In late 2017, President Touadera of the Central Africa Republic (CAR) met with Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, to ask for a military partner to arm its forces and fight an insurgency that threatened to destabilize the government. Russia responded by getting an exemption to the UN arms embargo to allow the import of new weapons and deploying almost 1400 troops to fifty locations across the country. But Russia didn’t send Russian soldiers to train and equip CAR’s army or even to engage in direct combat. That role was instead filled by the Wagner Group.
And Wagner isn’t alone. Mercenaryism is on the rise and spreading. There have been soldiers for hire as long as there have been soldiers, but for much of the Twentieth Century, mercenaries were sidelined, relegated to failed coup plots. In today’s emerging international order, however, the role of Private Military Contractors (PMCs) is expanding rapidly. States hire PMCs for many reasons, but the simplest explains the surging popularity best: building effective militaries is hard, but hiring gunmen to do a specific job is much easier.
In this new age of mercenaries, the company that has attained global prominence, beyond Blackwater, beyond Sandline, beyond Executive Outcomes and its various spin-offs, is Wagner.
In his new book, “The Wagner Group: Inside Russia’s Mercenary Army,” Jack Margolin ably charts the rise, fall, and possible rebirth of the world’s most famous PMCs. Margolin is a researcher of financial networks, and his business data background particularly shines as he maps Wagner’s various shell companies and corporate linkages. This is a book for both the curious layman and serious researcher looking for details.
While Wagner’s stature has been seared into the popular imagination, important parts of its origin story and early development are still unclear. While under the control of the Russian military, the plan to create the group was not hatched in a single secret meeting at the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency. Margolin describes the organization and relationship as an adhocracy. The Russian state seeks opportunity and Wagner steps in; it’s improvisational.
That opportunity—to both increase Russian state influence, and potentially make a profit in risky markets—started in Ukraine but quickly spread to Syria, Sudan, Mozambique, CAR, Libya, and now Mali. Their success is decidedly mixed. While Wagner lost hundreds of fighters in combat with US forces in Syria in 2019, and left Cabo Delgado in disgrace a year later after taking casualties, they also were instrumental in seizing Bakmut in Ukraine in 2023, and are expanding in the Sahel and Northern Africa.
Wagner’s two great capabilities are an ability to recruit from a sector of Russian society otherwise ignored, from military veterans to the prison population, and to accomplish multiple lines of effort in a security-deficient space. In many African states, Russia has twin goals of resource extraction and cultivating allies. The Russian military can’t pump oil, and Lukoil can’t fight a counter-insurgency to stabilize a regime, but Wagner can handle both. It is fundamentally an organization of doers. Whatever needs done: mining, flying, trucking, fighting, Wagner has the skills and resources to do it. The question of whether Wagner is a military force or a business is a resounding “both.” Wagner also has less overhead than other organizations—with thin middle management and little training function. The reality that most Wagner fighters are mostly either former Russian soldiers or expendable felons bound for the meat-grinder in Ukraine, only adds to its efficiency.
Wagner’s status in Russian society is another advantage. Many journalists and analysts refer to this as the “deniability” of the group – a misleading shorthand label. Since the use of Little Green Men in Ukraine in 2014, any “denials” of Wagner by the Russian state were done with a wink and a nod, as the links between the State and the group are well known.
Rather, the trope of “deniability” covers a variety of other concepts. The idea of a semi-legitimate or offically-off-the-books force under the senior leadership’s direction adds mystique and is part of the mythos that Wagner cultivated. Margolin describes how the public tongue-in-cheek denials of Wagner are a message to the domestic audience within Russia, that the government is clever, thinking outside the box, and is getting away with something on the international stage.
Deniability is also code for disposability and apathy. Putin is an autocrat but the support of the Russian public still matters, and the loss of Wagner contractors gets less attention and concern, compared to the Zinky Boys experience of losing Russian soldiers. Russian citizens are not alone in this; the United States lost more contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan than uniformed military, but that loss goes largely unacknowledged or grieved publicly, except by the families. And in relations with other states, Wagner’s status can counter-intuitively prove de-escalatory. When Wagner fighters encountered NATO-member soldiers in Syria or Libya, the phone call between Russian and American generals was likely far easier than if it had been uniformed soldiers on both sides.
