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American Mercenaries Are Suddenly Everywhere. Here's Why — Transcript

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0:00American private military companies are
0:01making a huge comeback this year with
0:04new operations now popping up across
0:06Latin America and even in the Pacific
0:08right on China's doorstep. Just look at
0:10this new $400,000 a year job opening
0:13that was posted by an American private
0:15military company that's operating in
0:17Venezuela. They're looking for a former
0:19special forces soldier to command their
0:21entire security team. They rejected my
0:23application, but what's going on here?
0:25Some of these mercenary operations look
0:27an awful lot like the kind of
0:28interventions that the US military used
0:30to conduct. So today, I want to show you
0:32who controls these private armies, where
0:35they're deploying, and whether they're
0:37becoming a new way for America to
0:39project power abroad without deploying
0:41its own soldiers. One of the biggest
0:43places this is happening right now is in
0:45Haiti. Why would they turn to American
0:47PMCs there? For the past few years,
0:49violent street gangs have run amok,
0:51controlling about 90% of the capital
0:53city of Port-au-Prince. Violence has
0:55driven nearly a million and a half
0:57people from their homes in a country of
0:59just 12 million people. And on top of
1:01that, Haiti has seen many foreign
1:03security interventions for decades from
1:05the US military, but all of those have
1:07been unable to create lasting political
1:09stability. And meanwhile, all of the
1:11United Nations international security
1:13missions that came over in the past few
1:15years also struggled to stop the violent
1:18gangs. So now Haiti hired a company led
1:20by Eric Prince, who's a former Navy SEAL
1:23from Michigan. He's the guy who founded
1:25the private military company Blackwater
1:27that you've probably heard of already.
1:29His old company became synonymous with
1:31American contractors in Iraq and the
1:34controversy that surrounded their use of
1:36force there. Partly because of that
1:38controversy, Prince sold Blackwater in
1:402010 and just kept on building security
1:43businesses afterwards. Now his personnel
1:45are being hired to fight criminals,
1:48narco-terrorists, and gangs in the
1:50capital city of a country once again,
1:52except this time they've been rebranded
1:54and called Vectus Global, which has a
1:57much more corporate ring to it, right?
1:59Vectus started alongside the Haitian
2:01government's task force in 2025. And
2:04strangely, we just got a look behind the
2:06curtain inside of their operation when
2:09Prince granted a really rare access and
2:11he spoke to a reporter, an American
2:13reporter, while on one of his operations
2:16in Port-au-Prince. We see helicopters
2:18putting Haitian SWAT officers and
2:20military contractors on high rooftops
2:23while gunfire comes from gang positions
2:25down below. Former American Special
2:27Operations personnel are reportedly
2:29working with Prince in Haiti and they've
2:31helped lead the push there. CNN showed
2:34how they direct a small attack drone
2:36into a rooftop water tank and it
2:38explodes. A task force source then
2:40described that target as a Molotov
2:42cocktail workshop for the criminal
2:44organizations. The team of about 200
2:47fighters from the American mercenary
2:48company stated that they'd carried out
2:50more than 2,000 drone strikes that year
2:52in Haiti alone. Prince himself has
2:54embraced the term and now identifies as
2:57a quote mercenary nowadays, whereas in
3:00[music] the past he used to shy away
3:01from the label. So I think this footage
3:03here shows a level of air support that
3:05the Haitian police had previously had
3:08trouble fielding themselves. And Prince
3:10told reporters that the Haitian police
3:11used to lose about one truck a week to
3:13gang ambushes.
3:15Just recently, El Salvador lost a couple
3:18of their Air Force technicians to a gang
3:21ambush and they're now deploying troops
3:23there. So Eric Prince openly described
3:25his company's operations as a war and
3:28that he plans to kill large numbers of
3:30enemy fighters, removing them entirely
3:32from the battlefield. He wants to body
3:34them instead of going after the cutting
3:36off the head of the snake strategy,
3:38which can cause more chaos sometimes. He
3:40said that his operations cost just 1/6
3:43of what the previous UN force had cost.
