Mercenaries the future of warfare?

[Steel God]

Saw a very good program on History Channel International on this very subject this past weekend.

The show's position was that mercs have been around since the earliest of times, and have always been part of the military landscape. The recent increase of merc use is caused by the shortages of manpower in standing armies. Even the largest of nations have seriously curtailed the size of their standing armies, so that when contracts are awarded to civilian companies to operate in a war zone, they are expected, and in some cases forced by contract, to arrange for their own security. Mercs are he obvious answer.

There are no doubts that a handful of well trained mercs can be used more effectively than 100s or 1000s of poorly trained conscripts, as the battles in the mid-20th century in Africa clearly demonstrate. But the age old stigma of being a gun for hire follows them. If they can be paid to attack someone, can they not also be paid to betray? Personally I think that's a bad rap, since all soldiers, free lance or national, are paid for their services. The notion of fighting for patriotic love of your homeland is really only a few 100 years old.

I personally have no problem with mercenaries and think it's a good solution to many military situations.