Guns for Hire

Send Alia a Text MessageAlia is joined by the international criminal lawyer Katherine Gallagher to explore her litigation against a prominent PMC for war crimes at Abu Ghraib. Katherine talks us through the sixteen-year legal fight on behalf of former Iraqi detainees, the various defences invoked by CACI Premier Technology Inc., and the decision-making around whether to prosecute corporations or individual contractors. She also discusses her role in the case brought against Caterpillar Inc. f...

Send Alia a Text MessageAlia is joined by former Blackwater contractor Morgan Lerette. In a wide-ranging conversation about Morgan's experiences, they look at Blackwater’s lax vetting procedures, the tense relationship on the ground between private contractors and the US military, the absence of long-term benefits or a support system for former Blackwater employees, and the prevalence of substance abuse and suicides. Morgan likens private military contractors to a single-serve coffee cup, to ...

Send Alia a Text MessageAlia is joined by the Russian reporter and photojournalist, David Frenkel, to consider the staggering toll of the “Bakhmut meatgrinder”– Russia’s bloodiest battle since the Second World War. They talk through his latest report from independent Russian news platform Mediazona and the BBC Russian Service, “The Price of Bakhmut”, and David’s methodology for determining which prisoners were recruited and from where. David also examines the numbers that were killed, the que...

Send Alia a Text MessageHost Alia Brahimi speaks with Dr Andrés Macías, a Bogota-based expert on Colombian mercenaries. They begin by discussing the explosive case of 26 Colombian nationals arrested for their part in the 2021 assassination of Haitian president Jovenel Moïse. Andrés goes on to look at the thousands of Colombians who enlist under the banner of the UAE, what’s driving hundreds of Colombians to sign up to fight Russia in Ukraine, and what makes former Colombian soldie...

Send Alia a Text MessageIn the season two opener of the Guns for Hire podcast, Alia chats with Emmy award-winning BBC investigative journalist Nawal Al-Maghafi about her film exposing 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 – including former al-Qaeda operatives – ...

Send Alia a Text MessageIn Episode 10 of the Guns for Hire podcast, host Alia Brahimi is joined by Renad Mansour, an expert on Iraq, Iran and allied groups. 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 Hizballah in Lebanon. They go on to discuss the rivalry between Russia and Iran in the Middle East, what is motivating the non-state actors leading the bid to...

Send Alia a Text MessageIn episode nine of the Guns for Hire podcast, host Alia Brahimi speaks with the Russia analyst Sergey Sukhankin about the 2019 arrest in Libya of the Wagner Group political operative Maksim Shugaley and the Russian propaganda campaign to free him. They discuss Russian political and media operations in Africa, from Libya to Madagascar, and how Russia fundamentally lacks the ideological and financial enticements of the Soviet Union or of China.“This goes back to Soviet t...

Send Alia a Text MessageLawfare is the use of legal systems for strategic advantage. One of its pioneers, the international human rights lawyer Jason McCue, joins host Alia Brahimi on episode eight of the Guns for Hire podcast. Jason describes how he first began pursuing the IRA through private civil actions in the 1990s and goes on to outline the application of these methods to the Wagner Group. Jason and Alia also discuss whether it’s meaningful to designate mercenary groups as terror...

Send Alia a Text MessageAs humans share more of their experiences online for the world to see, the blank zones are shrinking. In episode seven of the Guns for Hire podcast, host Alia Brahimi is joined by Eliot Higgins, an award-winning journalist and founder of the independent investigative collective, Bellingcat. Eliot, who was personally sued by the late mercenary leader Yevgeny Prighozin for outing him as the oligarch behind the Wagner Group, discusses the types of online open-source tools...

Send Alia a Text MessageHost 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 utilising Libya's Soviet-era weapons and mortar and sniping capabilities, and how mercenary recruitment networks are used to smuggle migrants to Europe. The working assumption of the international communit...

Send Alia a Text MessageIn this bumper episode on the war in Sudan, host Alia Brahimi speaks with the former US government expert on Sudan, Cameron Hudson, about the mercenary pedigree of the Rapid Support Forces and its transformation from a ragtag Arab militia into an institutional juggernaut. Cameron argues that this mercenary history has had a determinative impact on the conflict: it has generated a cash windfall which allows the RSF to recruit in numbers to rival the size of the nat...

Send Alia a Text MessageHost 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. Mark argues 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. “It’s likely that t...

Send Alia a Text MessageAlia is joined by the philosopher Professor Tony Coady, who examines the key characteristics of mercenaries, including the motivation for private gain. They discuss the Geneva Conventions definition of mercenaries, the gray area of military contractors in support roles, and whether it’s possible to base a moral or legal judgement on an individual’s intentions. They also consider the main moral objections to mercenaries, with Professor Coady arguing that we should do as...

Send Alia a Text MessageHost Alia Brahimi talks to the Russian defense analyst Dr Pavel Luzin about what the proliferation of Russian mercenaries abroad tells us about Russia at home. They explore 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. “Hundreds of thousands of veterans will come back sooner or later to Russia, and it will be a ...

Send Alia a Text MessageIn the launch episode of the Guns for Hire podcast, host 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 on the war in Ukraine, and Sean’s argument that there’s nothing more unconventional today than a conventional war– and that this is borne out ...

Send Alia a Text MessageIntroducing a new podcast series from the Atlantic Council in Washington DC. Taking Libya as its starting point, the Guns for Hire podcast explores the causes and implications of the growing use of mercenaries in armed conflict. Hosted by Dr Alia Brahimi. The Guns for Hire podcast is written, produced and hosted by Dr Alia Brahimi.