Comment on ERA's policy - Outsourced military
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by infin
ERA published a policy to outsource a large part of the eAustralian military as part of its election platform:
"The private sector will cover those in between Boot camp and Dropbear status. Citizens should form their own squads, with size, structure and organisation of the squad up to the squad members. This does mean citizens can enter a 1 man 'squad'. Those who wish to be entered into the Defence database of private squads can do so on request to the MoD. Entering the defence database enables squads to be offered a government contract, and squads of more than 1 are entitled to a forum on the official Australian boards.
"The government will hold a list of all squads, and they will be ranked according to total damage that can be dealt and efficiency to deal this damage. This efficiency will be found by organising a battle, and monitoring all damage being dealt by squads using API feeds. The amount of times this is done is at the MoD's discretion."
I am in favour of exploring this policy further. This is a great opportunity to professionalise the military by allowing para-military groups to organise the way they choose most efficiently. There has been a lot of discussion about the way the eAustralian military should be organised for little actual outcome. Like a duck on the lake it is all paddling and no movement.
Tenderers could be vetted by way of a personal guarantor, each squad should have a high level and accomplished commander to minimise the risk of default. Each tenderer would be required to lodge a gold surety to guarantee performance. Tenderers could be paid partly upfront to equip their squad with the remainder delivered to the tenderer upon completion of the contract. Even with profit the contracts should be lower than the overall cost of running the military as an organisation. Deployment of the military will be far more precise with less wastage of damage. It will be in the interests of private commanders to be highly efficient with the deployment of their fighters in order to maximise profit which could then be shared down through the fighters. Commanders will need to compete for high damage fighters and be ruthless with those who lack the discipline required. Further efficiencies would be gained by commanders operating their own weapons companmies and employing their own fighters.
The government could notify a tender as follows (example):
Conflict in [Country] commencing day [number]: Total tender requirement 50,000 damage. Please submit the damage you contract to supply and the damage/gold contract rate. Tenderers meeting the reputation and surety requirements, with the lowest gold/damage rates will be selected up to the damage limit authorised by parliament.
Contracts would be approved by the Inspector-General (or other suitable supervisor) upon recommendation from the President. Deployments and their details would be commercial-in-confidence. The project could start as a pilot trial with specific trusted commanders and then be extended to all qualifying tenderers on a large-scale basis.
This could be an exciting development in eAustralia's defensive and (more importantly) offensive capacity. I know it sounds contrary to traditional ideas of the military but this is eRepublik not the real world. We need to keep an open mind and see if it could work, after thinking it through carefully.
This is my personal opinion and not that of the party to which I belong.
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Excellent article.
Here are a few notes / questions I feel would be useful to ad😛
From what I've heard damage reporting will be done via API calls. Can this currently be done yet? And who is in charge of keeping squad commanders honest about the damage they've dealt out?
Also, should government pay out things such as gifts or weapons, or leave it to squads to procure those themselves and simply provide gold / AUD? I feel it would be more economical and efficient in terms of estimating cost if the government simply paid in cash.
Thirdly, how will the lower-damage players rank in this scene? I've heard boot camp can be extended to those who deal 50 damage and lower. Would it be beneficial to maintain an auctioning culture for such small amounts of damage? I personally feel it would benefit newbies to learn to function as a squad and thus agree with the idea of a boot camp as long as they do poor damage.
Finally, how about soldiers who wish to fight for free? People say that this will lead to mercenaries but I feel that true eAussie soldiers would fight whether or not they are paid to do so. Those worried about armaments could fight for cheap if they so wished, earning enough from the gov just to cover expenses. Elite troops will of course command a higher share / ask for more for their efficiency.
Since my brain works on overtime at night, here are a few more comments / questions:
I think it might be helpful to divide 'contracts' into various 'levels' or ranks of damage. Following the 50k required, the government could split it:
4x 5k contracts, 5x 3k contracts, 10x 1k contracts, 10x 500 dmg contracts. Each contract would have a maximum rank any squad member can be (i.e. A squad with a FM cannot win a 500 dmg contract). This would limit competition for the lower end contracts from higher ups and would give squads with those members chance to compete for the contract.
This works very well with squad sizes. Too big a squad? Too little payment. Too small a squad? Unable to complete contract. Therefore it is always in the squad's best interest to have members that are able to perform relatively well compared to their rank, and to have members that are close to them in rank.
The main benefit of a corporate funded military squad as I see it, come from the manufacturing sector. 10 workers producing weapons can be armed from the weapons they produce. At the same time they are given weapons, they can be given moving tickets and orders on where to fight.
Run as a co-op, this kind of company can deal a respectable amount of damage, even with low strength, low rank workers. It would also take some of the financial burden off the government.
If you are looking to recruit high ranking soldiers, then the tendering systems you proposed would be a great incentive. Experienced soldiers should be able to reap the benefits of their trade without being considered mercenary. A soldier being paid a sum in proportion to their battlefield presence is fair.
All fine for as an experiment in turning our professional military into mercenary companies... we'll see where their loyalty lays in a few months time. There remains room for our citizen volunteer force, and I advocate that it remains in parallel as a training ground fro young citizens.
Bass Junkie is doing an amazing job reorganising AAR and needs to be given credit for that. And Dylan Of Darkness is now helping him and doing great work as well. Looking to make changes is in no way a reflection of their efforts - I just want to make sure that's clear.
Through no fault of theirs, AAR isn't given weapons so we either buy them ourselves or fight bare-fisted. That doesn't mean our troops aren't willing. I'm incredibly proud to led 4th Platoon, which does great work.
Think of how much better these dedicated soldiers could be if provided weapons on a regular basis and if military process were strengthened? As someone who dreams of reaching General, I find this exciting.
If the new squads look to the future they'll have training squads ready to move up and either fill a new squad as they're ready or fill in for established soldiers heading into Dropbears. These troops could work in weps factories as they go through preliminary training, supplying the weps that squads use while training.
There are great ideas and questions posed here and they need to be part of the conversation. Seeing what has been written above makes me even more excited about the new program.
As one of the original planners for the SPMM, I knew that there was no way we'd cover every single little angle in the "first draft."
It is articles like this that give us the feedback needed to tighten it up and actually turn the system from a more "conceptual" idea into a "final product."
Keep it up! It's commentary/writing like this is what eAus needs!
Voted/Subbed.
I will be replying with my take on the questions submitted tonight so stay tuned.
Why don't u guys have a branch like ACUK or AAR so that in the case the private sector is not good enough or if players that are in private squads think their squad is no longer what it used to be then they can join it? it just would have very infrequent weapon hand-outs.
Also i think the SPMM is good since it will inspire people to come up with efficient ways of doing things.
PEOPLE will contribute and volunteer more to a militia like group then a government military if there is a "we all have to work hard together" approach.
But i think weapons funding to new squads should be quite strict cuz u don't want fail squads and money to have to give out to somebody.
Remember the Peru incident though,look how much trouble ePoland was in when it couldn't control 1 of its private branches.