Force for Hire: The Private Market for Special Operations Forces
Jan 10, 2019
By: Taylor Clausen, Columnist
Uniformed military forces today are widely considered to be the primary individuals tasked with employing the use of state-sanctioned force. However, in the history of warfare, the soldier has rarely had this monopoly. Mercenaries – today called private military contractors – have continuously been employed by states for a variety of reasons. In the first book of modern political science, The Prince, Niccoli Machiavelli issued a stark warning for rulers who chose to employ such forces.
Mercenaries and auxiliaries are useless and dangerous; and if one holds his state based on these arms, he will stand neither firm nor safe; for they are disunited, ambitious, and without discipline, unfaithful, valiant before friends, cowardly before enemies; they have neither the fear of God nor fidelity to men, and destruction is deferred only so long as the attack is; for in peace one is robbed by them, and in war by the enemy.
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