Mercenary

A mercenary, also called a merc, soldier of fortune, or hired gun, is a private individual who joins an armed conflict for personal profit, is otherwise an outsider to the conflict, and is not a member of any other official military.^[1]^[2] Mercenaries fight for money or other forms of payment rather than for political interests.

For other uses, see Mercenary (disambiguation).

Beginning in the 20th century, mercenaries have increasingly come to be seen as less entitled to protection by rules of war than non-mercenaries. The Geneva Conventions declare that mercenaries are not recognized as legitimate combatants and do not have to be granted the same legal protections as captured service personnel of the armed forces.^[3] In practice, whether or not a person is a mercenary may be a matter of degree, as financial and political interests may overlap.

South African citizens were working as security guards in during the American occupation of Iraq;

Iraq

consequences of the mercenary soldier sponsorship case against for the "possible funding and logistical assistance in relation to an alleged attempted coup in Equatorial Guinea" organized by Simon Mann.^[9]

Mark Thatcher

Foreign national servicemen[edit]

The better-known combat units in which foreign nationals serve in another country's armed forces are the Gurkha regiments of the British Army and Indian Army, the French Foreign Legion, the Spanish Legion and the Ukraine Foreign Legion.

Recruits from countries of the Commonwealth of Nations in the British Army swear allegiance to the British monarch and are liable to operate in any unit. Gurkhas, however, operate in dedicated Gurkha units of the British Army (specifically units that are administered by the Brigade of Gurkhas) and the Indian Army. Although they are nationals of Nepal, a country that is not part of the Commonwealth, they still swear allegiance (either to the Crown or the Constitution of India) and abide by the rules and regulations under which all British or Indian soldiers serve.^[13] French Foreign Legionnaires serve in the French Foreign Legion, which deploys and fights as an organized unit of the French Army. This means that as members of the armed forces of Britain, India, and France these soldiers are not classed as mercenary soldiers per APGC77 Art 47.e and 47.f. Volunteers for the Ukraine Foreign legion have three-year contracts, and are eligible for Ukrainian citizenship (the probation period being the duration of the war).^[14] ^[15]

King of Persia, employed Arcadian mercenaries during his invasion of Greece.^[29]

Xerxes I

In , Xenophon recounts how Cyrus the Younger hired a large army of Greek mercenaries (the "Ten Thousand") in 401 BC to seize the throne of Persia from his brother, Artaxerxes II. Though Cyrus' army was victorious at the Battle of Cunaxa, Cyrus himself was killed in battle and the expedition rendered moot. Stranded deep in enemy territory, the Spartan general Clearchus and most of the other Greek generals were subsequently killed by treachery. Xenophon played an instrumental role in encouraging "The Ten Thousand" Greek army to march north to the Black Sea in an epic fighting retreat.^[30]

Anabasis

The were a group of ancient mercenaries most likely employed by the tyrant Dionysius I of Syracuse.^[31]

Sileraioi

In 378 BC the Persian Empire hired the general Iphicrates with his mercenaries in the Egyptian campaign.^[32]

Athenian

The , who was a sub-satrap, used Greek mercenaries in order to capture other cities in the region.^[33]

Mania

(380–333 BC) was the commander of the Greek mercenaries working for the Persian King Darius III when Alexander the Great of Macedonia invaded Persia in 334 BC and won the Battle of the Granicus River.^[34] Alexander also employed Greek mercenaries during his campaigns. These were men who fought for him directly and not those who fought in city-state units attached to his army.^[35]

Memnon of Rhodes

Filibuster (military)

International Stability Operations Association

Mercenaries in popular culture

Mercenary Soldiers' Revolt in Brazil

(c. 240 BC) – also called the Libyan War and the Truceless War

Mercenary War

Montreux Document

Private defense agency

Private intelligence agency

Privateer

Rōnin

Security detail

Military volunteer

List of foreign volunteers

Violent non-state actor

(1976). de Sélincourt, Aubrey (ed.). Anabasis Alexandri (The Campaigns of Alexander). Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-14-044253-3.

