What role do private military companies (PMCs) such as Russia’s Wagner Group play on the modern battlefield? How should US policymakers and US and allied troops in conflict zones manage threats from armed groups when Russia denies their existence? Is war by private armies a rising trend in modern conflict?
Our two guests argue that the Wagner Group plays an important role in Russian military strategy. Russia’s use of PMCs has implications both operationally for US troops on the ground, as well as for US foreign policy more broadly. We discuss at length a February 2018 incident in which the Wagner Group and Syrian partner forces engaged in a multi-hour firefight with US special operations forces in Syria, allegedly resulting in hundreds killed on the Russian/Syrian side.
The conversation concludes with recommendations for both policymakers and practitioners on how to address Russia’s use of plausible deniability and PMCs. The answer is made more pressing by the expanded use of PMCs in combat arms and kinetic roles not just by Russia but other countries, in places such as Nagorno-Karabakh, Libya, and beyond.
Dr. Robert Hamilton is an associate professor of Eurasian studies at the US Army War College and a Black Sea fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. In a thirty-year career in the US Army, spent primarily as a Eurasian foreign area officer, he served overseas in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Germany, Belarus, Qatar, Afghanistan, the Republic of Georgia, Pakistan, and Kuwait. He is a graduate of the German Armed Forces Staff College and the US Army War College and holds a bachelor of science degree from the United States Military Academy, and a master’s degree in contemporary Russian studies and PhD in political science, both from the University of Virginia. In 2017 he led the US cell for ground deconfliction with Russia in Syria.
Candace Rondeaux is a professor of practice at the School of Politics and Global Studies and a senior fellow with the Center on the Future of War at Arizona State University. She has served as a strategic advisor to the US special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction and senior program officer at US Institute of Peace where she launched the RESOLVE Network, a global research consortium on violent extremism. She spent five years living and working in South Asia where she served as South Asia bureau chief for the Washington Post and as senior analyst on Afghanistan for the International Crisis Group. A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, she holds a bachelor’s degree in Russian area studies, a master’s degree in journalism from New York University, and a master’s degree in public policy from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. She is the author of the report “Decoding the Wagner Group: Analyzing the Role of Private Military Security Contractors in Russian Proxy Warfare.”
The Irregular Warfare Podcast is a collaboration between the Modern War Institute and Princeton University’s Empirical Studies of Conflict Project. You can listen to the full episode below, and you can find it and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, TuneIn, or your favorite podcast app. And be sure to follow the podcast on Twitter!
Image credit: Johan Viirok
It is within a larger context, I suggest, that we might best view such things as Russia's use of private military contractors today. In this regard, consider the following:
Given the political, economic, social and value changes that such things as globalization, sponsored by the U.S./the West, has demanded of virtually every state and society in the world today (importantly, demanded of the U.S/the West also), Russia understood that it could make amazing political gains; this, by simply:
a. Embracing a pro-traditional values (and, thus, an anti-globalization/anti-Western/anti-moderniztion?) stance. Thereby,
b. Immediately gaining a worldwide constituency of individuals and groups (importantly, to include certain individuals and groups in the U.S./the West) who were adversely effected by the "modernizing" changes that U.S./Western-led globalization required.
To take advantage of this such amazing opportunity — and thus to achieve unbelievable and immediate political advantage thereby — Russia, initially at least, needed only to announce where it stood:
"In his annual appeal to the Federal Assembly in December 2013, Putin formulated this 'independent path' ideology by contrasting Russia’s 'traditional values' with the liberal values of the West. He said: 'We know that there are more and more people in the world who support our position on defending traditional values that have made up the spiritual and moral foundation of civilization in every nation for thousands of years: the values of traditional families, real human life, including religious life, not just material existence but also spirituality, the values of humanism and global diversity.' He proclaimed that Russia would defend and advance these traditional values in order to 'prevent movement backward and downward, into chaotic darkness and a return to a primitive state.'
In Putin’s view, the fight over values is not far removed from geopolitical competition. '[Liberals] cannot simply dictate anything to anyone just like they have been attempting to do over the recent decades,' he said in an interview with the Financial Times in 2019. 'There is also the so-called liberal idea, which has outlived its purpose. Our Western partners have admitted that some elements of the liberal idea, such as multiculturalism, are no longer tenable,' he added. …
As Putin passes his 20th year as Russia’s president, his domestic and foreign policy appears intended to contrast his country’s 'independent path' with the liberal and decadent regimes in the West. The invented battle of Western values versus Russia’s 'traditional values' is part of a Kremlin effort to justify its broader actions in the eyes of Russian citizens, placing them in the context of a global struggle in which Russia is the target of aggression. Ignoring and violating the provisions of international organizations to which it is a party thus becomes a demonstration of defending its conservative values from European liberalism. … "
(See the "Open Democracy" article "Inside the Fight Over Russia’s Domestic Violence Law," by Alexey Yurtaev, dated 17 February 2020)
With regard to this such effort, now consider this re: Russian New Generation Warfare:
"… Asymmetrical actions have come into widespread use, enabling the nullification of an enemy´s advantages in armed conflict. Among such actions are the use of special operations forces and internal opposition to create a permanently operating front through the entire territory of the enemy state, as well as informational actions, devices, and means that are constantly being perfected. …" —Gen. Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the Russian General Staff.
(See the Army University Press [Sep-Oct 2020 edition] of Military Review and, therein, the article " Russian New Generation Warfare: Deterring and Winning at the Tactical Level, by James Derleth)
Bottom Line Questions — Based on the Above:
In adopting a pro-traditional values/anti-globalization/anti-modernization stance (which amounts to an anti-U.S./anti-Western stance; this, given the U.S./the West's sponsoring of such things as globalization), has Putin (see Gerasimov above) "created" (or did he simply take advantage of an already existing) — worldwide —
a. "Permanently operating front;" this, comprised of:
b. Those individuals and groups, throughout the world, who do not wish to make the political, economic, social and/or value changes that the U.S./West, post-the Cold War, has required of virtually every state and society (a) in the world and (b) even here at home?
If the answer to the above question is a resounding "Yes," then should we not use THIS such amazing Russian strategy (and immediate strategic "win"), to view such (subordinate?/complementary?) things as "Russia's Wagner Group and the Rise of Mercenary Warfare?"