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Money for Mayhem: Mercenaries, Private Military Companies, Drones, and the Future of War

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Look into the emergence of private military contractors and how conflicts are affected by them. Alessandro Arduino provides thoughts on hazards, corruption, and proxy conflicts in this book.

Image courtesy of interviewee. December 7, 2023

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This video video discusses the resurgence of mercenaries and private military companies (PMCs) in contemporary conflicts, drawing parallels with historical trends. The speaker argues that mercenaries are gaining visibility and importance in modern warfare, referencing events like the Wagner Group's actions in Russia. Historical cycles of mercenary betrayal and shifting loyalties are highlighted, alongside an analysis of how nations like China, Russia, and Turkey are employing these forces.

This video video examines different types of mercenaries: private security companies, which provide defensive services, private military companies that augment military capabilities, and illegal mercenaries. It addresses the unique challenges involved in researching and tracking these entities, particularly in countries with strict regulations like Russia and China.

The implications of using mercenaries for military operations are explored, including their impact on state sovereignty and the potential for increased violence in conflicts. The speaker emphasizes that a new generation of mercenaries will emerge from ongoing conflicts, driven by technological advancements in warfare and cyberspace. Ultimately, the discussion concludes that the evolving landscape of mercenary use poses significant challenges to national security and stability worldwide.

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X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

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Mercenaries are back and are here to stay.

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So basically what I'm looking to discuss in the book is

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that the historical cycle is back to professional soldier

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being in the public eye.

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If we recall, not long ago, when Mr.

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Pri,

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launched an armored mutiny against Russia,

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moving the Wagner group, pointing it to Moscow,

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everyone was surprised.

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But then if we look at historical cycle,

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king being betrayed by mercenary, mercenary, shifting side

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of the battle for better coin

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or just for a chance to, survival was quite normal.

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And if we just look at book like the Prince from Nikola

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Machi, he was underlined how Putin the key

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of the kingdom in the hand

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of mercenary group was a fat error.

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And I think that's something that,

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Russian President Vladimir Putin understood early on.

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And then in the book, basically I tried to discuss

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and underline how, for example, in the middle age, everyone

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considered mercenary as the black plague,

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but at the same time everyone was employing them.

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And then if we trace from the past to what is happening now,

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then we are going to see new actor

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that are employing private military company,

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private security company,

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and even mercenary, reshaping the rule of the game.

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And these after are China, Russia,

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and Turkey looking at the research.

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If you just start to address mercenary being shady

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by definition, and,

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lau about deniability definitely is not an easy task.

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But at the same time, if we look at mercenary,

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but especially at private military company

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and at private security company as business entity,

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so we don't look at the conflict, we don't look at battle,

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we don't look at genetic action, but they look at the money.

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So following the money, trying to look who is the client,

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then it's get easier

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and it helps to pinpoint how you can find the, the,

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the true actor behind the scene.

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The so-called puppet master.

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And at the end, what are going to be the future

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of employing mercenary group

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and other kind outfit in this respect?

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From an academic point of view,

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doing the research on China, especially on private security,

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is way easier

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because there is a very vibrant

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academic discussion in Chinese language addressing

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how private security need to protect Chinese investment

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and Chinese personnel along the belt

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and road without endangering the local population.

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Then if we look at different mercenary outfit,

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social media, it come into help, especially using Oz,

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that is open source intelligence tools.

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Uh, these tools just help to pinpoint how individual

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employed as private contractor

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or even as a mercenary post online world trophy,

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something that happened during battle.

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Then there is still a kind of gr

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and marketable video, for example, the one

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of the Wagner group using as legend Jamer

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to kill a prisoner of war.

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But then at the end, following this digital breadcrumb, help

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to pinpoint who are the actor,

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who are the individual, what are they doing?

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And they even use social media in between job

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to find a new job.

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So that's quite easy from a legal perspective, is,

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getting more tough in some way, especially if we look,

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at the news file in China that basically says

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that if you are doing research on security,

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you can bridge national security.

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But then if we look at Russia is even worse

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because if you do research in Russia about PMC

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and mercenary, then you have to register yourself

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as a foreign agent.

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And if we look at first end data in Russia, for example,

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several very talented young researcher

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and journalist in 20 18, 20 19,

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that they were doing research on Wagner Group

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and on Russia, PMC, they allegedly suicide.

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There was even quite a big case of,

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a documentary film crew that was trying to film

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what are the effect of the Wagner group in Central Africa.

