Mercenarizing the US Government: Boon For Private Military Companies but Bane for National Security?

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The use of mercenaries to fight wars is an age-old concept. A new trend, however, is the evolution of the mercenary into the modern-day Private Military Company (PMC) which now provides not only peacetime-focused hardware and support services, but also wartime-focused combat training and lethal combat services. This paper explores the phenomenon of mercenarizing the USG, where USG increasingly relies on PMCs in scale (i.e value/number of resources), scope (i.e. range/type of services) and for their lethal combat services. Evaluated against the US’s national security objectives, the paper finds that that, if left unregulated, the trend of relying on PMCs will enrich the private sector but will negatively impact the US’s national security, by degrading the US’s long-term and strategic warfighting capability, discrediting the US’s stand on justice and human rights, as well as undermining the US’s international credibility for democracy promotion.