As a young journalist, Brian Pottinger made friends with a South African - Jerry Puren - who spent his life as a soldier-for-hire or mercenary primarily in Africa. Pottinger tells his story and, using it as a framework, draws conclusions about these somewhat romanticized figures in an UnHerd column.
Let me share with you his conclusions.
First, many mercenaries of that era were disconcertingly charming and interesting, some educated, but all entirely lacking an internal moral compass. The lure of excitement and money suborned all nobler aspirations.
Second, most died broke. The same impetuosity that drove them to freebooting rapidly dissipated the proceeds.
Third, Puren’s generation of African freebooters are as lost a phenomenon as the Victorian adventurers who studded the history of that trampling march towards global hegemony.
The more professional Executive Outcomes, the South African mercenary group comprising veterans of the 15-year border wars. (snip) They were the forerunners of the modern Private Military Companies (PMCs), the most notable being Blackwater (now Academi), which supported the Western efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq.
And, if I’m not mistaken, Academi provides military security for at least one of the Oil Emirates in the Persian Gulf.
There is a fourth thing I learnt about mercenaries. They are dodgy employees, capable of switching sides at a moment’s notice or taking out their leaders.
Wagner is a Private Military Company, and like its predecessors, is a player in Africa’s “wars of succession.” It turned on Putin, a gutsy move.
