After spending two decades in China, Alessandro Arduino (Turin, 1972), professor at King's College London, specialized in security, private military groups and the Asian Giant and author of Money for Mayhem (Rowman
The mercenaries are not just Wagner and other Russian groups: there are Turkish ones, there are some from the US, the Chinese are feared. You repeat that the current world comes from another world of mercenaries. Are you returning to that world?
Yes, but the essential thing is that the mercenary never disappeared. Mercenaries are here to stay. Wagner once again put the spotlight on them, but there are many actors who seek the privatization of the state monopoly on violence. Now, if we look at China, we are not talking about mercenaries or private military companies, but rather private security companies.
But where is the distinction between the private and the public in China?
That is one of the main problems, but it is private security, that is, they provide a passive security service and not kinetic action. They are not going to wage war on behalf of China, but are protecting Chinese personnel and Chinese interests especially by following their Belt and Road Initiative [the two trade routes, one land through Central Asia and the other maritime through Southeast Asian, connecting east and west]. China still respects the principle of non-interference, so if something happens they will not send the army or police to protect their interests. Or not in the near future, although this, I am sure, will change sooner rather than later because Chinese interests are increasingly under fire, from Pakistan to Africa. For example, due to piracy. We see it now with the Houthis and their assault on ships, which is a problem not only for the Israelis, but also for Chinese oil tankers.
When talking about military mercenaries, we tend to think only of the armed ones who tread the mud, when there are also them in the form of “cybermercenaries.” Could this be the case for China?
Absolutely. When we talk about private military mercenaries, we always think of boots on the ground, something kinetic, but we must not forget that this service expands to cyberspace selling hacking, intrusion, data hijacking (ransomware), online espionage, etc., and only for profit. The problem is that if it is very difficult to define the mercenary, it is even more difficult with the cybermercenary, because there are many companies that sell this service and the majority are considered high technology and not mercenaries. Then there are also companies that work on the ground providing kinetic force and in cyberspace.
And would the Chinese be here?
Only in terms of private security service, where they have a comparative advantage: they can sell Chinese technology for crowd control, artificial intelligence, personal facial recognition, etc. This is definitely a game changer. In areas like the Gulf, for example, they are very well received services and they can pay for it. In other areas, such as Africa, they are also welcome, but they are subsidized by the Chinese government.
Is Beijing not going to move from here?
We are in a very narrow and limited time in which the West – and by the West I mean especially Europe and, in part, the US – can discuss with Chinese private security to find common ground. I was in Macau a few weeks ago at a large conference on private security and they are still very open to finding common regulation with their Western counterpart, also understanding it as an exchange of knowledge. There is still an opportunity that we must seize. If the window closes, they will continue, but far from us. Still, Wagner's model is not attractive to them. With the armed mutiny of Yevgeny Prigozhin it became clear that the Russian model has a security problem for the Chinese state.
You also highlight the Turkish case. Is it more urgent?
There is not much data on the Turkish private military company, and in my opinion that is disconcerting. If you look at Sadat, for example, there are hardly any investigations from the Emirates and Israel and it is a private military company that basically targets Islamic countries. So money is an important factor, but then there is an ideological factor because it has an Islamist characteristic and is very close to Erdogan's dream of neo-Ottomanism. Remember that the Ottoman Empire had a backbone of over 50% of its army based on mercenaries. They even had Vikings as the sultan's bodyguards, the Varangian Guard. Now they are rediscovering it. And they have already advised the Qataris during the FIFA World Cup on anti-terrorism. The different layers change very quickly.
Is it difficult to target mercenaries?
The legislation that exists does not refer to groups, only to individuals, to the person who volunteers for money to go fight a war when their country is not in it. Furthermore, there are many models, such as a jihadist mercenary group that trains other jihadists to fight for profit (it was highly criticized by its own people saying that they pervert jihad), or another with a maritime discourse, or others in South America: look the assassination of the Haitian president by mercenaries from Colombia. Carlos Goshen was taken from prison in Japan by American mercenaries. This is the trend. And the biggest problem is that, when the mercenaries win the battle and there is peace, they are left without business. And if they lose it, they are out of business. We all know that mercenaries simply preserve their income if they preserve instability and this is the biggest problem, especially in our times.
The war in Gaza has caused them to fall off the radar of public attention again.
But Wagner does not disappear because Prigozhin is no longer here. Wagner has changed to Wagner 2.0, which is under the control of the Russian Ministry of Defense, but what about the dissidents? If the war in Ukraine ends there could be hundreds of little Wagners from Africa to Central Asia or Burma, passing through the Middle East, making it very difficult to find them. They just go where the money is. Small dissident cells in the near future can be a big problem in consolidating peace. Unfortunately, Africa is going to be a training ground and breeding ground for new mercenaries.
Even in Burma?
They are there. There are not many of them, but Russia still considers Burma an area in which to expand its geopolitical influence and the Wagner group has already shown Russia that, with very limited resources, it can protect dictators around the world. The biggest example is Syria. He protected Bashar al-Assad and now he has returned to the Arab League and met with Xi Jinping a few months ago. He has been rehabilitated on the international scene.
