In early December, an important book was published by Reaktion Books, authored by researcher Jack Margolin, titled The Wagner Group: Inside Russia’s Mercenary Army.
Wherever Wagner went, it often shared the field with other mercenaries and stationed foreign forces, thriving in a world brimming with opportunities. Governments grappling with security collapse sought Wagner’s services to rent military force, which the group provided swiftly, indicating that there would be increasing demand for such missions in the future. This could lead to a weakening and retreat of the state’s monopoly on violence.
In Mozambique, Wagner competed in a liberated security market with established military and security service companies from South Africa. In Sudan, it entered a political and security field already saturated with external forces like the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. In the Central African Republic, Wagner’s arrival heralded an uncomfortable partnership with the United Nations in peace enforcement. Meanwhile, in Mali, Wagner replaced traditional models of foreign security assistance, allowing the new military government to swap France’s Barkhane operations for Wagner’s more brutal tactics.
In Syria, Wagner fought alongside local and foreign mercenaries, national armies from Turkey to the United States, and armed groups from Lebanon, Iran, and beyond. In Libya, Wagner was just one among a confusingly diverse array of mercenaries and foreign forces. It coordinated with the UAE and supported Khalifa Haftar, former head of the controversial military and security private company Blackwater, through a short-term OpSec project.
Since the end of the Cold War, many international relations scholars and analysts expected the decline of wars between states. It appeared conflicts between national armies were a thing of the past, replaced by protracted civil wars, insurgencies, and proxy conflicts.
The modern model of private military and security companies emerged in the crucible of the post-Cold War system, where not only states needed firepower to tilt the balance and claim resources or legitimacy. Besieged governments could outsource military needs to private military and security firms, and so could rebel groups and even commercial enterprises.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine challenged this belief, stunning politicians, military leaders, academics, and journalists as it witnessed a major regional war between two advanced nations. It seemed a return to the 20th century, with both states mobilizing tanks, artillery, air power, missile systems, and naval forces against one another.
The emergence of trench warfare seemed to rewind the clock further. A closer examination of Russian military efforts revealed that what we were witnessing was indeed the same layered model of warfare displayed in places like Syria and Libya, where rebels formed shifting alliances, and governments partnered with private actors and militia groups to wage war.
This strategy was driven by Russia’s need to balance its military efforts with local political sensitivities and the challenges it faced along with the tools it possessed to address them.
Since 2014, Russia had encouraged a range of paramilitary organizations to wage a deniable war against Ukraine. These could now be leveraged to attract additional fighters. Politicians and regional companies like Gazprom were subject to government whims and could be exploited to use their resources to create new units in exchange for preferential treatment.
Likewise, Ukraine benefitted from extraordinary forces in this battle, from armed civil defense units in Kyiv to Chechen volunteer units, the Freedom of Russia Legion, and Russian Volunteer Corps, which carried out attacks even on Russian territory. There was Wagner, armed with resources far exceeding those of any other irregular unit and the mandate to recruit fighters from Russian prisoners, capable of altering the trajectory of battle. While Wagner could not change the war’s balance for Russia, it played a crucial role in exhausting the Ukrainian military in Bakhmut, giving the Russian army breathing room at other fronts, and improving its prospects as the war continued. It could take advantage of the flexibility and freedom afforded by its dual location, both in and outside Russia, to fight in a more adaptable and effective manner than the Russian army.
Wagner’s forces, alongside other military units like those of Ahmet Ramadan Kadyrov, manifested as semi-governmental networks reflecting Russia’s military leadership’s adaptation to the changing nature of warfare.
However, these semi-state networks in Russia were not independent. They were parasitic, feeding off the state that they drained of its substance, turning it from a principal to a tool, a pool of resources ripe for plundering.
Ultimately, Prigozhin controlled a powerful network, but one that could not bend the state’s own power, the superstructure that determined which networks would succeed or fail. Prigozhin was exceptionally gifted when it came to serving the state, yet he was less knowledgeable about how to use it to achieve his own ends.
Defense Minister Shoigu, Chief of General Staff Gerasimov, and the surrounding security elites were skilled politicians closer to the center, maintaining a position in managing conflict towards stability.
Prigozhin’s rebellion and subsequent death marked a turning point in Russia’s trajectory of internal violence and conflict, echoing back to the “wild nineties,” when disputes between outlaw networks were resolved through raw power.
