in a variety of activities and what our burden is in this debate. We will weigh all of the activities of PMCs and determine how those result in a net negative, providing reason to not use PMFs as tools in military actions. Pro"s argument essentially breaks out to three points. We will address all three. 1) PMFs are cheaper None of the costs Pro cites add up to anywhere near the costs we cited in R1. It"s baffling to see an argument about costs involved in recruitment when Pro is advocating for a system of hiring that pays out more than 6 times what the average soldier receives. These contracts are barely audited: "there is one auditor for every $2.03 billion in contracts."[1] Many of them aren"t even open to bids, meaning the government"s paying quite a bit more than it needs to pay.[2] And what they do pay is largely for corrupt practices: "the Defense Contract Audit Agency has identified more than $10 billion in unsupported or questionable costs from battlefield contractors--and it has barely scratched the surface."[1] We must also consider where that money goes. Every new soldier is another person gainfully employed, and will likely spend much of what they earn in the U.S. Meanwhile, much of the funds we spend on PMCs in Afghanistan go to warlords fighting the government. This means American taxpayers are literally funding warlords, who are simultaneously undermining and threatening the government we helped establish.[3] 2) PMFs increase troop totals rapidly and easily We accept and the U.S. uses a great deal of contractors and that these are used to cover for limitations in the number of people in the military. However, we don"t accept that employing those contractors or increasing beyond the limitations of our military are beneficial. Rapid doesn"t mean better. The benefits Pro cites are chiefly theoretical. Whether the U.S. could potentially have used PMFs in previous conflicts is irrelevant. They chose not to use them, just as they chose not to send troops. The harms are actual. As we pointed out last round, contractors have a bad habit of stirring up trouble. You only need look to Nisour Square, Abu Ghraib, and the sex trafficking trade to see the effects [4, 5, 6]. This isn"t uncommon. In Iraq "incidents" are happening so frequently that [PMCs] are not even bothering to submit incident reports." The military is clearly frustrated with them, and several officers have made their displeasure clear. This is because contractors are outside the military chain of command, often unaccountable for their actions.[7] This isn"t just about military perception; we don"t occupy countries for years without trying to win hearts and minds. The U.S. has to win the confidence of a region it occupies in order to get any traction with that nation in the future. PMCs have caused permanent damage to U.S. perception abroad. "[C]ontractors drive convoys up the wrong side of the road, ram civilian vehicles, toss smoke bombs, and fire weaponry as warnings, all as standard practices."[8] As a result, the Iraqis "equate the staff of private firms with coalition soldiers," resulting in negative reception.[9] Inherent limitations to the size of our military force are not a negative. The theoretical harms of slower responses to future wars are outpaced by the fact that U.S. leadership shouldn"t have access to a deeper well of human lives to throw into combat. With PMCs, the U.S. isn"t held accountable for many of the lives lost in combat. Restricting the number of instances wherein our government can commit to conflicts abroad and increasing U.S. accountability for life lost is beneficial. A draft holds them to even higher account, requiring that the government take responsibility by accepting the political and social consequences of that decision. That"s a positive. 3) PMFs are better trained/have more knowledge of the region A lot of this argument is based on a set of assumptions about a) how well trained PMF employees are, b) how well they work together with the military, and c) that having pre-trained individuals is paramount. All three are faulty. A1) Their training The army would beg to differ with regards to how expert PMC employees are. Demands for more and more soldiers has led to a sort of tiered system of talent. "At the top, you've got former Special Forces, Navy SEALs, Army Rangers and whatnot...you go down to retired policemen and then you go down a layer or two below that and you get to what the business calls tier bubba, and this is what they fear."[7] That means you end up with untrained people being thrown into combat. The rapid response Pro"s talking about would be comprised chiefly of the lower tiers because "[t]here is a shortage of quality labor. Hiring people takes time now...we have to wait for people to come off other jobs." This has led to PMCs hiring some "particularly disturbing characters" and a "lack of pre-deployment briefing and training important not only for honing sometimes rusty skills, but also for building small-unit cohesion in combat". Even if they have previous training, it often does not apply to the country or situation.[2] Those who do have that training are usually being siphoned off talent from the military, particularly groups like Special Forces and the Navy SEALS.[10] We should not incentivize that brain drain. A2) Training others Pro cites how important it is that PMFs be able to train troops in the region, but there"s no evidence of this training being effective. "In 2003, Vinnell won a $48 million contract"to train up new Iraq Army battalions. Twelve months later, the U.S. military had little to show for its contract. Half the troops in the first Iraqi infantry battalion trained up deserted and the other half couldn"t carry out such perfunctory tasks as march in place or answer radio calls properly, let alone go into battle." However, even if it had been successful, the whole practices misses the point. "[A]dvising a partner military is not just about building up their military skillset. It is also about passing on values and building long-term relationships. When you contract out military advisors, the values of civil-military relations and professionalism are supplanted by the evident commoditization of military skills, not always the best message in a developing democracy."[11] Shifting the task to a private entity hampers many of the benefits we aim to achieve by engaging in training. B) Working together It cannot be understated how important it is that military efforts be cohesive. It's one of the main reasons why organized militaries have become the norm in almost every country: a clear, established chain of command allows for effective dissemination of information and coordinates military movements. However, "PMFs are independent entities, responsible for their own operations, safety and security." They don't have access to military intelligence, communications, weapons or protection. "[T]he lack of information means that contractors are "flying blind, often guessing about places that they shouldn't go." For example, before the Fallujah killings, Marines were preparing their own operations in the vicinity as a follow-up to fighting in the city a week earlier, and the intelligence was that insurgents in the town were prepped for ambush. These contradictions carry over to critical differences in the field." This is compounded by the fact that PMCs themselves have widely varying means of information collection, evaluating risk, and operating procedures, and they often don't share info they have gathered.[2] "The lack of established practice of identification in the field also raises obvious problems...with the planning, synchronization, and the management of violence. The destructive capacity of modern armed force is staggering. It takes an enormous effort to focus that destructive power on the right objectives without killing civilians". And yet, that focus is lacking when PMCs are introduced into the field. They fundamentally reduce the flexibility of the military, as they often aren't coordinated with military actions. This means the military has more difficulty adapting to situations, missions and concepts that it could otherwise address due to a lack of coordination and visibility, reducing its effectiveness and leading to errors.[12] C) Pre-training versus training The idea that we could have our forces trained and ready for use by PMCs sounds great, but it increases our dependency on them: "the consequence of turning over so much of the supply system to private civilian firms, which have this right to decide when and where they deploy, makes our logistics system "a house of cards.""[1] "Using contractors also deprives some military personnel of valuable field experience and training. The problem-solving opportunities that are so critical to the preparation of senior logistics officers and NCOs are no longer available. When contractors become responsible for providing supplies, this leaves no trained force structure capable of handling this function in the battlespace. If...the concept of substituting parts of the logistics by contractor services does not prove successful, the military will find itself unable to instantly grow, train, and benefit from the experience of the mid- and upper-level managers developed within the enlisted and officer corps. It may take...20 years before the military can regain the capability now resident in its personnel." [13] So the brain drain is made worse by the use of PMCs masking glaring deficiencies in the U.S. military. 1. http://brook.gs... 2. http://brook.gs... 3. http://nyti.ms... 4. http://bit.ly... 5. http://bit.ly... 6. http://bit.ly... 7. http://1.usa.gov... 8. http://brook.gs... 9. http://bit.ly... 10. http://bit.ly... 11. http://brook.gs... 12. http://bit.ly... 13. http://bit.ly... Back to Pro