Correct me if I am wrong but Americans are not allowed to fight under a foreign military command. The exception is American Jews may fight in the Israeli army for 2 years.
If you fight for a foreign military, you forfeit your America citizenship.
I don’t know the current laws about mercenary work for Americans, and it isn’t relevant to my post, unless this thread is about whether an American mercenary would be charged and convicted for breaking American law, I don’t recall much of that in the 1970s or in the 1980s when I was getting mercenary offers and knew mercenaries, it just wasn’t a concern.
If anything, I had the impression that Reagan was encouraging anti-communist mercenaries from America.
Not correct, unless you engage in hostilities against the United States.
Americans have a long and well-known history of service in foreign militaries. Lafayette Escadrille, service with the UK and Canada, Spanish Civil War, etc. The problem these days is that we won’t enforce laws against treason.
Here is an excerpt from an internet site.
United States of America:
This is a tricky one indeed. The US has laws that seem to both make mercenaries legal and illegal at the same time, while it uses PMCs that are also considered legal, while the “Anti Pinkerton Act” seems to make them illegal. It’s very strange.
Mercenaries have seen wide use in the US, all the way from the war of Independence, and to the formation of the PMCs. The US government has at times used mercenary-like personell against its own citizens (Pinkerton, for example) and militias are to a certain extent legal.
Consequences: It seems that being a US citizen and a mercenary is nothing much to worry about, outside the consequences that you may be facing for breaking international law.
“If you fight for a foreign military, you forfeit your America citizenship.”
If someone is born here, he can’t be stripped of his citizenship as far as I know. he can renounce it, but not be stripped of it.
Americans are fighting Isis right now with the Kurds.
I don’t believe there’s actually a law to that effect. The government can’t pull your citizenship without a court— they can, however, pull your passport so you can’t come back. It’s the same with dual citizenship: there’s no law against it, but don’t show the other passport coming back to the US.
Not quite. If you take an oath to a foreign government, you lose your citizenship. See page 4 of your passport. However, if you simply join a foreign army without taking an oath, you don't lose your citizenship. That's why the French Foreign Legion doesn't require an oath to France. For mercenaries, there's no problem since they aren't joining a foreign army.