Well, looks like the United Arab Emirates has taken the logical step of taking all that oil wealth and buying in some battle hardened troops. So, let’s throw out those fostering civil-military relations manuals and rewind the clock seven hundred years to when mercenaries were the done thing. But seriously now, this is a slightly worrying concept. Oil rich states have always been able to buy in hired hands, but doing it on this scale is, well, slightly worrying for nuestros amigos in South America. It is also slightly different from the cash/troops transfer that goes on in peacekeeping missions. Why? Because the big spikes in that BBC graph represent laudable paydirt for the countries concerned. Let’s not kid ourselves here, everyone is using mercenaries these days, even if we’re paying Blackwater/Xe/Academi/whatevertheyarethismonth to rip us off and assure us they’re not.* But anyways, as market rates go, a 1000% bump is big. If states like the UAE start doing this en masse, it is very bad news for countries like Colombia. It is one thing for oil rich states to pay Britain and America billions for shiny tanks to parade around, it is another for a country like Colombia to have its military top-sliced. My knee-jerk reaction is that I can’t see how Colombia can keep ahold of its troops, I can’t see how states like Colombia could field viable military organisations if states like the UAE start perpetually top-slicing them for talent and I can’t, for the life of me, see anything stopping this from happening again.
*Yes, I know 99% of the cash in private security contracting is in logistics support and non-combat roles, but everyone is going on about the 1% these days, so I thought I’d join in.
“Smart move, now buy my book”
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Just 1%…. I suppose its a matter of definitions.
Great post, but why should it be just bad news. If managed well by both sides advantages could be had.
To continue the Italian analogy, the next step is for small poor countries with a competent army to rent out units for internal security duties. If a few picked experts are useful, a ready-made military unit with no local connections is even more useful. And the renting country gets its troops back when the renter are done with them.
Military experts have always traveled widely in search of more work or better pay, although tenfold differences in pay for common soldiers are new
I also suspect that much of these Columbians’ pay will go back to Columbia, just not to the Columbian government directly. Remittances are a pretty established practice amongst Latin Americans working in rich countries.
“I can’t see how states like Colombia could field viable military organisations if states like the UAE start perpetually top-slicing them for talent and I can’t, for the life of me, see anything stopping this from happening again”. —>
ummmm… dunno… just like Britain, Switzerland, German States, South Africa, or the US has lately done? I mean, you know, that old shrewd combination of poverty at home and a steady but low key flow of violence abroad (or at home) to form men trained in the use of weapons? It has worked pretty well for the last several thousand years or so… (and Colombia does not look like it’s going to run out of poor young men and political violence in the near future).
Or is there a case of “Oh my God, we spent all our men as mercenaries for foreign countries and now we have the enemy at the gates and not a single guy with his two arms to send to the walls!” in recent history I haven’t heard about?
The American War on Drugs has (I believe) created situations like this in South America with drug cartels causing un-stoppable violence and instability.
I agree ! That’s a dirty move on UAE’s part…
One can only hope that the cash earned by those soldiers gets infused back into Colombia and helps pay for the next generations military/ infrastructure.