Paramilitary Facts for Kids

Legion of Frontiersmen, Edmonton Command, 1915 – a nationalist paramilitary group not officially affiliated with the Canadian Army

A paramilitary is a military that is not part of a country's official or legitimate armed forces. The Oxford English Dictionary traces the use of the term "paramilitary" as far back as 1934.

Overview
Legality
Types
Examples of paramilitary units
See also

Overview

Though a paramilitary is, by definition, not a military, it is usually equivalent to a light infantry or special forces in terms of strength, firepower, and organizational structure. Paramilitaries use "military" equipment (such as long guns and armored personnel carriers; usually military surplus resources), skills (such as battlefield medicine and bomb disposal), and tactics (such as urban warfare and close-quarters combat) that are compatible with their purpose, often combining them with skills from other relevant fields such as law enforcement, coast guard, or search and rescue. A paramilitary may fall under the command of a military, train alongside them, or have permission to use their resources, despite not actually being part of them.

Legality

Under the law of war, a state may incorporate a paramilitary organization or armed agency (such as a law enforcement agency or a private volunteer militia) into its combatant armed forces. The other parties to a conflict have to be notified thereof. Some countries' constitutions prohibit paramilitary organizations outside government use.

Types

Depending on the definition adopted, "paramilitaries" may include:

Military organizations

The auxiliary forces of a state's military or government, military reserve forces, such as national guard, presidential guard, republican guard, state defense force, home guard, civil guard, imperial guard, and royal guard forces
Private military contractors and mercenaries
Irregular military forces, such as militias, partisans, resistance movements, freedom fighters, rebel groups, liberation armies, guerilla armies, militants, insurgents, and terrorist groups.

Law enforcement

Semi-militarized law enforcement units within civilian police, such as police tactical units, SWAT, Emergency Service Units, and incident response teams
Gendarmeries, such as the French National Gendarmerie, Dutch Royal Marechaussee, Egyptian Central Security Forces, European EUROGENDFOR, Turkic TAKM, and Chilean Carabineros de Chile
Border guards, such as the Australian Border Force, Indian Border Security Force, Bangladeshi Border Guard Bangladesh, and Turkish village guards
Security forces of ambiguous military status, such as internal troops, railroad guard corps, and railway troops
Branches of government agencies such as intelligence agencies tasked with law enforcement, tactical support, or security operations, such as the Central Intelligence Agency's Special Activities Center and Global Response Staff, or the U.S. Department of Energy's Federal Protective Forces

Civil defense

Lithuanian Riflemen's Union

Political

Armed, semi-militarized wings of political parties and similar political organizations:
- the Italian Fascist Party's Voluntary Militia for National Security, and Black Brigades
- Weimar paramilitary groups, belonging to political parties in the Weimar Republic:
  - the Nazi Party's paramilitary groups: NSFK, NSKK, SA, and SS
  - the Monarchist German National People's Party's Der Stahlhelm
  - the Communist Party of Germany's Parteiselbstschutz
- Northern Irish paramilitary groups during the Troubles:
  - Sinn Féin's Irish Republican Army
  - PUP's Ulster Volunteer Force
- Hamas' Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades
- African National Congress' UMkhonto we Sizwe
- Oath Keepers

Paramilitary facts for kids

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