3:46But more unusually, he was able to
3:48negotiate a 10-year role with the
3:50Haitian government that he would improve
3:53the customs collection, the tax revenue
3:55on the Dominican border. So the way he
3:57works is that his company earns 10% of
4:00additional revenue recovered through
4:01that effort. It seems like a kind of
4:03incentive for him to get results. His
4:06company therefore has a direct financial
4:08interest in how much money Haiti is able
4:11to collect. Usually a government pays
4:13for their security from the Treasury,
4:15but here it's the contractors who are
4:16help fulfilling the Treasury to take a
4:19share. I feel like Erik Prince has
4:21recently gotten very comfortable with
4:22saying what used to be the quiet part
4:24out loud about his PMCs being a kind of
4:27plausible deniable tool for the US
4:29government and its diplomacy in places
4:32that it can't overtly operate. Just look
4:34at how Reuters revealed American
4:36military officials were already
4:38coordinating with his company Vactis.
4:41It's a geopolitical advantage from the
4:42US government's perspective cuz they can
4:44benefit from these private military
4:47company missions without accepting the
4:49full risk or liability or political
4:52responsibility. It's harder to get
4:54pulled into a quagmire if it's private
4:56contractors on the ground, and we'll see
4:58more of that later during some of the
5:00snafus that they have. And Haiti already
5:02knows what can go horribly wrong when an
5:04American private security company gets
5:07too involved because they assassinated
5:09Haiti's president Jovenel Moïse in 2021
5:12when a plot was organized out of a South
5:14Florida Miami area security company that
5:17recruited and paid a team of former
5:19soldiers to carry out the hit. The
5:21private contractors expected to win
5:23lucrative contracts with the new
5:24government in Haiti that they plan to
5:27install once Moïse was gone. But part of
5:29the reason why private military
5:31contracting might be seeing a new boom
5:33right now is because the founder of
5:35Vactis has connections reaching all the
5:37way to the highest levels of the
5:38government in Washington, and these are
5:40well documented. He's a longtime
5:42supporter of the Trump administration,
5:44having donated to his campaigns, and
5:46Erik Prince's sister Betsy DeVos served
5:49as Trump's education secretary. And in
5:512020, Trump pardoned four Blackwater
5:54contractors who were convicted of
5:56killing Iraqi civilians, people that
5:58used to work for Erik Prince's old
5:59company. Prince has also made
6:01relationships with some senior officials
6:03inside the administration, including
6:05Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Prince
6:08used these White House connections while
6:10pursuing billions of dollars worth of
6:12military deals in Ukraine. In February
6:142025, someone asked Prince at an event
6:17who would become America's equivalent of
6:19Russia's Wagner Group. According to a
6:21Wall Street Journal report, Prince
6:22effectively volunteered for that job as
6:25America's version of Wagner. Wagner
6:27helped Moscow project military influence
6:29overseas while securing access to
6:31valuable resources. Prince is now
6:33selling military services in countries
6:35where Washington has major geopolitical
6:37interests. During the Blackwater days of
6:40the global war on terror, PMCs, American
6:43PMCs developed a kind of ruthless
6:45reputation in the public eye. But I
6:47think personally what we're seeing now
6:49is a kind of rebrand for strategic-level
6:51global competition and security jobs
6:54that revolve around that level of
6:56competition instead of terrorism. The
6:59White House denies any involvement in
7:01Erik Prince's Haiti contract, but when
7:04you're offering clearing operations for
7:06a country while having direct
7:08connections to the American government,
7:10for Prince, I think that's probably a
7:11pretty powerful sales pitch. Even if
7:14Trump never makes a phone call for him,
7:16the customer there that is hiring Prince
7:18knows who he has on speed dial. But
7:20these connections haven't always kept
7:22Erik Prince out of trouble because a UN
7:24report found that he'd violated an arms
7:26embargo on Libya, and investigators said
7:28that he was behind a 2019 operation that
7:31tried to send foreign mercenaries and
7:33attack aircraft to a Libyan warlord
7:35there who was fighting to take control
7:37of the capital. But the operation fell
7:38apart and the contractors fled the
7:40country by boat. Prince's lawyer denies
