Let's be real for a second, would a nationless army work?

thats existed for thousands of years. it's called mercenaries

I strongly doubt it - there's nothing more expensive than war. Funding a military practically requires the kind of money you can only get through taxes

Some of the largest corporations could manage it though

>could

>Implying Apple and Google couldn't take half of South America in 2 years if they wanted.

nationless or stateless?

Nationless militaries work, as long as there's a state
Stateless militaries work, as long as there's a nation.
But nationless stateless militaries DONT work.

Funding an expensive standing army for a first world nation takes nation state levels of cash. As Executive Outcomes and others have demonstrated for us funding an army that can handle 90% of conflicts in the world can be done on a comparatively microscopic budget.

Who is paying for that? Private contractors? That already exist.

There were nationless armies all over in the past. They were called migrating hordes.. they worked well for those in them

This.

In Metal Gear Solid, MSF is not just the first of its kind, but its mercenaries only dealt 'directly' in third-world affairs up until Ground Zeroes where they hit USA owned land. Not only that, but it was headed by Big Boss, who US citizens and the world saw as an icon of patriotism and trust. It was believed that MSF would obtain peace through its "wars."

After the Ground Zeroes incident, the departed members of MSF allowed the legend of Big Boss to grow to the point of Mythology. Their memes spread across the world, and arose PFs like Mosquito's, the Coyotes, the Securities, all those guys. Strike one down, two more popped up. Big Boss had legitimized it, and nations, the fucking USSR, had legitimized them by hiring MSF during the Peace Walker incident. By the time of Venom Snake's awakening, countries already used the numerous PFs as proxies to fight their battles. And it worked. It was an economic boon built on the blood of Africans and Arabs, and the unmanned Patriots saw them as the best way to maintain order because of that.

People realizing that Boss had a nuke didn't help. People were scared of PFs because THEY had acquired nukes until Venom's mythical interpretation of Big Boss convinced the world to disarm (which led to MG1). MSF only went down because they were standing down for a nuclear inspection. Kojima seemed to try and draw parallels to 9/11 and Kaz's quest for revenge here, but that's more PP specific than the whole of the series.

IRL, for something like MSF to happen, you'd need a physical embodiment of freedom, justice, and peace... And be in the 50s-70s. In our global world, even establishing MSF is impossible. You would have to skip straight to Outer Heaven in Africa, or Zanzibar Land, both of which are established to be almost pseudo-countries. Nations of soldiers.

Tl;Dr post-3 MGS games are kinda shit, but not as bad as the rap they get. 4, PW, V, all just have retardedly shit pacing to drag down the retarded MG plot.

only mercenary Ace pilots.

Well for a start MSN in metal gear was technically a nation of itself in reality it can exist but only if they declare themselves a state and announce their willingness to work for anyone.

The point of the organisation was to focus primarily on looking after its soldiers their entire life because regular military uses and spits out men broken.

In theory it could work but someone like America would destroy them so fast it wouldn't be funny, no super power these days would allow such an organisation they couldn't control.

What would be the point?

You can't think about spanish anarchists in the spanish civil war (or even something as recent as Ukraine or ISL). If your purpose is clear enough, if your propaganda is effective enough, and if you're fighting for some common cause it is possible to unite armies beyond the constraints of nations as we know them.