Anyone who does this type of work for money and isn’t employed directly by a government is a “professional mercenary.” What’s the difference between some ex-Marine who gets hired as a mercenary after a 4 year tour and an “ordinary” or “commonly criminal” person?
You’re using “professional” to mean “ethical and skilled” but anyone who takes a job killing people for money from the highest bidder is far from that.
Look up the definition of professional in the dictionary. If you get paid for a job, your are a professional. Level of experience or skill is not part of the definition.
Mercenaries are professionals, though. This phenomenon is about ordinary or at least commonly criminal people.
Anyone who does this type of work for money and isn’t employed directly by a government is a “professional mercenary.” What’s the difference between some ex-Marine who gets hired as a mercenary after a 4 year tour and an “ordinary” or “commonly criminal” person?
You’re using “professional” to mean “ethical and skilled” but anyone who takes a job killing people for money from the highest bidder is far from that.
The non/semi-professional mercenaries have to start somewhere before they get promoted to the big leagues.
Well first they need to get promoted to “assistant to the mercenary” before they become truly professional.
They usually start as foot soldiers in a formal state military before moving on to mercenary work.
That was before the Gig Economy took over.
If they are paid they are professional and not all mercenaries are paid in coin.
Mercenaries are definitely not all professionals - who do you think are the boots on the ground for all the proxy wars happening today?
Turkey and Russia were flying out Syrian mercenaries to north Africa to fight each other over Libya.
It’s extensively published in military research papers that guns for hire (mercenaries) are becoming much more ubiquitous in today’s proxy wars.
Look up the definition of professional in the dictionary. If you get paid for a job, your are a professional. Level of experience or skill is not part of the definition.
I think the key term being used is “mercenary” though