Arrian

Bernales-Ballesteros, Enrique;

UNHCHR: Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on use of mercenaries

Bodin J; Les Suisses au Service de la France; Editions Albion Michael, 1988. 2226033343

ISBN

Bryant, G. L. (January 2000). "Indigenous Mercenaries in the Service of European Imperialists: The Case of the Sepoys in the Early British Indian Army, 1750–1800". War in History. 7 (1).

Chartrand, Rene; Louis XV's Army – Foreign Infantry; Osprey 1997. 185532623X

ISBN

Chartrand, Rene; Spanish Army of the Napoleonic Wars 1793–1808; Osprey 1998. 1855327635

ISBN

(2006). The Fall of Carthage: The Punic Wars 265–146 BC. London: Phoenix. ISBN 978-0-304-36642-2.

Goldsworthy, Adrian

Milliard, Todd S.; Archived 1 December 2012 at the Wayback Machine(PDF), in Military Law Review Vol 173, June 2003. At the time of publication Major Milliard was a Judge Advocate in the United States Army Judge Advocate General's Corps

Overcoming post-colonial myopia: A call to recognize and regulate private military companies

Anthony Mockler, Storia dei mercenari: Da Senofonte all'Iraq. Odoya, 2012. 978-8862881531.

ISBN

Schuster, Carl Otis (2016). . In Phang, Sara E.; Spence, Iain; Kelly, Douglas; Londey, Peter (eds.). Conflict in Ancient Greece and Rome: The Definitive Political, Social, and Military Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1610690201.

"Memnon and Mentor of Rhodes (ca. 380–333, ca. 385–340)"

Atwood, Rodney. The Hessians: Mercenaries from Hessen-Kassel in the American Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 1980).

Avant, Deborah. "From mercenary to citizen armies: Explaining change in the practice of war." International Organization (2000): 41–72.

online

Fetter, Frank Whitson. “Who Were the Foreign Mercenaries of the Declaration of Independence?” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, vol. 104, no. 4, 1980, pp. 508–513.

online

Ingrao, Charles. "" Barbarous Strangers": Hessian State and Society during the American Revolution." American Historical Review 87.4 (1982): 954–976

online

Ingrao, Charles W. The Hessian mercenary state: ideas, institutions, and reform under Frederick II, 1760–1785 (Cambridge University Press, 2003).

. The Prince. 1532. Ch. 12.

Niccolò Machiavelli

"Military science in western Europe in the sixteenth century." Prologue: The nature of armies in the 16th century

Mockler, Anthony. The Mercenaries: The Men Who Fight for Profit – from the Free Companies of Feudal France to the White Adventurers in the Congo. Macmillan, 1969.

Percy, Sarah. Mercenaries: The history of a norm in international relations (Oxford University Press, 2007).

Schmidt, H. D. "The Hessian Mercenaries: The Career of a Political Cliché." History 43.149 (1958): 207–212

online

Scullard, Howard H. (2006) [1989]. "Carthage and Rome". In Walbank, F. W.; Astin, A. E.; Frederiksen, M. W.; Ogilvie, R. M. (eds.). Cambridge Ancient History: Volume 7, Part 2 (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 486–569. 978-0-521-23446-7.

ISBN

Thomson, Janice E. Mercenaries, pirates, and sovereigns: state-building and extraterritorial violence in early modern Europe. Princeton University Press, 1994. 1400808014 Describes the building of the modern state system through the states' "monopolization of extraterritorial violence."

ISBN

Underwood, Matthew. 'Northwestern University Law Review 106 (2012): 317-349.

"Jealousies of a standing army: the use of mercenaries in the American revolution and its implications for Congress's role in regulating private military firms."

The is resource and community of security contracting professionals.

Security Contracting Network

: An international organization which advocates for tighter rules

PMCs Monitor

UNHCR

The Working Group on the use of mercenaries as a means of violating human rights and impeding the exercise of the right of peoples to self-determination