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Guns for Hire

by Atlantic Council

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Latest episodes

  • Strait talk: Yemen, mercenaries and the Iran war

    September 22, 2026 · 51 min

    Send Alia a Text Message In this first video episode of the podcast, Alia is joined by Ibrahim Jalal, an expert on Yemen and the Gulf. Ibrahim describes the major escalation in Yemen and explains its timing and connection to Iran's bid to…

  • Satan’s Chariot: Mercenary trouble in Mali

    August 19, 2026 · 41 min

    Send Alia a Text Message Alia is joined by Wassim Nasr, the veteran French journalist for France24 and Senior Fellow at the Soufan Center. Wassim talks us through the spectacular April 25th offensive across Mali by JNIM, an al-Qaeda…

  • “Shoot everybody”: US contractors in San Diego court

    May 26, 2026 · 39 min

    Send Alia a Text Message Alia is joined by Daniel McLaughlin, an international lawyer and Legal Director of the Centre for Justice and Accountability (CJA), a California-based legal nonprofit working on behalf of victims of torture and…

  • Fighting mercenaries: A Ukrainian soldier’s perspective

    March 5, 2026 · 51 min

    Send Alia a Text Message Alia sits down with Dimko Zhluktenko, a Ukrainian drone pilot and analyst within the Unmanned Systems Forces of the Ukrainian military. They discuss the realities of drone warfare in Ukraine, as well as the ways in…

  • Narco noir: Drugs, gangs and mercenaries in Latin America

    February 1, 2026 · 1 hr 2 min

    Send Alia a Text Message Alia is joined by Dr Vanda Felbab-Brown, a renowned expert on non-state armed groups and organised crime. They begin by discussing the escalation of gang violence in Haiti over the last year, despite the arrival of…

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  • “Youth as merchandise”: Iraqi mercenaries in Ukraine

    December 6, 2025 · 60 min

    Send Alia a Text Message Alia is joined by the Iraqi political analyst Mohammed Salih to discuss the legion of Iraqi men turning up on the frontlines of the war in Ukraine. They explore how poverty and political dysfunction in Iraq have…

  • Death is our business

    July 8, 2025 · 60 min

    Send Alia a Text Message Alia is joined by John Lechner to discuss his new book, Death is Our Business: Russian Mercenaries and the New Era of Private Warfare. They chat about the Wagner Group’s soft power strategy in Africa including…

  • "Yes, really": American PMCs (back) in Gaza

    June 4, 2025 · 36 min

    Send Alia a Text Message In this emergency episode, Alia is joined by the international human rights lawyer and former senior UN official, Craig Mokhiber. They discuss a new, controversial mechanism for the delivery of humanitarian aid in…

  • "Do not come for adventure here": Mercenaries in DRC

    February 28, 2025 · 48 min

    Send Alia a Text Message Host Alia Brahimi is joined on the podcast by the African politics and security expert Ben Shepherd. After 300 Romanian mercenaries were cornered by M23 rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo in January, Ben…

  • “No, really”: American PMCs in Gaza

    January 30, 2025 · 46 min

    Send Alia a Text Message Alia chats with modern warfare expert Dr Andreas Krieg about the sudden deployment of three private military companies to the Netzarim corridor in the Gaza Strip. Andreas examines the risks and opportunities in…

  • A mercenary client collapses

    December 23, 2024 · 35 min

    Send Alia a Text Message Alia sits down with acclaimed author and former CIA analyst, David McCloskey, to discuss the spectacular collapse of a major mercenary client in Syria. They discuss why, despite their notorious brutality, Bashar…

  • Air force for hire

    November 30, 2024 · 1 hr 2 min

    Send Alia a Text Message Alia is joined by the mercenaries expert Alessandro Arduino, who is also a top China analyst. They discuss recent seismic leaps in UAV technology and how the cost of drone defence is a magnitude greater than drone…

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About the show

The Guns for Hire podcast is a production of the Atlantic Council’s North Africa Initiative. Taking Libya as its starting point, it explores the causes and implications of the growing use of mercenaries in armed conflict. The podcast features guests from many walks of life, from ethicists and historians to former mercenary fighters. It seeks to understand what the normalisation of private warfare tells us about the world as we currently find it, but also about the future of the international system and about what war could look like in the coming decades. Written and hosted by Dr Alia Brahimi.