Role of private armies in modern wars

From the time it was founded over a decade ago, the Russian private military company: Wagner Group had largely stayed in the shadows. But on the 4th of November, the Wagner Group, showed off a swanky brand-new steel and glass building in St Petersburg. This would be the new headquarters of the private militia that has wreaked havoc by carrying out several operations, including false flag operations in the battlefields of Ukraine.

What is interesting to note is that the Wagner Group first went into Crimea way back in 2014. Its mercenaries were described as the 'Little Green Men' who occupied the Crimean peninsula, along with the Russian soldiers. More recently, military analysts have credited the Wagner Group for having played an active role in the capture of the cities of Popasna and Severodonetsk. And it is the Wagner Group that is said to have pushed the Ukrainian forces on the back foot, in the fierce fighting that is presently underway in Bakhmut.

But who are the foot soldiers of this shadowy paramilitary force? Most members of the Wagner Group are said to be retired soldiers or soldiers of fortune. But increasingly, the Wagner Group has been accused of recruiting its foot soldiers from prisons. In September 2022, a video of the Wagner Group's chief Yevgeny Prigozhin went viral. He was spotted inside of a prison complex, where he was seen threatening & goading the prisoners to join his private military company: 'Only God can take you out of this prison! But he will do so only when you are in a coffin. I can take you out of this prison now ... to fight for mother Russia! If you try to run away, the Wagner Group will shoot you dead. But if you can survive on the battlefield for six months, you would have earned your freedom!'

The Russian constitution makes no provision for the maintenance and use of a mercenary army. Legally, its position is dubious. But it provides the Kremlin with a fighting force that Russia can outright publicly deny. Even when it gets involved in geo-strategic conflicts globally.

Since 2014, the private militia has had a significant impact on many geo-political conflicts around the world. In 2015, the Wagner Group mercenaries were channelled into the Syrian war theatre. And played a pivotal role in turning the tide of the war in favour of Bashar al-Asaad. In 2016, the Wagner group became active in the Libyan civil war, supporting forces loyal to General Khalifa Haftar. An estimated 1000 Wagner mercenaries took part in Haftar's advance on Tripoli. In 2017, the Wagner Group was invited by the Central African Republic to guard its diamond mines. In 2021, the Wagner Group mercenaries were hired by Mali, in West Africa to fight against the Islamist militants in the Sahel region. It is the influx of the Wagner mercenaries that is said to have forced France to abandon its Operation Barkhane.

A minimum of 5000 Wagner Group mercenaries are said to be operating in different theatres of war around the world. From being a secretive organisation, the Wagner Group has gone public with a lot of its activities. It is openly recruiting in different Russian cities, through billboard advertisements. And has even been dubbed as a patriotic organisation in the Russian media.

But Russia is not the only country to have used private military contractors. Mercenaries have been deployed from time immemorial. But since the end of the Cold War, there is a difference in the manner, organisation and scale in which some of the most powerful countries in the world have used mercenaries & private military contractors to carry out military operations.

Private military contractors provide the twin advantage: firstly, of saving expense. And secondly, if things go wrong, countries can deny responsibility for what they should have been accountable for.

Blackwater, the infamous American private military contractor founded in 1996, by a former Navy Seal officer Eric Prince, gained worldwide notoriety in 2007, after the Nisour Square massacre in Baghdad. 17 Iraqi civilians were killed & 20 others were injured, when the military contractor hired by the US government to provide security services in Iraq, shot at Iraqi civilians, while escorting a US embassy convoy. An investigation by the FBI established that of the 17 people who were killed, 14 of them had been shot by the Blackwater guards, without a cause.

Mercenaries are not cheap imitations of national armed forces. Private armies are a big business. And their scope is global. In 2010, this industry was estimated to be worth a staggering $200 billion. It is difficult to give an accurate picture of the billions of dollars that are sloshed around in this underbelly of the defence market. But mercenaries in the 21st century are not some rag-tag soldiers of fortune. Today they are often employed by multinational defence contractors. And within this narrow perimeter, morality has no place. Patriotism is irrelevant. And profit is the only driving factor.

(Disclaimer: The views of the writer do not represent the views of WION or ZMCL. Nor does WION or ZMCL endorse the views of the writer.)

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