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Go for reading Jeremy Scahill’s book. I think it’s a great book, and Scahill does important research, and you should trust yourself to decide on your own terms what is and isn’t within the appropriate realms of bias. Scahill isn’t pretending not to have any opinions in his book, and I think he rightly makes it very clear what his arguments are. I would also recommend P.W. Singer’s book Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry, which provides a look at a broad range of private military contractors in historical context.

A quick note on some of the phrasing involved in talking about this topic: It’s important to remember the division between the idea of “mercenary” and a military contractor. Mercenary is a narrow term that I find often demonizes the actual people on the ground and ignores the role of corporate decisionmaking and government oversight practices (which I consider the root problem of the current system of military contracting). That kind of phrasing also erases the fact that the majority of contracting personnel are not hired gun, trigger-happy Blackwater Xe Services Academi jocks, but people performing a variety of military support services (including laundry and electrical repair work) who are often exploited or put in peril by the companies for whom they work. It’s important to make the sharp divisions about what kinds of people we criticize. (Scahill’s book, by the way, provides us with some excellent examples of who exactly ought to be receiving our ire… *coughErikPrincecough*)

Okay, so, for those who aren’t following it - the euro bonds TDGS is referring to here are basically joint bonds over the whole euro group. Basically, any one country can issue the bonds (up to a limit) and then everyone has to pay it back. 

So think about that for a moment. Any state can issue as many bonds as they like, and then the whole EU is jointly responsible for them. (Yes there is a limit - but the eurozone used to have government debt limits and I don’t think anyone is still under those limits.) If you’re a rich EU state this is going to drag you down really quickly, right? Especially once Spain has to prop up its entire banking sector and the big regional governments with additional borrowing. 

So yeah, euro bonds would be a really dicey idea for the big EU states. They’re not really analogous to US states, because each individual one has its own banking system and military and all kinds of large unavoidable expenses. (I mention military specifically because Greece is spending an inexcusable amount of money on its military right now: 3.2% of its GDP, which is more than any other EU member including the UK and a ridiculous spending level for a country with almost zero international military obligations.) Total spending would almost immediately get out of hand, and interest rates would get high for everyone.

Euro bureaucrats like appointed Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti and ECB Chair Mario Draghi (henceforth, the Super Marios) speak optimistically about euro bonds as a way for countries like Greece and Portugal (and Cyprus and Spain and Italy) to access international borrowing markets, but this is an absolute non-starter in Germany. A full 79% of Germans are opposed to euro bonds, which is way more than Merkel would want to risk with the elections next year.

So over the next year or so expect the Super Marios & Co. to keep suggesting euro bonds, and expect Germany to keep shooting them down. After that, it probably depends on the shape of the new governing coalition in Germany - but whoever is in power, it’s hard to imagine public opinion ever shifting in favour of euro bonds. 

Because I know something about the history of the Democratic Party.