SOLDIERS OF THE CORE VS. THE 4GWARRIORS OF THE GAP

John Robb at Global Guerillas had an excellent post up last week on ” The New Warrior Class” a 1994 article in the military journal Parameters by Ralph Peters that dealt with the differences in worldview between modern professional soldiers and the various irregular, unconventional and sometimes pre-modern warriors. Below is the Peters graphic that summarizes the battlefield dichotomy.

Peters and Robb are both concerned about the intersection of modernity in the form of advanced, martial skill-sets with barbaric pre-modern ( and post-modern) mentalities. Peters writes:

“Dispossessed, cashiered, or otherwise failed military men form the fourth and most dangerous pool of warriors. Officers, NCOs, or just charismatic privates who could not function in a traditional military environment, these men bring other warriors the rudiments of the military art–just enough to inspire faith and encourage folly in many cases, although the fittest of these men become the warrior chieftains or warlords with whom we must finally cope. The greatest, although not the only, contemporary source of military men who have degenerated into warriors is the former Soviet Union. Whether veterans of Afghanistan or simply officers who lost their positions in post-collapse cutbacks, Russian and other former-Soviet military men currently serve as mercenaries or volunteers (often one and the same thing) in the moral wasteland of Yugoslavia and on multiple sides in conflicts throughout the former Soviet Union. These warriors are especially dangerous not only because their skills heighten the level of bloodshed, but also because they provide a nucleus of internationally available mercenaries for future conflicts. Given that most civil wars begin with the actions of a small fraction of the population (as little as one percent might actively participate in or support the initial violence),[5] any rabid assembly of militants with cash will be able to recruit mercenary forces with ease and spark “tribal” strife that will make the brutality of Africa in the 1960s seem like some sort of Quaker peaceable kingdom. “

This is essentially what Islamist radicals have managed with the Arab Afghans and second generation Jihadis schooled at the knees of their Arab Afghan seniors. Interestingly enough, the Pentagon has also ” recruited mercenary forces with ease” through the contracting of highly adept ” Corporate warriors” – many of whom are experienced special forces vets – for work in Iraq and Afghanistan. These corporate warriors are unshackled from many of the legal and command and control restrictions of U.S. military personnel and can act accordingly.

John Robb, expounds further in his post on why this may be the most dangerous pool of potential warriors:

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