Modern Adventurers in War Zones; war correspondents and mercenaries

[Icelander]

In connection with my ongoing campaign, I was curious about what sort of people PCs could meet in a warzone.* Both in GURPS terms and also in real-world terms, in that I'm trying to figure out what are common and plausible backgrounds for NPCs encountered.

Foreign and conflict zone correspondents
One of the most interesting groups are war correspondents, of course. Apart from those who arrive from Coalition countries or the US after everyone else leaves, and are embedded in MNF-I or USF-I units, what else exists?

Are there going to be hard-drinking war correspondents from lesser known news outlets having adventures, a la The Year of Living Dangerously?

How many war correspondents are actually Australian? I don't know why, but I always assume that in every group of bartenders and war correspondents, there will be at least one Australian. Is that way off?

Fortunately for gaming and fiction, real media assures me that there is such a thing as freelance war correspondents.

I'm quite interested in what their background tends to be. Where are most of them from? What skills useful to adventurers do they have in GURPS terms and where and how did they learn them?

What kind of Contacts can they plausibly provide? This role for a war correspondent is exceptionally well demonstrated by the character of Maddy Bowen in Blood Diamond (a case may be made for her advancing to full Ally).

Something that I wonder about is what companies are primarily paying them? For plausibility, who ought I have buying the writing, pictures, videos or research of freelance war correspondents?

There's Reuters, AP and AFP, of course. Are they paying enough for someone to survive, if he isn't a frequent contributor? And are they paying anyone who could be doing investigative reporting?

What are some non-English speaking news agencies that might buy articles that demand research and interviews?

If a given freelance war correspondent happened to be a native Polish-speaker who speaks French at Native (in GURPS terms) and English only at Accented, to whom could he most plausibly sell his articles?

Mercenaries
Private security contractors and even private military contractors are not mercenaries, in a very real legal sense, because they do not meet the international law definition for such. There will be plenty of contractors and some of them doing security work, yes, but those are not legally mercenaries.

On the other hand, if an entirely innocent organisation which is certainly not carrying out some diabolical scheme inimical to Goodness, Light, the PCs and the American Way, happened to need some honest-to-God, actual mercenaries, what would they find?

If we assume that any false positives, i.e. adventurous and not all-too-bright men who lied about their qualifications, are in the past for this hypothetical group, who might they have in their service now?

What is the background of someone who is prepared to pretend to be a contractor for a PSC or a PMC, but actually carry out illegal violent activities in the service of a criminal or sectarian agenda? And who brings a fairly high degree of technical know-how, as well as preferably some actual military experience, to the table?

An obvious recruit would be a less-than-principled member of a PSC or PMC, of course, in which case background would be identical to other contractors. But is there some background which would furnish a plausible mixture of high-quality training, sharp-end military experience and a subsequent career where someone knowledgable could know to approach the person for mercenary work?

Preferably, of course, for much less money than a former US or UK special operator would charge for something in that line.

I'm thinking about an elite force that are supposed to act as a cadre for what essentially amounts to a locally recruited militia, except that it's fairly lacking in religious or tribal loyalities and might just as well be described as a criminal gang. On the other hand, the organisers of this non-sectarian crime enterprise are well aware that local militias might object strongly to their activities and it would behoove them to have some very high-quality security at that time.

Is it entirely implausible and very much out of date to posit that veterans of the French Foreign Legion might conceivably possess some connections that might be leveraged into locating like-minded persons for recruitment?

What nations in the world might have bothered to train someone well 5-15 years ago in a variety of high-end military skills and even some security and espionage skills, but for whatever reason, cannot provide that person with the employment opportunities that he feels he deserves today?

*Apart from the locals and the soldiers of the combatants, obviously.

