by Zoë Pollock
Private contractors are "as old as warfare itself":
The ancient Egyptians hired Nubian mercenaries; the Israelites also hired foreign troops, as did the Romans. In the Revolutionary War, the British hired German troops (the so-called "Hessian force"), while the Revolutionary Navy paid privateers to fight. Almost always, states hire contractors for the same reasons: Either they don't have enough troops on hand, or they want to use force abroad without alarming citizens at home.
But, if future wars will be fought largely by contractors (as it seems they will), I fear only more tension between soldiers and the better paid contractors they'll have to work alongside:
In one illustrative incident, sixteen employees of Zapata Engineering, hired by the U.S. government to oversee ammunition depots in Iraq, were detained by a group of Marines, for allegedly firing on a checkpoint. According to the contractors, they were physically abused by a crowd of soldiers asking, "How is that contractor money now?"
The Dish 