7:42ever being involved, but that's the
7:44thing. We don't really know where these
7:46mercenaries are involved anymore because
7:48back in the glory days of contracting,
7:50the old company Blackwater did their PMC
7:53work in the Iraq War, and you knew about
7:55it. You knew officially it was US
7:57government that was hiring them. But
7:58today things are a lot different now. A
8:01US official told Reuters that Washington
8:03had no oversight of Vectis operations
8:07because Americans working for foreign
8:08government did not have to disclose
8:10their activities. However, later Colonel
8:12Justin Gorkowitzi, a Department of
8:14Defense official, told Congress quote,
8:17we have coordination informally at all
8:19levels of command with Vectis Global and
8:22the Haitian task force, end quote. The
8:24way it works is Eric Prince gives Haiti
8:26this urgently needed equipment while
8:28Washington DC keeps all of the
8:30relationships at arms length. It's a
8:32model that they've been working toward
8:34for decades now. The results so far in
8:36Haiti for Vectis Global is that they've
8:38seen some impact. UN assessments say
8:40that gang expansions in part of the
8:42capital have stopped or been reversed,
8:44but Prince did miss his initial goal of
8:46opening critical roads within just a
8:48year. No major gang bosses have been
8:50killed in the campaign so far, but it
8:52appears that's not the strategy that
8:54they're going for. Human Rights Watch
8:56counted at least 1,200 people killed in
8:58over 140 operations by Haiti's task
9:01force in the past year. Haiti hired
9:03Vectis. Prince's company then directs
9:05its people on the ground while US
9:07officials help coordinate from behind
9:09the scenes. That looks like it gives
9:11Washington some influence in Haiti if
9:13you ask me. But one of the biggest
9:15unanswered private military questions in
9:17Latin America right now comes from
9:19Venezuela where American mercenaries are
9:21looking to fight against
9:22narco-terrorists. In January 2026,
9:25Pentagon officials were considering
9:27private contractors to safeguard new oil
9:30infrastructure as they try to draw in
9:32American energy companies back to the
9:34country. The idea surfaced shortly after
9:36US forces captured Nicolas Maduro where
9:39private guards could protect pipelines
9:41and American workers without Washington
9:43DC having to commit like a permanent
9:45military garrison. It's a way to keep
9:47the oil revenue flowing into America but
9:50not add any new military commitments or
9:52deployments that could go south and then
9:55further south. That kind of mission US
9:58forces used to handle across the Middle
10:00East is now being offloaded to private
10:02military companies. The Pentagon
10:04circulated a request for information to
10:06private military and security firms and
10:09they were looking for details on their
10:11ability to protect American assets and
10:12possibly even military installations.
10:15Wait, they might also have military
10:17bases in Venezuela too. Several security
10:19contractors were lobbying Washington DC
10:21for work and Prince's name came up as a
10:24possible way to go. The offer for a
10:26$400,000 a year role in Venezuela was
10:29created by an employer that did not
10:31reveal their name, but it describes a
10:33country director who's responsible for
10:35multiple high threat security programs.
10:37It asks for 15 years of high threat
10:39security experience with prior special
10:42operations service and fluency in
10:44Spanish. It states that this person
10:46would be walking into a situation that
10:48is quote has an unstable power grid,
10:50active armed groups, and elevated kidnap
10:53and extortion risk. Too easy.
10:55Contractors need to be able to operate
10:57in non-permissive environments it says
10:59without any government support
11:01infrastructure. This was posted on the
11:02website called Silent Professionals,
11:05which as weird as it sounds is basically
11:07LinkedIn for mercenaries. They connect
11:09former American special forces soldiers
11:11with private security companies who are
11:13hiring for dangerous operations around
11:15the world. They even have a job category
11:17that literally is called mercenary jobs
11:19quote unquote with listings of offerings
11:22up to $2,000 a day for anti-piracy
11:25operations in Africa. The crazy part is
11:27some employers don't even publicly
11:29reveal their identities. So what that
11:31means is you're applying to command
11:33armed operations in a foreign country
11:36before you even know who's hiring you.