[Varyon]

As I understand it, soldiers - even special operators - are rarely paid very much. A soldier who isn't very patriotic or scrupulous but rather enjoys the nastier bits of his job may well opt to not "re-up" and get an Honorable Discharge, then head over to where they can get some decent money (and don't have to play by nearly as many rules). There will also be those who left the military on less-agreeable grounds - I'm fairly confident someone with a Bad Conduct Discharge would be able to find a way to get to Iraq (even if he were blacklisted from going there somehow, which I don't think is anywhere near standard practice, he could probably travel nearby and use false credentials to get to his intended destination), and one with a full-on Dishonorable Discharge, provided he can get to Iraq, may well find he can't really get a decent job legitimately. Further, while some of them might be able to get comparable (or better) work going through legitimate channels, even special operators aren't always going to make the best decisions - if a job offer comes up offering them a pretty solid wage, they might jump on it without considering alternatives.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Varyon

As I understand it, soldiers - even special operators - are rarely paid very much. A soldier who isn't very patriotic or scrupulous but rather enjoys the nastier bits of his job may well opt to not "re-up" and get an Honorable Discharge, then head over to where they can get some decent money (and don't have to play by nearly as many rules). There will also be those who left the military on less-agreeable grounds - I'm fairly confident someone with a Bad Conduct Discharge would be able to find a way to get to Iraq (even if he were blacklisted from going there somehow, which I don't think is anywhere near standard practice, he could probably travel nearby and use false credentials to get to his intended destination), and one with a full-on Dishonorable Discharge, provided he can get to Iraq, may well find he can't really get a decent job legitimately. Further, while some of them might be able to get comparable (or better) work going through legitimate channels, even special operators aren't always going to make the best decisions - if a job offer comes up offering them a pretty solid wage, they might jump on it without considering alternatives.

Assuming that the hypothetical organisation hiring mostly had contacts in the Middle East, including specifically Egypt and United Arabian Emirates, where is it most likely they would find people who not only have valuable training, but actual combat experience?

We may imagine that several academics aged 25-40, about half of them having served 9-36 months of compulsory military service in Egypt or another Muslim country, had several years to obtain the services of loyal, skilled and ruthless mercenaries to provide security for the Iraq offices of a company. They have had decent funding for around two years, with the last year yielding more funding than they are likely to know what to do with.

They want to avoid, at all costs, anything that might get them noticed by the sort of people who keep tabs on terrorist groups. In any case, they do not have a conventionally religious or political motivations and don't really know (or even know of) all that many people who might have contacts with militant groups.

We may imagine that they are extremely fortunate* in many ways, in that for some reason, they are likely to recognise on sight or even be drawn toward people who are exceptionally selfish, callous, sadistic or cruel. Also, they will have methods to discourage kidnapping or robbery, which if not completely reliable, are at least substantially better than their own learning-by-doing security precautions.

Hiring citizens of many Western countries, especially ones with criminal records or Bad Conduct Discharges, will substantially increase the risks that government agencies or at least media from these countries will become aware of them. They'll ideally want to hire their mercenaries from countries that do not keep tabs on their citizens at all and have no spare resources, governmental or private, to spend on investigating what expatriates are doing in some murky PSC job.

Uganda, Liberia, Cote d'Ivoire and other places offer potential combat experience, but are unlikely to have many recruits with the technical ability to use the kind of hardware that lavish funding can afford. Also, may not have many recruits with very high skill in GURPS terms in desired areas, especially when it comes to more than just weapon skills and fieldcraft; such as Electronic Ops, Tactics, Leadership, Teaching, etc. A case could also be made that many militias or even government soldiers in third-world countries effectively learn Soldier/TL7.

Former CIS countries and other Eastern European ones would offer a much higher category of skill set, but I have little idea how hard it would be to acquire the contacts to hire highly skilled former military people from there. The most likely person for our hypotheticals to get in touch with would be someone who already worked as a mercenary or at least in the general area of PMC/PSC work.

What kind of ex-Special Operation people are our hypotheticals likely to find working private security in the UAE?

*If one considers that sort of thing fortunate.

[Crakkerjakk]

On the mercs:

Libyans
Russians
Iraqi Baathists
South Africans are a trope, but I think mostly belong in the 80s and 90s.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Crakkerjakk

Libyans

The game is set at the end of 2011, which means that the Libyan Civil War is just ending. While any long-term hires among the hypothetical security of the not-at-all-villainous-company are unlikely to be Libyan, there might be a contingent of anxious-to-escape former Qaddafi-supporters coming in...

