Paramilitary

Paramilitary
A paramilitary is an organization whose structure, tactics, training, subculture, and (often) function are similar to those of a professional military, but which is not part of a country's official or legitimate armed forces. Paramilitary units carry out duties that a country's military or police forces are unable or unwilling to handle. Other organizations may be considered paramilitaries by structure alone, despite being unarmed or lacking a combat role.
Overview
Though a paramilitary is, by definition, not a military, it is usually equivalent to a light infantry or special forces in terms of strength, firepower, and organizational structure. Paramilitaries use "military" equipment (such as long guns and armored personnel carriers; usually military surplus resources), skills (such as battlefield medicine and bomb disposal), and tactics (such as urban warfare and close-quarters combat) that are compatible with their purpose, often combining them with skills from other relevant fields such as law enforcement or search and rescue. They rarely use extensive military equipment such as artillery and armed military aircraft.
In peacetime, paramilitaries are often assigned to protect high-profile sites, such as government facilities, infrastructure, airports, seaports, or borders. They may also be tasked with roles of VIP protection or counterterrorism. Depending on the organization the paramilitary operates under, they may also be reassigned until they are needed again; for example, members of a police tactical unit may be assigned to standard patrol duties until requested.
A paramilitary may fall under the command of a military, train alongside them, or have permission to use their resources, despite not actually being part of them. In some instances, paramilitaries may train members of an actual military in tactics they specialize in, such as arrest procedures.
Legality
Under the law of war, a state may incorporate a paramilitary organization or armed agency (such as a law enforcement agency or a private volunteer militia) into its combatant armed forces. The other parties to a conflict have to be notified thereof.
Some countries' constitutions limit freedom of association by prohibiting paramilitary organizations outside government use. In most cases, there is no definition of paramilitary, and court decisions are responsible for defining that concept.
Types
Depending on the definition adopted, "paramilitaries" may include:
Military organizations
The auxiliary forces of a state's military or government, military reserve forces, such as national guard, presidential guard, republican guard, state defense force, home guard, civil guard, imperial guard, and royal guard forces
Private military contractors and mercenaries
Irregular military forces, such as militias, partisans, resistance movements, freedom fighters, rebel groups, liberation armies, guerilla armies, militants, insurgents, and terrorist groups
Law enforcement
Semi-militarized law enforcement units within civilian police, such as police tactical units, SWAT, Emergency Service Units, and incident response teams
Gendarmeries, such as the Dutch Royal Marechaussee, Egyptian Central Security Forces, European EUROGENDFOR, Turkic TAKM, and Chilean Carabineros de Chile
Border guards, such as the Australian Border Force, Indian Border Security Force, Bangladeshi Border Guards Bangladesh, and Turkish village guards
Security forces of ambiguous military status, such as internal troops, railroad guard corps, and railway troops
Branches of intelligence agency tasked with law enforcement or security operations:
CIA Special Activities Center Special Operations Group and Global Response Staff
Tactical federal agency branches of the American FBI, DEA, ATF, and ICE, among other federal agencies
Federal Protective Forces
NASA Emergency Response Teams
Civil defense
Civil defense
Fire departments in many countries are often organized like paramilitaries despite being unarmed
Ambulance service
Belgian Civil Protection
Singapore Civil Defence Force
Australian State Emergency Service
Ukrainian State Emergency Service
Lithuanian Riflemen's Union
Political
Armed, semi-militarized wings of existing political parties:
the Italian Fascist Party's Voluntary Militia for National Security, and Black Brigades
Weimar paramilitary groups, belonging to political parties in the Weimar Republic:
the Nazi Party's paramilitary groups: NSFK, NSKK, SA, and SS
the Monarchist German National People's Party's Der Stahlhelm
the Communist Party of Germany's Parteiselbstschutz
Northern Irish paramilitary groups during the Troubles
Sinn Féin's Irish Republican Army
PUP's Ulster Volunteer Force
Hamas' Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades
African National Congress' UMkhonto we Sizwe
Examples of paramilitary units
See also
:Category:Rebel militia groups
International Association of Gendarmeries and Police Forces with Military Status
List of Serbian paramilitary formations
Militarization of police
Police tactical unit
Security forces
Fourth-generation warfare
Violent non-state actor
Military urbanism
Private army
Guerrilla warfare
List of countries by number of military and paramilitary personnel
List of paramilitary organizations
References
Further reading
Golkar, Saeid. (2012) Paramilitarization of the Economy: the Case of Iran's Basij Militia, Armed Forces & Society, Vol. 38, No. 4
Golkar, Saeid. (2012). Organization of the Oppressed or Organization for Oppressing: Analysing the Role of the Basij Militia of Iran. Politics, Religion & Ideology, Dec., 37–41. doi:10.1080/21567689.2012.725661
External links
Civil–military relations
Military terminology
Private security industry