11:38If the money's good enough, who cares
11:39who I have to kill for Coca-Cola though,
11:41right? The job requires someone who can
11:43decide when to conduct covert protection
11:45missions. They also serve as
11:46representative to clients and embassy
11:48regional security officers, which sounds
11:50like whoever this is, they'd be working
11:52at a very high level with people
11:54affiliated with the US government. But
11:56what this posting really gives away I
11:58think is that security companies already
12:00have several operations running inside
12:03Venezuela with enough personnel to
12:05justify hiring a country level director
12:08role to coordinate all of them for and
12:11is directly lifted from their job
12:12posting, quote, large guard forces
12:15protecting several locations. So who's
12:17hiring? Sometimes it's a government and
12:19sometimes it's a private company like
12:21Exxon. There's a reason someone might
12:23pay nearly half a million bucks for that
12:25job though. The US government negotiated
12:27rights to about 35% stake in a company
12:30that's developing Venezuelan oil fields.
12:33Firms including Halliburton were hiring
12:35again for operations there. These new
12:37investments create expensive assets that
12:39someone has to protect and it's all
12:41worth millions of dollars. The private
12:43security market is now taking shape
12:45around a very real US economic interest
12:47in Venezuela. The British security firm
12:49Control Risk published a case study
12:51about protecting an oil and gas
12:53operator, a executive in Venezuela. And
12:56they stated that they used discrete
12:58intelligence led approach to build a
13:00detailed picture of the risk landscape
13:02in Venezuela and they identified threats
13:04that were associated with personnel
13:05movement including an analysis of the
13:07local crime dynamics and the
13:09vulnerabilities because one of the
13:11favorite things that cartels like to do
13:13is kidnapping missions. On the one hand,
13:16it almost seems better to send private
13:17contractors to protect commercial
13:19American interests. Smedley Butler
13:21famously always said that war is a
13:23racket where governments basically use
13:25troops to protect corporate interests
13:27abroad. But on the other hand, PMCs
13:29don't have the same level of
13:30accountability as uniformed flag troops.
13:34So who do they ultimately answer to? Oh,
13:36weeks later, Erik Prince was serving
13:38another Latin American country, this
13:40time in Ecuador, and he was walking
13:42around the streets of Guayaquil. He had
13:44local law enforcement with him during
13:46the operations. They called it a quote
13:48unquote historic chapter of security and
13:50the president there, Noboa, said that
13:53Erik Prince's team was going to be
13:54helping with urban warfare training and
13:56bringing new technology to their teams.
13:59As one analyst told Inside Crime,
14:01bringing in Erik Prince's mercenary
14:03company shows that the American
14:04government and President Noboa are
14:06serious about cooperating to take down
14:09Mexican cartels that have been booming
14:10in Ecuador. With Ecuador being the
14:12testing grounds for American
14:14mercenaries, Peru is Erik Prince's next
14:17target area of operations, and so in
14:192025, he offered his services against
14:21illegal mining in Peru. He told Peruvian
14:24radio that he was invited to take a look
14:26because of the explosion and violence in
14:27the country. He's not wrong about that
14:30because just two months earlier, 13
14:32people died fighting over a mine shaft
14:34in Peru. It's literally the Wild West
14:36out there right now in those mining
14:38fields. Prince met with everyone from
14:41legitimate miners to police, including
14:43military and intelligence officials.
14:46Then on Morning TV, he sat next to the
14:48economist de Soto pitching training for
14:50police officers and even for civil
14:52defense groups that have been affected
14:54by crime there. Prince told Peruvian
14:57media that illegal mining there wasn't a
14:59ideological problem, but a criminal one.
15:02He pitched his mercenary team's Invictus
15:05as hitting the criminal group's
15:06logistics. He wanted to specifically hit
15:09their logistics hard instead of just
15:11killing a bunch of people like his plan
15:13in Haiti. Different strokes for
15:15different countries. His pitch to Peru
15:18was to break the criminal supply chain.