Originally Posted by Crakkerjakk

Russians

I was concerned that Russia's vigorous and firm direction in foreign policy and security matters might result in a better retention rate for anyone possessed of the right skill set than had been the case in the past and perhaps fairly active surveillance of the activities of citizens with certain backgrounds.

Certainly, a lot of the headlines involving Russian 'mercenaries' or 'pro-Russian militias' appear to be about people still under orders. I don't know to what extent you can find former Spetnatz in the private sector, without any entanglements of the sort that used to characterise British private security professionals back when they were used as an unofficial arm of state policy.

Someone who has a several year history working as a free agent or for PMCs/PCSs in UAE or elsewhere with no discernable connection to any state security agency might be approached, but I think the hypothetical people doing the hiring are fairly paranoid about anyone who could potentially be a spy.

That's one of the reasons I'm looking for plausible backgrounds including combat experience, preferably somewhere the experience was intimate, intense and frequent. In general, those who are favoured as recruits will be people whom supernatural means can reveal having been touched deeply by violence and preferably exhibiting the some sort of reponse to it violence that it is very unlikely that most intelligence agencies would tolerate.

They want professional-level skills, but are fine with motivations and psychological issues that aren't usually associated with professionals. Callous is pretty much a job requirement. Bloodlust, Bully, Intolerance, Jealous and Sadism are all pluses to the hypothetical HR department here.

Greed is to be prefered to enigmatic motives, but is not really sufficient on its own, unless the skill set involved can't be gotten with any other means.

Originally Posted by Crakkerjakk

Iraqi Baathists

I'd think that just hiring them would carry with it a lot of complications. Certainly, in order to carry out whatever mysterious tasks that the nope-no-villainy-here organisations wants done in Iraq, they'll have had to make contacts with several insurent or militia groups (as well as bribe or suborn some government figures), but it seems to carry a high risk of being drawn into sectarian disputes needlessly if you start hiring people that have a lot of local enemies.

Originally Posted by Crakkerjakk

South Africans are a trope, but I think mostly belong in the 80s and 90s.

Yeah, the problem is that most of our popular culture about mercenaries relies on media from the 60s to the end of the 80s. Then there's Executive Outcomes and Sandline, but after that, genuine mercenaries seem to get lost in the massive PMC/PSC industry, most of which isn't at all the same thing.

I guess some of the Ugandans, Peruvians and Colombians being hired by PMCs/PSCs could be hired by less savoury people, through much the same contacts. I guess any subcontracting staffing company that hires Third-Country National cleaning staff using methods that have a strong resemblance to human trafficking methods might be amenable to hiring killers-for-hire for a UAE company, as long as it can pay well.

Some West African veterans, maybe former child soldiers, might also have the requisite (Dis)Advantages, as well as decent light infantry skills. The danger is that a lot of them will have had very low skill levels in GURPS terms in their actual military skills.

Experience can replace training, to some degree, and there must be natural athletes and infantrymen even among very poorly trained militias. Mercenary service in Cote d'Ivoraire after the civil war in Uganda or Liberia might have served to sharpen skills, as well. Even if you started out with default skill levels, 20 years of experience might have sufficed to give you good fieldcraft, decent Guns, surprisingly good Melee Weapons and decent Tactics.

[Crakkerjakk]

Yeah, that's what I was thinking re:Libyans and the timing of your campaign.

If you're concerned about Russians still being tied into state intelligence, what about Chechnians or Georgians who fought the Russians?

Bosnians or Serbs whose demons were brought to the forefront of that war?

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Crakkerjakk

Yeah, that's what I was thinking re:Libyans and the timing of your campaign.

No doubt someone from the same Alma Mater as the scholars-of-not-at-all-Things-Man-Was-Not-Meant-to-Know was involved in Libya. Qaddafi seemed like an open-minded chap, when it came to questionable things that nevertheless could have practical applications for an enlightened tyrant.

Originally Posted by Crakkerjakk

If you're concerned about Russians still being tied into state intelligence, what about Chechnians or Georgians who fought the Russians?

Those are indeed the sort of fellows I was talking about. Perhaps some North Caucasian chaps who were initially religiously motivated and may even have gone abroad on jihad, but whose idealogical fervour burnt away, leaving little but a skill set useful only on a battlefield and a marked lack of the sort of socialisation that makes for a content civilian.

