have to either dramatically increase the size of our armed forces or dramatically downsize our commitments…

So what’s it going to be?

“Friedman claims we don’t have a “true global alliance” in Afghanistan, even though the military mission is being run by NATO with the participation of 41 nations that have ponied up well over 30,000 troops, not counting the American contingent.”

It isn’t a global alliance of 41 nations. There’s about 10 nations that make up the overwhelming majority of troops, and the other 31 are minor players who rarely if ever go out beyond the wire. And his comments about contractors are ridiculous – if the mercenaries followed the rules, all would be well, BUT THEY DON’T. He hasn’t had a correct thought since… I don’t know when.

Further addendum: I do need to do some research on how other countries handle this. There’s got to be better models than ours. That said, this situation arose in part because non-combatant status no longer seems to provide much of any protection. I’m not sure to what extent that’s a result of the end of front-lines or changes in norms.

A lot of the private security contractors, notably including Armorgroup’s guarding of the U.S. embassy and Blackwater’s protection of dignitaries are not working for the military, they’re working for the State department. So it would be possible to convert those jobs in-house without resolving the unity of effort issue.

(Relatedly, there’s also combatants working for the local government and also private security contractors working for them. There’s also talk that of oil sector companies hiring private security as the U.S. withdrawals, which is a whole different ballgame.)

Anyhow, there’s definitely problems here, but the unity of effort issue would still be there if all State and US Aid security were brought in-house tomorrow.