Guns for Hire podcast

The Guns for Hire podcast is a production of the Atlantic Council’s North Africa Initiative. Taking Libya as its starting point, it examines the causes and implications of the growing use of mercenaries in armed conflict.

The podcast features guests from many walks of life, from ethicists and historians to former mercenary fighters. It seeks to understand what the normalization of contract warfare tells us about the world as we currently find it, but also about the future of the international system and about what war could look like in the coming decades.

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Season 2

Season 2 looks at foreign mercenary activity in a range of conflicts, from Americans in Yemen to Columbians, Indians and Nepalis in Ukraine. It asks whether being a mercenary is legal and considers the ways in which applicable law might evolve. It also asks what lessons emerge from successive white mercenary interventions in Africa in the 1960s and 1970s.

Guns for Hire April 25, 2024

American Hit Squad in Yemen

Host and Nonresident Senior Fellow Alia Brahimi chats with the award-winning BBC investigative journalist Nawal Al-Maghafi about her film on American mercenaries in Yemen. One of the few journalists to report from Yemen first-hand, Nawal discusses the Delaware-registered PMC contracted by the UAE to kill “terrorists”, her meetings with two of the Americans involved, and the PMC’s training of Yemeni units to conduct targeted assassinations.

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Season 1

Season 1 asks what makes mercenaries different from regular soldiers, practically and morally, and if there is a distinction to be made between mercenaries and private military companies. It discusses specific case studies, including mercenary activity in Libya, Ukraine and Syria, and examines the strategic significance of particular companies, such as the Kremlin-linked Wagner Group. It also seeks to understand the cases for and against mercenaries, as well as the mercenary experience.

Guns for Hire January 9, 2024

Mercenaries and Gaza

In the final episode of Season 1, host and Nonresident Senior Fellow Alia Brahimi chats with Renad Mansour, who leads the Iraq Initiative at Chatham House. As the region convulses from the war in Gaza, they begin by assessing reports that the Wagner Group has been tasked with transferring a Russian air defence system from Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon. They go on to discuss the rivalry between Russia and Iran in the Middle East, what is motivating the non-state actors and whether elements of the Iran-backed Shi’a militia that have fanned out across the region can be classified as mercenaries.

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Guns for Hire November 30, 2023

What’s Charlie Sheen got to do with it?

In Season 1, Episode 9 of the Guns for Hire podcast, Nonresident Senior Fellow Alia Brahimi speaks with Russia analyst Sergey Sukhankin. They discuss the arrest in Libya of the Wagner Group operative Maksim Shugaley and the propaganda campaign to free him, broader information and media operations in Africa, and the re-emergence of Wagner Group remnants on the frontlines in Ukraine. Sergey and Alia also delve into a range of related topics, including the Chinese private security industry and Russian policy in the arctic.

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Guns for Hire October 26, 2023

Prosecuting the Wagner Group

In Season 1, Episode 8 of the Guns for Hire podcast, Nonresident Senior Fellow Alia Brahimi is joined by the international human rights lawyer, Jason McCue. Jason provides a background to lawfare – the use of law for strategic advantage – and how it was forged in the 1990s to go after the IRA. He goes on to discuss its application to the Wagner Group, the global programme of Ukrainian victim-led litigations that he leads, why the Wagner Group ought to be designated as terrorists, and how he and his law partner were personally sanctioned by the Russian state.

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Guns for Hire August 24, 2023

Semtex teddy bear: The mercenary build-up in Libya

In Season 1, Episode 6 of the Guns for Hire podcast, Nonresident Senior Fellow Alia Brahimi is joined by the Libyan security expert and Atlantic Council Nonresident Senior Fellow Emadeddin Badi. They discuss the surge of African, Syrian and Russian mercenaries in Libya since 2019, the major value-add of Wagner Group contractors in terms of mortar and sniping capabilities, and how mercenary recruitment networks are used to smuggle migrants to Europe.

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Guns for Hire July 7, 2023

Mercenary bloodline: The war in Sudan

In Season 1, Episode 5 of the Guns for Hire podcast, Nonresident Senior Fellow Alia Brahimi is joined by two guests. She speaks with Cameron Hudson, the former US government expert on Sudan, about the mercenary pedigree of one of the two main belligerent parties, the Rapid Support Forces, and the determinative impact this has had on the current conflict in Sudan. By fighting as mercenaries in Libya, and especially Yemen, the RSF secured a cash windfall that let it recruit in numbers to rival the size of the national army, it forged regional relationships that are now central to its resupply, and it has committed crimes and abuses in the conduct of the war which represent a detached mercenary mentality.

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Guns for Hire June 30, 2023

“What just happened?” The Wagner mutiny

In Season 1, Episode 4 of the Guns for Hire podcast, host Alia Brahimi speaks with renowned Russia expert Mark Galeotti about the striking developments which saw mutinous mercenary forces from the Wagner Group take over two Russian cities and march towards Moscow. Professor Galeotti argues that the rebellion is both a symptom and an accelerator of the decay of the Putin state and of systemic capacity to deal with crisis. He also points out that the plot was not picked up in a timely manner precisely because the Wagner Group is a mercenary force operating outside of the purview of counterintelligence and the units that ordinarily monitor the loyalty of the military.

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Guns for Hire April 27, 2022

What's so bad about mercenaries?

Host and Nonresident Senior Fellow Alia Brahimi speaks with the philosopher Professor Tony Coady about the key characteristics of mercenaries, including the motivation for private gain. They also discuss the Geneva Conventions definition of mercenaries, the grey area of military contractors in support roles, and whether it’s possible to base a moral or legal judgement on an individual’s intentions.

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Guns for Hire April 27, 2022

What Russian mercenaries tell us about Russia

Host and Nonresident Senior Fellow Alia Brahimi speaks with the Russian defence analyst Pavel Luzin about what the proliferation of Russian mercenaries abroad tells us about Russia at home. They discuss the domestic forces that gave rise to the Kremlin’s co-optation of Russian mercenaries, how they are funded by the Russian federal budget, and the effects mercenaries are already having on Russian society.

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Guns for Hire March 16, 2022

Defeating the Wagner Group

Host and Nonresident Senior Fellow Alia Brahimi speaks with the author and former mercenary Dr Sean McFate about his three-pronged strategy for defeating the Wagner Group. They also discuss internal dynamics within the Kremlin-linked private military company, the dangerously outsized influence of its leader in the war in Ukraine, and Sean’s argument that there’s nothing more unconventional today than a conventional war.

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