15:20And in early October, two security
15:22guards were killed at an illegal mine by
15:25an organized crime group that uses
15:26violence to seize mineral resources that
15:29America would like to seize. And the
15:31thing that I find wild about this is
15:33that American mercenaries in Latin
15:34America have largely been contained in
15:37the past few decades to just small
15:39operations in Colombia mostly. We've
15:41never seen this model of using American
15:44PMCs across Latin America in this way.
15:46It used to be CIA or special forces
15:49would go and advise different countries.
15:51In the Cold War, the US military got up
15:53to a lot of covert operations in Latin
15:54America, but to see this level of PMCs
15:58spreading across the Western hemisphere
16:00to fight the cartels is something
16:02unusual. American military contractors
16:05are gaining new contracts to protect the
16:07Pacific near China that I had never
16:09heard about before and was shocked to
16:11hear that their operations are expanding
16:13there because in April 2026, USNI News
16:17uncovered a private American security
16:19company that was hired to provide armed
16:21protection for sensitive US military
16:23equipment in the Philippines. The
16:25company is called Continuity Global
16:26Solutions, and they receive a contract
16:28worth about $400,000 a year to guard
16:31military assets in the Subic Bay in the
16:33Philippines. And even the US Army is
16:35also storing military equipment at a
16:38facility that is owned by the US private
16:40equity firm called Serbus Capital
16:42Management. So private companies are
16:44helping America build and protect the
16:46infrastructure that it now needs for a
16:48potential war with China. But we can go
16:51even closer to Taiwan because literally
16:53in Taiwan is where the US private
16:55military business gets even stranger. A
16:572024 Intelligence Online investigation
17:00revealed that American military
17:02contractors had proposed training an
17:03entire civilian commando force to resist
17:06the Chinese invasion. Ultimately, the
17:08project was stopped by Taiwanese
17:09authorities who were concerned that it
17:11might be going a step too far, but one
17:13contractor called Global Dimensions
17:15pursued another Special Forces training
17:17proposal to try to sell this training to
17:20Taiwan. There's a name for that
17:22phenomenon in Taiwan because it's grown
17:24so much recently. They have mysterious
17:27Americans who appear around military
17:29exercises, and the locals have nicknamed
17:31them quote unquote the English teachers.
17:34You know, English teachers, the guys
17:35with short military style haircuts, polo
17:38shirts tucked into shorts, and they walk
17:40around like they're carrying a pistol
17:41concealed in their shorts. You know,
17:44English teachers, right? So according to
17:46an August 2026 Business Insider
17:49investigation, more than 100 Americans
17:51that were suspected of being military
17:53advisors or observers were present
17:55during the country's most recent and
17:57massive military exercise. Their
17:59individual identities weren't confirmed,
18:01but some of these guys seem to spend a
18:03lot of their free time around Taiwan's
18:05military exercises for people who are
18:07supposedly teaching the present tense.
18:09And some of the American quote unquote
18:11English teachers in Taiwan aren't even
18:13trying to hide it anymore. In November,
18:15the Pentagon announced a new contract
18:17with work in three separate Taiwanese
18:19cities that just so to be home to major
18:22air bases, running all the way through
18:242032. That five-year commitment is
18:26longer than most people even hold the
18:27job nowadays. So now US defense
18:29contractors are handling the logistics
18:31support for Taiwan's entire F-16 pilot
18:34training centers. American civilians are
18:36Taiwan's fighter jet IT department
18:38basically, keeping everything running so
18:41the pilots can just focus on the fun
18:42part. One report last year claimed
18:44around 500 American military trainers
18:47were operating in Taiwan and that
18:49they're likely a mix of active duty
18:51troops and civilian contractors. And a
18:53retired American admiral recently called
18:55for doubling that to 1,000, which is a
18:57very suspicious number of English
18:59teachers to be wandering around one
19:00small island.
