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A paramilitary is a group of civilians trained and organized in a military fashion.

Paramilitary groups can serve many different functions. Some are created by governments as internal security forces. Some are formed as revolutionary groups, or engage in guerilla warfare, and may fight against opposing government paramilitaries. Some are commando units, created by a state and intended for non-traditional combat missions, operating outside the military. Other paramilitary groups adopt military organization and aspects of military culture and discipline, but are not intended to see any form of combat.

1 Paramilitary groups as security forces

These groups are neither a police agency nor a military organization, having elements of both but also lacking elements of both. Much of the world's military forces, particularly in developing countries, could be considered paramilitary; they are oriented towards controlling their own country's population rather than toward the role of a professional military.

This sort of paramilitary force typically exists to assure the internal control of a country and to suppress anarchy or civil war. They are typically armed with small arms and wear military uniforms. They are also often equipped with tear gas and other non-lethal weapons. Such paramilitaries may be controlled by the ruling political party or by the head of state personally rather than by the government.

In some situations, where the state or military apparatus is particularly weak or absent, they can act with a large degree of practical independence, having their own command structures and benefitting from private sponsors (instead of, or in addition to, any institutional ones), such as landowners, regional authorities, local interest groups, former victims of revolutionary paramilitary forces, warlords, drug lords or foreign interests. These sponsors may then be able to further extend their influence or control over the paramilitary forces, or even organize paramilitary groups of their own.

These forces ostensibly operate to enforce the law but may act with disregard of the law or at cross-purposes to the existing civilian or military authorities, which may or may not lead to confrontation if the resulting discrepancies are significant enough.

Depending on their degree of political and financial autonomy, the relationship between the paramilitary forces and official institutions can be one of tolerance or incidental alliances rather than of direct oversight and cooperation. These groups may then act according to their own subset of tactical, economical and even political objectives, which may or may not be in opposition to those of the central government or established military command as a whole. Paramilitary forces have been responsible for some violations of the laws of war and for several atrocities.

In military terms, paramilitary security forces are typically light infantry. Effectively led they can stand in defense, especially in citiesA city is an urban area, differentiated from a town, village, or hamlet by size, population density, importance, or legal status. City can also be a synonym for " downtown. Introduction A city usually consists of residential, industrial and business areas or urbanUrban is in or having to do with cities, as distinct from rural areas. In terms of music, urban music and urban radio are synonymous with the terms rap or hip hop and Rhythm and blues, which typically originates in urban areas. In these contexts the term areas, but are less capable of offensive action or sustained combatViolence Combat is purposeful physical conflict involving violence. Combat is usually used to describe people's actions during warfare. However, the term can be used generically to describe any destructive conflict. Combat that is not part of warfare is j operationsOperations is that unit (be it a division or department) of an organization which carries out the actual execution of the core operating functions. For example: in business administration, operations is responsible for the manufacture, delivery, and servi due to a lack of heavy weapons, professional military training, and effective logisticsIn military and business, logistics experts manage how and when to move resources to the places they are needed. In military science, maintaining ones supply lines while disrupting those of the enemy is a crucial, and some would say the most crucial eleme support.

Examples of this kind of paramilitary force include the People's Armed PoliceThe People's Armed Police Force (; renmin wuzhuang jingcha budui is a paramilitary police force responsible for domestic security within the People's Republic of China. The PAP is not normally deployed and in contrast to the unarmed regular People's Polic in the People's Republic of ChinaThe People's Republic of China PRC comprises most of the cultural, historic, and geographic area known as China. Since its founding in 1949, it has been led by the Communist Party of China (CPC). It is the world's most populous country, with a population which was split off from the People's Liberation ArmyAlternate meaning: Shining Path The People's Liberation Army (PLA; Traditional Chinese: , Simplified Chinese: , pinyin: Renmin Jiefang Jun), including strategic nuclear forces, an army, navy and air force, serves as the military of the People's Republic o in 1983 precisely to remove paramilitary duties from the PLA, Colombian right wing paramilitary groups such as the AUC, US police Special Weapons And Tactics units, and the East German Kampfgruppen der Arbeiterklasse.





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