How Private Military Companies Affect Modern Africa

The United States from the Cold War and into the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) continues to face challenges in translating military might into political desires due to its obsession with raising an army, electing politicians and assembling a diplomatic corp that continue to gravitate towards State-to-State engagements that if not rectified could lead to substantial delays in fighting terrorism and non-terrorist adversaries or worse total failure of the United States Military’s ability to properly carry out it’s politicians objectives due to being blindsided.

In a 2015 article, “Is U.S. military becoming outdated?” written by Stuart Bradin, Keenan Yoho, and Meaghan Keeler-Pettigrew, the authors argued that despite the U.S. military maintaining a position of global dominance “without peer” during conventional operations, it is not the ideal force against current and future threats. The authors claim that there are several negative factors arising due to the past sixteen years of war against several state and non-state elements, inferior cultural differences of government bureaucracy compared to commercial firms, and a misallocation of defense spending that leaves the US military waging war inefficiently while simultaneously losing technological dominance against current and future threats.

If one were to look back over the past 50 years of military engagements in the

Throughout history, our world has constantly been bruised and battered by civil turmoil. Today, the civil war in Syria decimates the country; the Israeli and Palestinian conflict rages on; tens of thousands of people have been killed in South Sudan's ongoing civil war. It is not always easy to isolate what exactly ignites the flames of war, but, whenever possible, finding a workable, calm and satisfying solution to a potential uprising is preferable.

After unraveling of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the Berlin Wall, fears of war breaking out between the major powers of the United States and the Soviet Union were greatly reduced. Numerous commentaries, reports, and studies arose out of the question of what to do with the excess U.S. forces, and how to reshape them for a new era (Snider & Carlton-Carew, 1996). Since the birth of the United States, the military has been an important part of the United States. The US military has been a fundamental part of foreign policy, including fostering democracy, establishing rule of law, and assisting with economic development in territories allied with the U.S. (Ludema, 2007).

The notion of an American way of war informs how scholars, policymakers, and strategists understand how Americans fight. A way of war—defined as a society’s cultural preferences for waging war—is not static. Change can occur as a result of important cultural events, often in the form of traumatic experiences or major social transformations. A way of war is therefore the malleable product of culturally significant past experiences. Reflecting several underlying cultural ideals, the current American way of war consists of three primary tenets—the desire for moral clarity, the primacy of technology, and the centrality of scientific management systems—which combine to create a preference for decisive, large-scale conventional wars with clear objectives and an aversion to morally ambiguous low-intensity conflicts that is relevant to planners because it helps them address American strategic vulnerabilities.

Perhaps there 's no getting away from our awesome political gap, a perpetual conflict of armed forces, and any endeavors to change the guidelines of engagement are purposeless. Alternately perhaps the trivialization of governmental issues has achieved a final turning point, so that the vast majority consider it to be only one more preoccupation, a game, with legislators our paunch-bellied combatants and the individuals who try to focus just fans on the sidelines: We paint our confronts red or

In addition to foreign affairs, a domestic military presence can be used to support a foreign military presence. Many natural disasters occur each year in the United States, and it is important to help those in need. One of the worst natural disasters in America’s history was Hurricane Katrina. “By the time Katrina made landfall on August 29, 2005, America’s military was mobilizing for emergency response” (Berthelot). The most important benefit of this is the fact that soldiers save many lives from floodwaters, earthquake-shaken regions, and even areas scorched by wildfires. The military has equipment that regular citizens do not, and this is demonstrated by the lowered casualty statistics. In addition, the military often helps to rebuild structures and get the region back on its feet. As a result, individuals are able to continue to enjoy their lives. The same effects of a domestic presence would occur as a result of a foreign presence. Foreign citizens would be able to continue their lives even after disasters.

The enemy gets the upper hand and will be victorious which is what we do not want.

Small war type conflicts, specifically stability, are becoming the norm and will likely be the most probable

When we examine the civil war that took place in Sierra Leone that split the country apart in the early 90's, we see an evolution of the modern mercenary on the battlefield. I say an evolution, not a revolution, because utilizing mercenaries to supplement government troops has taken place since the inception of warfare. What is unique in the specific situation of the Sierra Leone Conflict, is that for the first time we see a melding of a business corporation and a traditional mercenary outfit. What is surprising is just how effective it was. When we think of the corporate world, the only violence of action we associate is perhaps the occasional hostile corporate takeover in a boardroom. However, these two separate entities work

Being imperial allowed the various European nations to control both people and resources. Outside countries viewed Africa as a source of revenue because Africa was viewed as “untapped wealth and raw materials. ” Europe’s rapid industrialization allowed for increasing advantages in weaponry with the use of ammunition. European countries exploited Africa for political and economic dominance. African rulers accepted European’s ‘alliances’ unknowingly because “the belief [was] that it would protect them from traditional African enemies. ” However, the interaction among Africans and Europeans

contract. While the future security of the nation relies on forces armed with the best equipment,

contained many nations could not survive in the total war state that characterises modern warfare

The article “Explaining the Severity of Civil Wars” by Bethany Lacina looks at why some civil wars are more deadly as compared to others by investigating a new data set that shows the number of combat deaths in civil wars from 1946 to 2002. The article looks at the statistics behind the deaths in the conflicts such as the era, the type of conflict ant the region that the conflict takes place in. The article also uses the strength of the state, the type of regime and cultural characteristics in a test to see if they are predictors for the number of combat deaths in a conflict.