19:02And it shows because in last year's
19:03major military exercises there, one
19:05analyst said that the biggest change was
19:07Taiwan adopting American-style training
19:09methods. So it turns out the English
19:12teachers are pretty good instructors,
19:13just not in English. But one of the
19:16newest private military ventures that
19:18makes the whole business look even
19:19stranger I think and brings Erik Prince
19:21back into the story is in August 2026,
19:25Prince and the drone software company
19:26Swarmer announced their quote unquote
19:28Vectus air defense system. Swarmer said
19:31that its technology had already
19:32supported more than 100,000 missions in
19:34Ukraine and took about a 20% stake in
19:37the new venture. Basically, the company
19:39wants to sell what it calls
19:41air defense as a service. We're looking
19:43at a future here where air defense in
19:45the Middle East, in Ukraine, in the
19:47Pacific might be partially handled by
19:50private American mercenaries. Patriot
19:52missile batteries from the US Army are
19:54replaced with like Blackwater
19:56interceptors. With US supplies of
19:58Patriot interceptors possibly limited,
20:01would hiring private companies to
20:02protect your data center or your
20:04warehouse overseas be a strange option?
20:08Under their proposed American mercenary
20:10business model, a government or a
20:12company could pay a private firm like
20:14Vectus Global to build and run an entire
20:17air defense network under a multi-year
20:19agreement. We're talking sensors they'd
20:22bring in, they would bring in electronic
20:23warfare, you'd have all your drone
20:25interceptors. With the contract, they'd
20:27also manage the maintenance and the
20:28upgrades. Think about the direction this
20:30is going and what it means. Where now
20:33anti-aircraft protection
20:35for your company or your government is
20:38like a Netflix subscription plan. You
20:40pay extra monthly fee to get really good
20:42interceptors, the the A3 version. But I
20:45want to know what happens when one of
20:47these American private mercenary
20:49companies gets caught up in an
20:50international incident,
20:52when they get caught up in a firefight
20:54somewhere sensitive that would typically
20:56mean a massive US military response and
20:59decades of occupation in the past. Well,
21:01we got a whiff of that in September
21:032026, I think, when private military
21:05contractors from Prince's Vectus Global
21:08were ambushed alongside their allies in
21:10the Congolese forces. The deadly
21:12firefight included former New Zealand
21:14special forces soldier Justin Conyngham
21:17and former US Green Beret and UFC
21:19fighter Tim Kennedy, who were
21:21contractors fighting there. How did it
21:23go wrong? One theory is that the M23
21:25rebel attackers tracked one of the
21:27Vectus surveillance drones back to the
21:30team. Then a separate Rwandan report
21:32claimed that drones that were captured
21:34during an earlier firefight helped the
21:36rebels to locate the Vectus security
21:38team, but neither theory has been
21:40verified. What we know though is that
21:42the ambush left about 20 people killed
21:44or wounded, including the former New
21:46Zealand SAS soldier Justin Conyngham,
21:49who was KIA, and Tim Kennedy survived
21:51but was badly wounded. What was
21:53initially reported as three gunshot
21:55wounds to his leg. He waited 8 to 10
21:57hours reportedly for recovery after he
21:59applied a tourniquet to his leg. Kennedy
22:02was evacuated back to the United States
22:04for medical care at Walter Reed
22:05Hospital, which interestingly is usually
22:08used for US soldiers. So there may have
22:11been some kind of connection between the
22:12US government and his care. But
22:14typically this kind of incident, if it
22:15had involved active duty American Green
22:18Berets uniformed soldiers, it'd be huge
22:20national news and it would mean US naval
22:23ships launching tons of Tomahawk cruise
22:25missiles at those M23 rebel bases, it
22:28would mean rescue helicopters were
22:30launched and the full backing of the US
22:32government.
