Why the US is genuinely concerned about Russia's Wagner in a private military competition

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Jan 28 2023 01:17 PM
ANIKET DIXIT

Washington: Private contractors have long been a mainstay of US influence operations that involve interference in the internal affairs of other countries. This is a bad thing now because Washington is trying to blame Russia for doing this.

Not every race is won by the first runner off the line. Do you remember the times when Blackberry mobile devices were the norm and iPhone, for example, was hardly known to anyone? After decades of outsourcing military and intelligence functions through various front companies, the US finally created the blackberry of private military/security contractors: Blackwater.

And now they're so focused on Russia's Wagner Group, the new iPhone competitor, that Washington is monitoring its activities (including suspected covert operations) in Serbia, Ukraine, Syria and other parts of Africa, according to cables obtained by POLITICO.

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According to a "senior administration official" cited in the report, "the US government is concerned about the extent to which Wagner is interfering in the internal politics of sovereign countries, violating human rights, and depriving them of their mineral wealth." doing." doing."

It's hard to ignore that the Wagner Group's presence is concentrated in areas that are already known to be hotbeds of covert US and allied activities, even as Washington's renewed push for sovereignty over the mineral wealth of developing countries continues. Is. Investigative anxiety has also been isolated, when it is often the primary underlying cause. This is why they are usually targeted by the US for having some freedom and democracy for the first time through shelling.

In one such programme, which dates back to 2010, money from USAID was used to pay private contractors to carry out influence operations in Cuba by setting up the ZunZuneo social media network, which is similar to Twitter. It was intended to lure unwary Cubans in with "non-controversial content" before leading the mob into unrest.

The "Independent Research Service," a front organisation that hosted international youth festivals with the aim of persuading young people from all over the world to support a more alluring alternative to Soviet revolutionism, received funding from the CIA during the height of the Cold War to support journalist and feminist activist Gloria Steinem's work.

Before being disbanded in 1974, Air America was notorious for serving as a covert front for the CIA and Pentagon to provide crucial support for US military and intelligence operations in theatres around the world, ranging from the Vietnam War to the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.

These examples are merely the tip of the iceberg in terms of what is possible.

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The Wagner Group's competition with Western counterparts and potential protection of the interests of clients who oppose the Western agenda are its real drawbacks for the US and its allies.

These examples are merely the tip of the iceberg in terms of what is possible.

The Wagner Group's competition with Western counterparts and potential protection of the interests of clients who oppose the Western agenda are its real drawbacks for the US and its allies.

The US government would do well to keep in mind that they were the ones who started that particular ball rolling in the first place if they have a problem with that now.

For example, Mali chose Wagner Group for a new partnership last year after expelling French forces, whose efforts to secure the nation were so impressive it withstood two coups in as many years.

The possible presence of Wagner Group in Serbia is currently a hot topic. Both Wagner head Evgeni Prigozhin and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, who recently criticized Wagner recruitment ads appearing in Serbian on social media, have denied claims that PMC opened a "cultural center" in Belgrade have established themselves. These claims were originally taken from a Telegram post.

If these allegations ultimately prove true, it appears that Serbia is seeking hired help to avoid becoming a flophouse for Western-backed regime-change chancers aiming to target Moscow and its top ally Belgrade. Was.

In addition, there are many Western private military contractors in Ukraine, and job opportunities reportedly began to appear as soon as the conflict began. One said, "Wanted: A multilingual ex-soldier willing to secretly enter Ukraine for a cool sum of up to $2,000 a day - plus bonuses - to help protect families from the escalating conflict." One would have to be very naive to believe that, under cover of the fog of war, little more than this covert security role

With the creation of Blackwater, a company that later won lucrative no-bid security contracts for the US government in Iraq and Afghanistan during Washington's Global War on Terror, the US government laid the foundation for contemporary defense contracting.

Eric Prince, son of Edgar Prince, the company's founder and inventor of the car vanity mirror, was also a close friend of then former US Secretary of Defense (and later Vice President) Dick Cheney. The business began to resemble a retirement community for CIA and Pentagon officials and executives who moved to Blackwater to enjoy the fat paychecks.

And despite incidents such as when Blackwater employees opened fire in Iraq's Nissour Square in 2007 and killed 14 civilians, the company earned a reputation as a cowboy outfit, the American private security model that has flourished under successive US administrations. ,

Blackwater exposed the kind of covert operations that Washington had long outsourced to plausible deniability. According to the New York Times, after receiving harsh criticism for its reckless behavior in Iraq, the security company "created a web of more than 30 shell companies or subsidiaries to obtain millions of dollars in US government contracts".

According to the New York Times, the company trained Canadian special forces for two years with funding from the US government, working directly with the CIA on a "covert program to track down and assassinate senior al-Qaeda leaders". Worked. did. The company also trained helicopter pilots for foreign governments such as Jordan.

It therefore acted as a direct extension of Washington's defense, intelligence, and foreign policy interests, in much the same way that other organizations were supported by the CIA through aid programs, to protect American personnel in conflict zones. Despite official contracts from Govt.

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These examples are merely the tip of the iceberg in terms of what is possible.

The Wagner Group's competition with Western counterparts and potential protection of the interests of clients who oppose the Western agenda are its real drawbacks for the US and its allies.

The US government would do well to keep in mind that they were the ones who started that particular ball rolling in the first place if they have a problem with that now.