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And they were gunned down again in a robbery

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allegedly go wrong.

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Last but not least, there is one research,

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serious research problem, especially using online data,

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is there is huge amount of disinformation

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and misinformation that surround this kind of research.

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In the book, I address three kind of structure.

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First is private security company

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that are registered legal entity that are

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services contracted to protect basically infrastructure

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and individual abroad.

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So private security are company that has a passive stance.

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Normally they guard, armored or not, walls and

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and placement that need to be protected against criminal

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or political violence.

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Then we have private military company that are, again,

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registered entity that are contracted by state

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or by the military

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to augment military function via training,

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via high technology, weapon platform maintenance

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and even kinetic action.

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And at the end we are, we have mercenary that are illegal,

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but the problem is that in weak country unable

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to protect the rule of law, then who you are going to send

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to arrest mercenary that are heavily armored.

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And this is basically the spectrum addressed in the book.

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Then we can see that in the west, the use

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of private military, is efficient in a term that is,

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not only economical,

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but it's also avoid for young conscript

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to come combat in body bag.

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Then we can look in country, for example, in the Gulf when,

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private military company increase the necessary manpower

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that this country does not have.

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For example, if you look at, the ongoing conflict in,

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in Yemen, then there is the case that most

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of the contracted soldier are not speaking Arabic.

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They speak Spanish because they are from Colombia

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or from Venezuela.

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Then there is the case that is mostly 30% of the book of

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how China is protecting the Belt and Road initiative

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and then the case of Chinese private security company.

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And then at the end, I think the most intriguing, especially

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after the first death of, Prego in a plane crash in

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when he was going to St.

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Petersburg, is the case of plausible deniability.

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So for country like Russia that they just hide

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military force in plain side.

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And as the case of the Wagner group

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and several other mercenary

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and quasi PMC employed by Russia,

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in which they are basically a geopolitical placeholder

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for Russia, in area that are not reachable

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by the Russian army, by, I try to look mostly

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as this new actor and at the trend

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and impact of the future warfare.

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And it is not by chance that the profession

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of mercenary is considered the second oldest

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profession in the world.

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So if we look at more recent time, we can see, nimble

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and very efficient mercenary outfit in the African

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post-colonial war.

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And this very small group, they were able

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to sustain themself with the so-called blood diamond

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or being paid, on revenue

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by called diamond mine oil and hard cash.

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Something that again, the Wagner group is replicating

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as a business model right now.

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Then there are several other areas today that see this kind

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of, mercenary, this kind

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of historical cycle coming back.

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For example, if we look at Libya right now, we have the case

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of mercenary against mercenary in which one side employ

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mercenary from central and, South Africa

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and other employee mercenary coming from Syria

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and other part of the world.

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And then how you are going to have a,

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not even a stable peace,

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but a truth when you have two mercenary outfit

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competing who you are going to discuss with.

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And this is basically through history.

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The so-called Curse of Mercenaries, meaning that

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for a mercenary group, peace bring unemployment,

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winning a battle, bring unemployment, losing a battle,

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bring death or prison term.

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So the only thing that mercenary can do

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to preserve their business model

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or the money for mayhem model that give the title

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to the book is basically preserve instability.

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And then of course there are issue in finding even

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the right person for the job.

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It's not that you just can put your CV online,

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and you pretend to be a mercenary

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or getting skilled for that,

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or even for private military company

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finding the right talent.

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So in the book, as you as you mentioned it,

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I addressed the problem of impostor mercenary.

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For example, in China there was this problem with Gorka.

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Gorka are not mercenary.

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Uh, they are skilled professional fighter that are hired

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and they are in the chain of command of an army,

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mostly is the British army who employ the top-notch gca.

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Then you have even the Indian army who employs them

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or even the police force.

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For example, in Singapore police force, most

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of the counter-terrorism operation are carried on

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by higher ed gca.

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So there is this brand of GCA being efficient economic

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with a good command of English language.

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So Chinese private security, some of the company

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that I interviewed when I was preparing the book tried

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to hire cca, but most of them were just Nepali citizen.

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They were not trained military professional.

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Maybe one out of 15 in the group was a professional one

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who was just hiring friend and relative bringing them on.

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Or the problem was even with language, yes they speak

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good English, but at the time Chinese

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private security speak Chinese.

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I even find a Chinese security company located in Shanghai

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who tried to teach to the Nepal Goca Chinese language

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and good luck with that.

