Mercenaries were so common that in Europe Switzerland was banned by treaty from utilising the Swiss Guards.

There are the black and white: civillians and soldiers. Then the grey.

The grey can be private contractors, bodyguards, CIA agents, foreign persons (Foreign Legion, Ghurkas), those who are indirectly paid (be that from the central government to the country's central government or the CIA to private contractors), partisans supported by weapon drops to local armed guides, security support and I'm sure I'm missing loads of other variants.

Of course, the numbers isn't relevant. A small team could be engaged in, ah, sweep and clear missions several times a week and having more impact than a force orders of magnitude greater who are passively sitting in barracks.

I think that government should be mainly there to undertake legislation and oversight, rather than directly running services, if for no other reason that as soon as sometihing is a government enterprise Unions think that any lay offs are out of the