In the end, Wagner imploded due to the ambitions and political misreadings of Yevgeny Prighozin, its head. Margolin explains that Prighozin liked to characterize himself as “two handshakes away” from Putin, but that was an exaggeration. The failed mutiny of 2023 led to the elimination of Prighozin and several other top Wagner leaders. Today, Wagner has split into multiple smaller organizations, and other Russian companies have grown to take market share. The current landscape of mercenaries is one of flux as different PMCs capture different portions of Wagner’s old business.
The question is whether the concept of Wagner will metastasize following the group’s fall. Is Wagner, in fact, a harbinger and portends an expansion in this new era of mercenaries? Or was it a unique one-off?
To answer, we need to minimize the hype. Margolin calls the future of mercenaryism in Russia “less spectacular but more sustainable.” It is easy to get lost in the tabloid details of Wagner’s exploits, and thus miss the most important trends and themes applicable to other contexts. Yes, in the public imagination Wagner was defined, at least initially, by ultra-nationalist ideologies, far-right symbols, and memes focused on extreme violence. Yes, it was led by a flamboyant stuntman who claimed ties to the head of state. But that doesn’t mean a future American PMC scenario is likely to include Enrique Torres being released from jail to lead a team of Proud Boys and Three-Percenters to fight a counter-insurgency and mine gold in Bolivia.
There are broader lessons to draw from Wagner’s ascent and fracturing that are more reproducible globally. To thrive, Wagner needed state backing that provided military equipment, from artillery to fighter jets. It also needed a business and political philosophy that, in the current fluctuating international order, embraces risky hybrid efforts and has a willingness or desire to flout international norms. Finally, it helps if the state sponsor is sanctioned, and so sees a benefit in accessing and extracting natural resources abroad for their own markets at home.
It is not hard to imagine such situations in the current context. Blackwater quickly lost the support of its state patron. China does not currently have the risk tolerance for these ventures. But there are other spaces and situations where more Wagner-like organizations can grow. We need to better understand how groups like Wagner find success and how to prevent their impunity from growing.
Is Wagner a Model for Other Mercenary Groups?
By Brian Castner
Conventional Arms
In late 2017, President Touadera of the Central Africa Republic (CAR) met with Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, to ask for a military partner to arm its forces and fight an insurgency that threatened to destabilize the government. Russia responded by getting an exemption to the UN arms embargo to allow the import of new weapons and deploying almost 1400 troops to fifty locations across the country. But Russia didn’t send Russian soldiers to train and equip CAR’s army or even to engage in direct combat. That role was instead filled by the Wagner Group.
And Wagner isn’t alone. Mercenaryism is on the rise and spreading. There have been soldiers for hire as long as there have been soldiers, but for much of the Twentieth Century, mercenaries were sidelined, relegated to failed coup plots. In today’s emerging international order, however, the role of Private Military Contractors (PMCs) is expanding rapidly. States hire PMCs for many reasons, but the simplest explains the surging popularity best: building effective militaries is hard, but hiring gunmen to do a specific job is much easier.
In this new age of mercenaries, the company that has attained global prominence, beyond Blackwater, beyond Sandline, beyond Executive Outcomes and its various spin-offs, is Wagner.
In his new book, “The Wagner Group: Inside Russia’s Mercenary Army,” Jack Margolin ably charts the rise, fall, and possible rebirth of the world’s most famous PMCs. Margolin is a researcher of financial networks, and his business data background particularly shines as he maps Wagner’s various shell companies and corporate linkages. This is a book for both the curious layman and serious researcher looking for details.
While Wagner’s stature has been seared into the popular imagination, important parts of its origin story and early development are still unclear. While under the control of the Russian military, the plan to create the group was not hatched in a single secret meeting at the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency. Margolin describes the organization and relationship as an adhocracy. The Russian state seeks opportunity and Wagner steps in; it’s improvisational.
That opportunity—to both increase Russian state influence, and potentially make a profit in risky markets—started in Ukraine but quickly spread to Syria, Sudan, Mozambique, CAR, Libya, and now Mali. Their success is decidedly mixed. While Wagner lost hundreds of fighters in combat with US forces in Syria in 2019, and left Cabo Delgado in disgrace a year later after taking casualties, they also were instrumental in seizing Bakmut in Ukraine in 2023, and are expanding in the Sahel and Northern Africa.