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In this respect, i I try to combine together,

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what history told us about mercenaries,

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all the advice stemming out for person,

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like I mentioned in economic

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and what are the future trajectory for the impact

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of mercenary in the future of war mercenary,

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in the year to come.

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In my personal opinion, are going to be a rising important

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variable in this security equation.

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And we have to say what is going

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to happen when you have a well established mercenary group

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like the Wagner for example, what is going

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to happen when it's going to change and morph.

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We already see now

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after the demise of Yugen Psin that we have a kind

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of Wagner 2.0 more under the control

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of the Russian Ministry of Defense.

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But what I'm going to be

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really worried in the future not far is having this big

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mercenary outfit roaming freely,

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heavily armored in area in country

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where the status is unable

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or unwilling to protect foreign investment

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or even local citizen.

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And then if there are going this group

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are going to be crushed.

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Definitely there are going to be smaller group splinter cell

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of highly trained former special forces.

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If we look at Russia, GRU or nuts

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and this group are still going to sell their trade

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to local criminal gang or to even, authoritarian state.

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Uh, and in, in the book I try to trace an example,

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for example, when the FBI

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or DIA destroyed the cartel led by El Chapo Goodsman

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and the one by PA Cobar in Colombia,

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it didn't stop drug trade.

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It just stopped at that cartel,

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that splintered in numerous minor smaller cartel

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that were more difficult to track and to find,

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but they were still spread in million.

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Then another fact that we are going

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to see in the future not too far is, new technology

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of warfare combined with new communication technology, AI

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and how they apply to mercenaries.

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So basically if we look at the more recent conflict,

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the 44 days war in Naor Carrabba,

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then you can see something, a glimpse on the future

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of mercenary and future of warfare that is on one side,

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boots on the ground, so an army for ire,

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and on the other side an air force for ire having drone

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that are being bought

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or even hired to conduct combat operation.

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And this is, going to be really,

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really bad in the future for a very simple fact that,

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it increase the propensity for violence.

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So government are going to think

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that their kids are not coming back in body back

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because, it is a foreign army.

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Then from an air force point of view,

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it's machine doing the job.

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There is no blood involvement,

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at least no blood from one side.

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And this definitely is going

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to increase the propensity for violence.

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And then we are going to see another trend.

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We have conflict right now from Ukraine to Yemen

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to Libya to Sudan.

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This conflict in five year, in eight year are going

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to end in a way on the other.

14:15.535 --> 14:18.505
Then you are going to witness couple of generation

14:18.505 --> 14:22.585
of youngster that their only skill is related to warfare.

14:23.445 --> 14:25.105
So are they going to be able

14:25.105 --> 14:27.705
to be absorbed in a normal civilian life

14:28.205 --> 14:30.745
or are they going to increase the rank

14:31.085 --> 14:32.905
of future mercenary organization?

14:33.205 --> 14:35.785
And then if we move from the boots on the ground

14:36.045 --> 14:39.145
to the cyberspace, then it's another new chapter.

14:39.325 --> 14:43.625
We are going to see cyber mercenary spy for hire, spyware,

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malware, ransomware that can be bought online as a pay

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for service, pay for use service.

14:50.005 --> 14:51.065
And this basically,

14:51.585 --> 14:55.125
Uh, are going to put all these characteristic together.

14:55.505 --> 14:59.965
We are going to witness several dimension of this new,

14:59.965 --> 15:01.925
historical cycle of mercenaries.

15:02.235 --> 15:06.805
That is basically the use of mercenary is going to be used

15:06.905 --> 15:08.485
as igniting a conflict.

15:09.035 --> 15:12.965
Then definitely they, as I mentioned earlier, they're going

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to thrive promoting instability and unaccountability.

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They're going to depl already scar resource

15:20.905 --> 15:23.005
in area like the African continent,

15:23.135 --> 15:25.245
Sub-Sahara, Sahel, and so on.

15:26.065 --> 15:27.645
And then even in this area,

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when there are a very limited amount of talent

15:30.775 --> 15:34.285
among the army on the police force trained, for example,

15:34.435 --> 15:36.725
with program from the west, then they're going

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to be absorbed by this new mercenary outfit.

15:40.225 --> 15:43.765
So basically, in one sentence, in a nutshell, this new kind

15:43.765 --> 15:47.925
of mercenary wave is going to undermine national sovereign.

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