I'm concerned that military experience on the part of Georgians in the 2008 war might have been short-lived. And the Georgian armed forces did not exhibit the sort of game stats that are sought-after abroad.

They presumably did have some special operators and I guess a capable soldier might have left in disgust after the defeat. They lost a single SF trooper and had a lot of wounded from the company-sized formation that took part.

As for any other prospects, I don't know what is a plausible way to go from 'disaffected highly-skilled soldier in Eastern Europe' to 'mercenary in the Middle East'. Where does someone like that go to get the contacts?

If he hires on as an at least marginally respectable PMC/PSC contractor, how does he get into contact with someone who can vouch for his trustworthiness (up to certain limits) and utter lack of scruples to the Arabic (and some French) speaking recruiters?

I'm not even ruling out ethnic Russians, as long as they have lived for several years outside Russia and taken part in some mercenary activity that Russia doesn't have any observable reason to be involved in. Anyone who has worked for a series of African warlords and dubious Middle Eastern sheiks is likely to be perceived as 'authentic'.

The paranoia over a hostile government-planted spy mostly extends to people who arrive with the right skill set more-or-less directly from a given country. They don't think that anyone will set up an operation going five years back in time, a period when no one had any reason to want to infiltrate their unknown group, and allow a spy to work as a mercenary and maybe even commit crimes in the eyes of his home government during that time.

In particular, anyone who has committed war crimes would be trusted not to be a spy working for any non-rogue state intelligence agency. Of course, he might be a self-interested, back-stabbing treacherous monster of a man, but they more or less assume this about all their higher-ranking members anyway.

They're likely to want to find men who have trained commando forces for particularly unsavoury African regimes or even the rebels in some civil war. That, or work for an actual criminal enterprise as a security guard.

Of course, the linguistic and cultural background of the recruiters means that they are only likely to find someone who has worked in the Middle East at some point. But if they find one man who has been a bona fide mercenary, they are likely to try to recruit a lot of his acquintances.

Originally Posted by Crakkerjakk

Bosnians or Serbs whose demons were brought to the forefront of that war?

Absolutely.

But I still have to answer the question of what such men did for the 10+ years after their war ended and until reaching their current employment.

What does someone do if his war ends and he discovers that he can't really function in society any more? That something within him is broken and he can't express his bitterness and anger except through violence?

Does the French Foreign Legion take people who are good soldiers and function well in a hierarchical organisation, but who not only have Callous, but may have other psychological Disadvantages that make them pretty much unemployable in any non-violent profession?

I mean full-on functioning sociopaths. The sort of person who will, reluctantly, be able to refrain from killing people if ordered to avoid it, but will greet orders to open fire with eager joy. Someone who will commit atrocities any time he reasonably expects to get away with it.

Does anyone else that isn't a cinematic organisation looking for henchmen hire such people? What kind of army, PMC or other organisation has psychological screening loose enough so that someone with the right skills, but the wrong Disadvantages for most organisations that have to function in a civilised society, could get through?

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Does anyone else that isn't a cinematic organisation looking for henchmen hire such people? What kind of army, PMC or other organisation has psychological screening loose enough so that someone with the right skills, but the wrong Disadvantages for most organisations that have to function in a civilised society, could get through?

I suspect that the work is mostly short-term freelancing. For an example of a group of such people, pulled together in a hurry, and less competent than they believe themselves to be, see Christopher Brookmyre's novel One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night. It's dark grey comedy, but it feels pretty plausible in its characterisations.

[Sword-dancer]

Local Guys, Nepali with Nasty Knives for example or other third world Country, Cooks, Laundry...

NGOs,

You will also find a few german Reporters,

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by johndallman

I suspect that the work is mostly short-term freelancing. For an example of a group of such people, pulled together in a hurry, and less competent than they believe themselves to be, see Christopher Brookmyre's novel One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night. It's dark grey comedy, but it feels pretty plausible in its characterisations.

Yes, but how does one get to a position where foreign recruiters know to get in contact with you for freelance mercenary work?

After all, if they approach the wrong person, they risk exposure. So how does someone become a safe person to approach and bring up the idea that he might like to fly abroad and take money for illegally fighting as a mercenary?