The 33rd Pirate Brigade

Or something like that. Could a certain ex blogger's long held fantasy actually be attracting support in today's turbulent times? This article indicates yes.

I don't really think we'll ever see a Pirate Brigade, or a "privateer army" or anything like that, but this argument: "“We argued that there were different capabilities that were needed,” that would require members of the command to spend long periods in far-flung locations to get to know areas and to build relationships, he said. That “starts to point toward a whole different personnel system — ultimately, one in which people don’t go through the lieutenant to general officer set of ranks, for example.”" sounds pretty familiar.

That used to be grounds for getting you stationed in Alaska. Now its cutting edge thought. Times they are changing. Unfortunately though, the one thing that never changes is turf war.

“That’s the right move, and give them that type of authority and autonomy to do an indirect action, UW-type mission,” agreed Maj. Jamie Alden, an SF officer at the Naval Postgraduate School. “USASFC has the units that are trained and have the organizational culture to execute the UW mission. The problem is that USASFC is not given the authorities, etc., to execute such a mission.”

That ain't the only problem, but it sums it up better than I can. I wonder how far we'll go towards realizing a vision where we have a cohesive UW force that can hit and move faster than our UW foes. One thing I know for sure, if the people don't do it, private sector will eventually get around to it, and you don't want a brigade of Blackwater anytime soon.