Outsourcing the military

Yesterday we discussed the considerations for outsourcing the military.

There are arguments for outsourcing government services to improve efficiency.  Why not the military?

Summary of the ideas;

1.  We already outsource parts of the military,  they buy trucks and equipment instead of making it all themselves.  They use civilians to construct military buildings even though they have their own engineers who can build bridges.  So they already outsource to some degree.  We may be more talking about the soldiers who actually carry out combat duties, the ones who put their lives at risk.

2.  When a country move from mandatory conscription to a voluntary army,  the combat duty is already "outsourced" to professional soldiers instead of military service being part of civic duty.  These professional soldiers sign on to take the place of other citizens in return for the pay and benefits offered by the military.

3.  Outsourcing the military detach military action too much from political decisions.  It is easier to send an "outsourced" military to action overseas but a conscripted defense force is much more motivated to protect their country as it is their own land but would hesitate to intervene a foreign situation.

4.  The military serve to deter outside aggression by just being there.  Having a military at the ready on standby with active patrol duty signals to a potential aggressor that they are up against a difficult task when invading.  Having a big war chest with ready funds to hire mercenaries don't quite achieve the same affect.

5.  Military action involve situations where the scope of work is ill defined.  This makes it difficult to contract the task to some other entity.  Contracting out is better suited to well defined work with agreed objectives.

6.  The military have special rules of conduct in war which civilian contractors are not obligated to.  This led to the example of torture by outsourced  contractors.  Whether the military intentionally use contracting out to distance themselves from these undesirable practices, the laws needs to be changed to cover the contractors as well and the contractors needs to be under the same obligations.

7.  Loyalty is a big factor and the French foreign Legend use French officers even though the soldiers are paid foreigners and it is only used for action outside of France.

8.  While the ancient Greeks take pride in looking at military service as part of civic responsibility,  we also have to keep in mind that they are land owners protecting their own land and not everyone have a vote.  Therefore the make up of civic voting group is not the same as it is today.

9.  Outsourced contractors may have a conflict of interest in wanting to prolong a war or promote conflict in order to generate more business for themselves.

10.  Constantly training to be ready is the military's routine.  Is it possible to place our nation's trust on some outside contractor to maintain this readiness?  Perhaps while they are maintaining the same readiness for a possible future enemy?

In the end, morale and motivation is a big part of military action. War is also about dealing with an enemy that may not follow rules.  All this makes it a difficult issue to define for outsourcing.  Once bits of it is defined, it can be outsourced.  Should the military outsource the manufacturing of their own bullets? I would say yes as it seems like a defined issue.  Should the military outsource its intelligence gathering?  I would say no as it seems a fluid issue with a lot of judgment calls required.