Wagner’s two great capabilities are an ability to recruit from a sector of Russian society otherwise ignored, from military veterans to the prison population, and to accomplish multiple lines of effort in a security-deficient space. In many African states, Russia has twin goals of resource extraction and cultivating allies. The Russian military can’t pump oil, and Lukoil can’t fight a counter-insurgency to stabilize a regime, but Wagner can handle both. It is fundamentally an organization of doers. Whatever needs done: mining, flying, trucking, fighting, Wagner has the skills and resources to do it. The question of whether Wagner is a military force or a business is a resounding “both.” Wagner also has less overhead than other organizations—with thin middle management and little training function. The reality that most Wagner fighters are mostly either former Russian soldiers or expendable felons bound for the meat-grinder in Ukraine, only adds to its efficiency.
Wagner’s status in Russian society is another advantage. Many journalists and analysts refer to this as the “deniability” of the group – a misleading shorthand label. Since the use of Little Green Men in Ukraine in 2014, any “denials” of Wagner by the Russian state were done with a wink and a nod, as the links between the State and the group are well known.
Rather, the trope of “deniability” covers a variety of other concepts. The idea of a semi-legitimate or offically-off-the-books force under the senior leadership’s direction adds mystique and is part of the mythos that Wagner cultivated. Margolin describes how the public tongue-in-cheek denials of Wagner are a message to the domestic audience within Russia, that the government is clever, thinking outside the box, and is getting away with something on the international stage.
Deniability is also code for disposability and apathy. Putin is an autocrat but the support of the Russian public still matters, and the loss of Wagner contractors gets less attention and concern, compared to the Zinky Boys experience of losing Russian soldiers. Russian citizens are not alone in this; the United States lost more contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan than uniformed military, but that loss goes largely unacknowledged or grieved publicly, except by the families. And in relations with other states, Wagner’s status can counter-intuitively prove de-escalatory. When Wagner fighters encountered NATO-member soldiers in Syria or Libya, the phone call between Russian and American generals was likely far easier than if it had been uniformed soldiers on both sides.
In the end, Wagner imploded due to the ambitions and political misreadings of Yevgeny Prighozin, its head. Margolin explains that Prighozin liked to characterize himself as “two handshakes away” from Putin, but that was an exaggeration. The failed mutiny of 2023 led to the elimination of Prighozin and several other top Wagner leaders. Today, Wagner has split into multiple smaller organizations, and other Russian companies have grown to take market share. The current landscape of mercenaries is one of flux as different PMCs capture different portions of Wagner’s old business.
The question is whether the concept of Wagner will metastasize following the group’s fall. Is Wagner, in fact, a harbinger and portends an expansion in this new era of mercenaries? Or was it a unique one-off?
To answer, we need to minimize the hype. Margolin calls the future of mercenaryism in Russia “less spectacular but more sustainable.” It is easy to get lost in the tabloid details of Wagner’s exploits, and thus miss the most important trends and themes applicable to other contexts. Yes, in the public imagination Wagner was defined, at least initially, by ultra-nationalist ideologies, far-right symbols, and memes focused on extreme violence. Yes, it was led by a flamboyant stuntman who claimed ties to the head of state. But that doesn’t mean a future American PMC scenario is likely to include Enrique Torres being released from jail to lead a team of Proud Boys and Three-Percenters to fight a counter-insurgency and mine gold in Bolivia.
There are broader lessons to draw from Wagner’s ascent and fracturing that are more reproducible globally. To thrive, Wagner needed state backing that provided military equipment, from artillery to fighter jets. It also needed a business and political philosophy that, in the current fluctuating international order, embraces risky hybrid efforts and has a willingness or desire to flout international norms. Finally, it helps if the state sponsor is sanctioned, and so sees a benefit in accessing and extracting natural resources abroad for their own markets at home.
It is not hard to imagine such situations in the current context. Blackwater quickly lost the support of its state patron. China does not currently have the risk tolerance for these ventures. But there are other spaces and situations where more Wagner-like organizations can grow. We need to better understand how groups like Wagner find success and how to prevent their impunity from growing.
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