Why not mercenary armies?

[Genx87]

they're not very well organized, and most usefull as smaller terrorizing bands

Depends on the mercenaries hired. You should really read about the mercenaries in Sierre Leone. It was a really interesting story about a small company who was hired to fight guerillas. They trained local troops and fought along side them. Within a few months of them getting on the ground and training new recruits they pushed back the enemy in unbelievable fashion and subdued a resistence that was much larger than them.

They went into engagements with a few hundred men vs 10,000 and walked out victorious.

The most interesting part of the story is when the UN learned of this they intervened and forced the Mercs out and put their own boots on the ground. The budget went from 50-60 million for the mercs to over 1.5 billion for the UN and the situation deterioated to where it was pre-merc hirings.

The lesson learned from that is a big govt organization can spend more and get much less in return.

Of course the scary part for the suits in the UN was the ability for any nation to hire these professional soldiers and wreak havoc for the opposition.

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: Dissipate
That's precisely my point. If you can get a bunch of white trash slack jawed yokels to join your cause because of their blind patriotic fatih, war becomes a lot less expensive. That is a bad thing, not to mention the fact that it is dangerous.

So that's how you country-club-raised trust-fund babies see our military personnel? Must be quite a life to be so insulated from the common man that you can look down on everyone not born into your life of privilege with such disdain.