The military draft is gone. Now our wars are fought by pros, not amateurs, and only pros who want to. But there are other volunteers: Mercenaries or "Mercs."
Mercenary corporations have received $138 billion in contracts for Iraq alone, according to the Financial Times. And the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan estimated in 2011 that fraud, waste, and abuse accounted for about $60 billion of the money spent in Iraq alone. (So maybe privatization does not always reduce waste.) There has even been the suggestion that Mercs are a kind of "war lobby" that campaigns in favor of conflict because they benefit from conflict.
Mercenary corporations have received $138 billion in contracts for Iraq alone, according to the Financial Times. And the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan estimated in 2011 that fraud, waste, and abuse accounted for about $60 billion of the money spent in Iraq alone. (So maybe privatization does not always reduce waste.) There has even been the suggestion that Mercs are a kind of "war lobby" that campaigns in favor of conflict because they benefit from conflict.
Abstracting war from society is a bad idea. It allows the culture to wage war without consequence to itself. It also allows for deceptive high-mindedness. The army becomes a product, something that can be engineered, not for them but for their creators. Because the society is paying for its soldiers, it will assume the right that it can refine them to its wishes. So the culture will always try to have clean hands and will build limiting requirements into the conflict which the culture's soldiers will reluctantly obey but their opponents will not.
Every society at war should make an effort to have some impact, at the very least, built into the homeland's daily life as a result.
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