Wagner was not merely a harbinger for Russia’s future but also for the future of global conflict. The groups that Russia deployed against its adversaries signified not just its reliance on these networks but also their increasing priority on the global level. Some analysts have labeled this type of conflict “irregular warfare”—or “competition in the gray zone”—signifying that it occupies a space outside the “black and white” of politics, commerce, and war. However, this pattern is not new. Wars have always unfolded beyond the battlefield, encompassing information operations and economic competition. The many states and networks involved—such as companies, political parties, religious movements, military forces, and intelligence agencies—have perpetually competed, employing means beyond simple violence and using proxies to act on their behalf, from Italian criminals to contemporary mercenaries.
What is new about these networks and their competition is their context. They operate in a world of global capital, where networks—including violent and criminal ones—can move money and goods farther and faster than ever before. This provides them advantages over sluggish, politically constrained giant states.
States need these mercenary forces because they can perform tasks that states either cannot carry out or can accomplish more rapidly and at a lower cost, especially when politically costly, such as waging wars.
Although the state remains master of the situation due to its unmatched resources through the right to tax and confer legitimacy, it is certain that authoritarian states will increasingly rely on state-sponsored sub-networks to compete on the global stage. We might assume that less restricted authoritarian states will be less dependent on such networks and can pursue policies and wage wars regardless of their people’s wishes.
The sprawling liberal world order is extremely permissive of secrecy and inequality, allowing even the most violent and detested criminal actors to exploit it.
The author emphasizes that as states—especially authoritarian ones—increasingly rely on state-subordinate networks to engage in competition, we will see more companies like Wagner emerging. These firms are unlikely to resemble Wagner in size or operations. However, both weak and strong states will increasingly need to privatize power and violence, perhaps the only domain where the state has traditionally retained a monopoly in the liberal world order—a monopoly that is highly attractive yet politically costly. As Wagner and other private military companies have shown, this is an arena where semi-governmental networks can perform exceptionally well.
Even with the rise of private military companies, especially those like Wagner operating at the behest of authoritarian states, this does not necessarily mean we are facing a more violent future.
We are capable of altering the global capital context that allows violent and criminal networks to thrive. If we are willing to sacrifice secrecy and expend political capital to compel the world’s dirty money havens to become transparent or suffer economic and diplomatic costs, we can create a less hospitable environment for actors like Wagner.
We may also boldly learn to leverage these tools ourselves, not to protect authoritarian governments as Wagner does, but to more robustly and effectively defend emerging democracies and the world’s most vulnerable populations.
The rise of peace enforcement operations reflects a global recognition that security, backed by force, is a prerequisite for peace in many of the world’s protracted conflicts. Appropriate actors, governed by the right laws and held accountable in their local jurisdictions, can redirect governments striving to safeguard their citizens from extremists and insurgents.
These actors can often be held to higher standards than traditional military forces, especially under incentives based on conflict resolution coupled with coordinated and committed diplomatic efforts. We may find that these networks can be harnessed for peace as much as for war.
We must consider whether we, in the years since Kofi Annan first articulated this concept in 1994, are “ready to privatize peace.”
To defeat networks like Wagner itself, we need to think beyond power and coercion. Wagner is a product of a global economy that permits secrecy, tolerates crime, and reflects the failures of Western policies in the Global South. Corruption, lack of human development, and authoritarian governments in the Global South have created conditions where actors like Wagner found fertile ground.
During Sudan’s democratic transition, grassroots civil society organizations sounded the alarm for years regarding the grip that military and paramilitary organizations, like the Rapid Support Forces, held over the economy and their relationship with actors like Wagner. Western policy sought common ground and continued to engage with authoritarian actors like the Rapid Support Forces in hopes of reforming them if provided with suitable incentives.
Had we listened closely to the diagnoses of the civilians paving the way for democratic transition in Sudan, we might have crafted a more decisive policy that would empower civilian leadership more effectively and create a less welcoming environment for Wagner. More importantly, it could have avoided the ongoing civil war in Sudan.
Even if Wagner were to disappear as we know it, this conflict serves as a testing ground for both Russia’s approach to interstate warfare, which exploits these groups, and the international community’s resolve to confront them.
According to the author, a strong investment in countering mercenary organizations is an international commitment that any instance of invasion and the use of violent organizations that lack accountability, like Wagner, will be met with a committed collective response that no authoritarian government can overcome.
It is clear that Wagner will cast a long shadow over the future, which extends beyond Prigozhin’s death, determining the steps nations will take in the coming months and years to what extent that shadow reaches.