22:33But because it was mercenaries from an
22:35American mercenary company, there was a
22:37very muted response. Some sources
22:39suspected Rwandan forces attacked them
22:42because of the sophistication of the
22:44ambush, and Rwanda rejected those
22:46accusations and says that they don't
22:48back the M23 rebellion, but it's widely
22:50believed that they do. But Reuters later
22:52established that the Vektus team was
22:54moving between locations when the ambush
22:56hit. Their job was to secure the
22:58government's tax income. It shows what
23:01can happen to PMCs who operate without
23:03the full intelligence capabilities of a
23:05large army. Typically, you would have
23:07layers and layers of protection to
23:09prevent that kind of thing from
23:10happening if this was the US military
23:12that had been deployed there. But that
23:14brings us to the reason why those
23:16American mercenaries were there in the
23:17first place, because they may be a kind
23:19of proxy force. Erik Prince signed a
23:21five-year agreement to help Congo
23:23collect its tax revenue and protect
23:26their mineral trade there. The potential
23:27contract was worth up to a reported $200
23:30million
23:31because they have enormous copper and
23:32cobalt deposits that are needed for your
23:34modern technology and weapon systems.
23:37But the problem is that smuggling and
23:39corrupt tax collection systems prevent
23:41the Congo government from getting the
23:43full tax revenue before the minerals
23:45leave the country. So they go and they
23:47hire mercenaries to secure that income.
23:50America signed a minerals and security
23:52partnership with Congo in December 2025
23:55in an attempt to weaken Chinese firms
23:57almost full control over the country's
23:59mining industry. So all of this, these
24:01Prince missions, they align with the
24:04United States government's geopolitical
24:06goals there. They want better access to
24:09the Congo's critical minerals. The
24:11strategic-level concern is that they
24:12need to reduce dependence on
24:14Chinese-controlled supply chains. So
24:16Erik Prince's contractors were helping
24:18the same government that the American
24:21government wanted to stabilize.
24:23Coincidence?
24:24Possibly. Could be they were just
24:26aligned on it. Could be parallel
24:28thinking.
24:29Great minds think alike. The State
24:30Department denies having any contracts
24:32with Erik Prince there, but the US have
24:35a quasi military intervention without
24:37officially doing it. The same is true
24:39for what Russia's Wagner forces have
24:41been doing for years now. If Erik Prince
24:43really wants to be America's version of
24:45Wagner forces, might be a dangerous
24:47road. For years, Wagner was the
24:49Kremlin's favorite tool until its leader
24:51Prigozhin marched on Moscow trying to
24:53take it over by force. He failed and
24:55mysteriously died when his aircraft
24:56exploded leaving Moscow shortly after.
24:59So there's this risk of outsourcing your
25:00foreign policy to a private army because
25:03if they're powerful enough to be useful,
25:05they could eventually become a problem.
25:07I I'm not trying to say my point here
25:08isn't that Global is going to march on
25:11Washington DC.
25:12It's that whoever pays for a private
25:14army doesn't always control it. And we
25:16see this same playbook being put into
25:18action across the Middle East now where
25:20in Gaza they brought in American PMC
25:22companies like UG Solutions who supplied
25:25private security for an aid distribution
25:27operation inside of Gaza. Recruiting
25:30materials offered former US Special
25:32Operations personnel up to about $1,100
25:34a day, but contractors interviewed by
25:37the Associated Press accused their
25:39colleagues there firing live rounds near
25:41civilians who were seeking food. UG
25:44Solutions disputed that they made any
25:46wrongdoing. The aid operation shut down
25:48about a year later. But there is one
25:51final angle to the American paramilitary
25:53world that I would like to explore with
25:55you. The volunteer networks that operate
25:58well outside of the usual government
26:00contract, but
26:01also not within the American mercenary
26:03mold. A new emerging kind of
26:05paramilitary force that never really
26:08could have existed before social media
26:09is here. The type that sells tactical
26:11merchandise to fund their missions.
26:14Forward Observations Group or FOG is one
26:17of the strangest, most covert examples
26:19of this. They raise support for
26:21Ukrainian troops themselves instead of
26:23asking for money from the Ukrainian
26:25government. They're not mercenaries.
26:27They're They're something different.
