Army must rely on private firms

vivatifosi

An interesting article out on the newswires but only just making it onto the online newspaper websites...

Major General Graham Binns saying that military cuts mean that the UK Army will have to rely on private firms and that these should train alongside regular troops. A warning though, this is a VI item: Binns heads Aegis Defence Services.

Curious to hear from those who work in the defence industry or forces who post on here whether this is a good or bad thing, or just self-serving propaganda.

Article link:

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23998549-army-must-rely-on-private-firms.do

oldvicar

Mercenaries? There's something ugly about the word.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

It seems to me that if you cut spending on the military below a certain level then transferring some functions that are only needed occasionally to private contractors, who then hire retired ex-military personnel to perform them, is inevitable.

The Americans have been doing it for years with companies like XE Services (formerly Blackwater), with rather mixed results, and we also do it although to a much lesser extent.

There's clearly a place for them, and some of the capabilities being deployed already are to standards that exceed those of regular forces. But just as clearly there are also real issues around oversight, as the numerous Blackwater incidents in Iraq have demonstrated, so perhaps tighter integration with the military command and control system and more closely integrated training would be good.

thescouselander

It's quite feasible imo. On a deployment there are quite a lot of people back from the front line looking after logistics and other functions like that. You could, in theory, let contractors look after that sort of thing and let the armed forces focus on the sharp end of the business where they might come into direct contact with the enemy.

As already said, there are plenty of civilian contractors in theatre supporting operations right now.