I know about “the company formerly known as Blackwater” and that they might be characterized as a merc company, but what I’m wondering about are mercenary companies that take part in the fighting like in the days of yore.
I’m guessing most (if they exist) would take part in smaller regional wars that the big powers don’t take part in; like in the DRC, but do they exist?
Pretty much all serious conflict these days is guerilla warfare or a mixture between guerilla warfare and more traditional war. In that situation, it doesn’t make sense to use mercenaries to take part of large-scale battles, since there really aren’t many large-scale battles anymore. It’s my view that Blackwater is just a mercenary company updated to current reality.
I might be wrong, though - I’m very ignorant of warfare. Please fight my ignorance.
Depending on how you define mercenary, you could include:
[ul]
[li]French Foreign Legion[/li][li]Gurkhas[/li][li]Swiss Guards[/li][/ul]
Whatever happened to those nefarious South African outfits? I think one of them was called Sandline. They were often involved in regional skirmishes in the surrounding countries.
Terminus Est: Yeah, I know about those (but how do you qualify the FFL?).
Superfluous Parentheses: Guerillas could still hire mercs though, especially for regional conflicts, when smaller regiments might be of more importance?
I seem to remember there were some South African merc companies going after Apartheid, and Thatcher Jr tried to hire some of those a couple of years ago, right?
The French Foreign Legion consists of mostly non-French nationals fighting for France. Seems pretty mercenary to me.
I suppose so, and I would think they still do. But an advantage of guerilla warfare is that you don’t need large organized troops in one place. If you can get a substantial section of the population behind you, that may be enough without raising any kind of traditional army at all.
That said, I’d be very surprised if mercenaries weren’t pretty common even today, especially in the smaller conflicts. What you probably won’t see today is large mercenary legions playing parts in large battles.
True, but they don’t offer their services to anyone but the French.
Exactly. Anyone know anything about these companies, like the ones **friedo **posted about.
And I’ll have to look up info on Sandline.
The FFL is a pretty strange deal. AFAIK a full tour in the FFL will give you French citizenship with full anonymity wrt your background if you so wish. It at least means they probably won’t fight for anybody other than France. 
Neither do the Ghurkas and the Swiss Guard offer their services to anyone but the British (and India) and the Vatican, respectively, hence my qualification on the definition of “mercenary”.
India has some Gurkha regiments (wiki), but otherwise you’re right.
And Sandline doesn’t seem to be in business anymore 
There’s a currently running on the History Channel about a group of mercenaries.
Nothing nefarious really, just selling their expertise, contacts, training, and procurement abilities to national governments in poor countries to help them out. I saw an ep where they trained an African military in guarding against rebel patrols by showing them GPS coordination stuff, and another where they worked on fighting piracy off the coast.
list of private military companies on wikipedia:
According the the wikipedia listing on Mercenaries DynCorp is still active.
Darth Sensitive and coremelt: thank you both!
I think I should form a mercenary company marketing the skills I’ve picked up in the Air Force out to foreign countries. For a reasonable fee, I could supply them with a group of experienced military men who can sweep sidewalks, pick up cigarette butts, answer phones, and generally avoid doing anything overly work-y. This way, they can free up their OWN deadbeats to go do important stuff like raiding enemy camps. 
This article might be of interest.
Looks like an interesting read, thanks!
There is also a Spanish Foreign Legion, not quite as well-known as the FFL. They fall, along with the FFL and the UK Gurkhas, into the mercenary-by-legal-description category, rather than a free company of soldiers trading skills for pay to the highest bidder. There’s not really a question as to whether someone else can hire them as long as their individual states exist as sovereign entities. There are also merc companies of Gurkhas working for Singapore and Brunei.
I’d make phone calls to Nepal and look for former UK Gurkhas who have gone freelance, if I were looking for “active” mercs & mercenary companies willing to deploy for cash on the table. Also, given the huge glut of Eastern Euros serving in the FFL, I’d be surprised if there weren’t a few groups of Russian/Ukrainian mercs out there for hire, but I wouldn’t know where to begin looking, other than the obvious.
You mean besides talking to “Mr. Lee”, the owner of a certain Chinese laundromat in downtown L.A.?
Huh. I thought he was talking about the Yellow Pages.