26:28When Ukrainian forces entered Russia's
26:30Kursk region in 2024, Fog posted photos
26:34of their armed troops next to an armored
26:36vehicle with a caption, The Boys in
26:37Kursk. Russian media called it proof
26:40that American mercenaries were operating
26:42inside Russia, and they Instagram post
26:44created a diplomatic incident. Likely
26:47was was a a joke, but Moscow then even
26:50summoned a US diplomat and protested the
26:52alleged presence of American private
26:55fighters on their territory. There's no
26:58independent verified evidence that Fog
27:00was taking orders from Washington DC or
27:03Kiev to conduct combat missions there.
27:05Fog founder Derek Bales previously
27:08served with the 173rd Airborne Brigade,
27:11and Foreign Policy reported that members
27:12of the Fog network helped source medical
27:15supplies and funding for Ukrainian
27:17troops. Kind of the opposite of a
27:19mercenary. They're they're giving things
27:21to the host government. Fog's
27:23merchandise sales, which are also
27:25supported by Project Siren, which
27:27supplies equipment to Ukrainian Special
27:29Operations units. In a 2025 Intelligence
27:32Online investigation went further,
27:34claiming that Fog was helping train
27:36American Special Operations active duty
27:38personnel, Delta Force, Navy SEALs, and
27:41that they're kind of a proxy that helps
27:43to share combat experience that they
27:45learn from foreign battlefields in like
27:48Gaza and across the Middle East and
27:50Europe. But that reporting remains
27:52unconfirmed. But the interesting part I
27:54think is how easily an unofficial
27:56network of veterans can gain access to
27:58war zones and build relationships with
28:01forces overseas. Even though Fog are not
28:03mercenaries, they show us another
28:05interesting emerging route for
28:07unofficial influence abroad. Volunteer
28:10networks and NGOs can support foreign
28:12forces without the US military needing
28:15to actually send official American troop
28:18deployments. So fundamentally this whole
28:20episode I think has been about who do
28:22these American mercenary companies
28:24actually answer to? Because in the
28:25military there's a chain of command,
28:27right? Which means that there are
28:28military courts, there's accountability
28:30to Congress, and ultimately the American
28:31people. If I went and pulled triggers in
28:33Iraq when I was deployed there and
28:35something went wrong, there was a whole
28:37system to hold me accountable. However,
28:39when a contractor or a paramilitary
28:40group makes a mistake or causes a
28:42geopolitical incident, it's less clear
28:44who is responsible, which of course it
28:46has its benefits for American power
28:48projection, but it also has its
28:50drawbacks. Take Blackwater and the
28:51Nisour [music] Square shooting in
28:53Baghdad in 2007, the famous incident
28:55where contractors opened fire in a
28:57crowded traffic circle, killed 17
28:59civilians, took years of investigation,
29:01trials and retrials [music] to get
29:02convictions, and then those men were
29:04eventually pardoned as we know. And that
29:06was when the contractors were officially
29:08working for the US government. Now
29:09imagine how murky and muddy [music] it
29:11would be if this same thing happened in
29:13a different country in Africa or
29:15Americans working for a foreign
29:16government in Haiti or Taiwan. Whose
29:18court to handle it? Nobody really knows.
29:20And that might really just be the whole
29:22point. I think we're seeing a new
29:24generation of American private military
29:26companies taking shape that is very
29:28different from how it looked during the
29:29Global War on Terror and some of it's
29:31challenging our understanding of the
29:34term mercenary. They're now conducting
29:36combat operations, securing
29:37strategically important minerals that
29:39the United States would like and
29:41preparing for conflict with China. But
29:43what does this mean for power projection
29:46for America?
29:47Private contractors and official
29:49militaries work toward two totally
29:51different goals, I think. On the one
29:53hand, private contractors are paid to
29:55complete specific tasks and they judge
29:57their success by completing them like a
29:59corporation would. Meanwhile, uniform
30:02militaries judge success differently by
30:04their ability to deter war or reaching
30:07the country's geopolitical goals.
30:10I'm Chris Cappi. To learn more, check
30:11out this video here about how the
30:13Pentagon's new AI almost started World
30:15War III. I'll see you in the next

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