Feral Jundi

Monday, February 11, 2019

Industry Talk: Russian PMSCs Evolve And Expand

Sewa Security Services personnel are seen during a graduation ceremony held at the Berengo base on 4 August. (Florent Vergnes/AFP/Getty Images)

 

One of my areas of interest these days are what is going on with other country’s PMSC industries?

I am very familiar with the US and the Western market of force, primarily because I have blogged about it for years and have worked as a contractor for US companies since 2004. So I have fingerspitzengefühl or a finger tip feel for this market. But what about the other stuff out there? That is the eternal question for this blog that I like to explore. I try to answer that question based upon open source information and any input from the readership. I also look at it from a contractor’s point of view.

But I always make sure that people know that most of my stuff is derived from open source information. I am also limited by language and culture, and I leverage some tools like Google Translate and others to gain a basic understanding. But it is tough and I do not have a finger tip feel for these other markets–at least to the level I am used to for this industry.

The other tough one is trusting folks online. In social media, I am constantly interacting with folks from all over the world. Most are legitimate, but there is a good percentage of folks that are not. Or they are pushing an agenda or some angle so to speak. This is what I have run into with my studies about the Russian PMSC market.

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Sunday, January 20, 2019

Industry Talk: General Tata And Erik Prince On A Plan For Syria

Filed under: Industry Talk,Syria — Tags: , , , — Matt @ 5:25 PM

This a great post for the new year. Basically Erik Prince, with the help of a former Brigadier General Tata, are applying the model of the Prince Plan to Syria. The administration wants to pull the troops out of Syria, and this private plan is a way to continue providing assistance to those that are still in the fight without committing troops there.

What is unique here is that this Syria operation would be a test for what Erik wants to do in Afghanistan. It should be noted that the administration has also called for a significant troop reduction in Afghanistan as well. Could Syria become the test ground for such a plan? Tata and Prince think so, and this is their appeal to the President.

So how what does the political environment look like for these plans? At this time, all the impediments to the original Prince Plan are gone. Secretary of Defense Mattis is gone, HR McMaster is gone, and John Kelly is gone. So at this time, there really isn’t a strong opposition group to influence the President to go one way or the other. Prince was quoted that HR McMaster was very much opposed to the Prince Plan. With all of these folks gone and replaced, I think things are favorable to at least considering these options.

Further, the ideology of Mick Mulvaney, who is the acting White House Chief of Staff has libertarian leanings. He was involved with Senator Rand Paul’s campaign for President, and Rand leans libertarian. Guess who else leans libertarian? Erik Prince.

The two things that popped out that were interesting here, was the reference to the Flying Tigers, and an identification of his proposed force structure. He mentioned some key acronyms of the plan that would be used for both Syria and later in Afghanistan.

Other threats, though, loom on the horizon, and the United States can husband its military forces, reduce operational costs, and prepare for future combat by employing private Military Mentor Teams (MMT), Aviation Support Units (ASU), and Governance Support Elements (GSE). We can do this first in Syria with an economy of force and then review the lessons learned as we transition into Afghanistan.

Another deal to mention is that Erik was seen in two interviews of interest, one with CNN and the other Fox. In both of these interviews he was asked about Syria and a private option. Yet again, the Flying Tigers were mentioned as an example of the United States using private forces to implement policy overseas.

What is curious here is that if these forces deployed to Syria, we might actually see a situation where a PMSC is in position to fight a PMSC. Something I have speculated about over the years, but really haven’t seen an example of in modern warfare. PMC Wagner is a Russian PMSC that is currently in Syria, and the US forces in Syria have clashed with this company before. So it is not totally impossible for a situation like PMSC vs PMSC to happen. 

We will see how it goes. –Matt

 

Tata & Prince: Precedent for Syria, Afghanistan pullout lies with WWII-era Flying Tigers
January 19, 2019
By Erik Prince and Brigadier Gen. Anthony J. Tata
President Trump is right to continue his drive to remove combat troops from Syria and Afghanistan and can cite the success of the privatized Flying Tigers in World War II as a way of finding economy of force during transition operations.

U.S. troops have been carrying the lion’s share of these fights and have mostly accomplished the original missions of each. In Syria, ISIS is largely defeated, save rogue terrorists that will continue to attempt asymmetric attacks. In Afghanistan, Coalition forces have trained and equipped 175,000 Afghan National Army and 150,000 Afghan National Police Forces that can secure their country.

To be sure, we maintain strategic interests in each of the regions. In Syria, we need to deny an Iranian land bridge to Israel and the Mediterranean Sea. In Afghanistan we need to ensure the Afghan government can deny sanctuary to terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda to prevent planning of attacks against the homeland.

Other threats, though, loom on the horizon, and the United States can husband its military forces, reduce operational costs, and prepare for future combat by employing private Military Mentor Teams (MMT), Aviation Support Units (ASU), and Governance Support Elements (GSE). We can do this first in Syria with an economy of force and then review the lessons learned as we transition into Afghanistan.

The private force will be almost entirely former military and law enforcement from multiple countries. Veterans serving again ensures experienced combat-seasoned personnel will be coaching, teaching, and mentoring indigenous forces. The historical case study for this common-sense, cost-saving action that bolsters our alliances and ensures achievement of our enduring strategic interests is the Flying Tigers in the pre-World War II era.

The Flying Tigers were privatized pilots from the U.S. Army Air Corps, Navy, and Marine Corps. President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized their establishment and mission to protect the Chinese against Japanese aggression in 1941. After training in Burma, the Flying Tigers saw combat against Japan less than two weeks after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Its members were paid double or triple the salary of their military counterparts and they achieved mission success. Official records show they destroyed nearly 300 Japanese aircraft. They were disbanded in July 1942 when the 23rd Fighter Group assumed much of their equipment and mission.

The Flying Tiger example is one where a private force was well-positioned before conflict, setting the conditions for transition into conflict for the U.S. Air Force. Instead of on the front end of conflict, today’s need in Syria and Afghanistan is on the back end, to facilitate U.S. withdrawal and maintenance of hard-fought gains by Coalition Forces.

The real opportunity now is to transition in Syria first and learn from that experience before committing to a transition plan in Afghanistan. The move makes sense in every respect. The U.S. has invested nearly $1 trillion in Afghanistan since the war’s inception and has another $50 billion on tap for 2019. The privatized force can do the job about 85 percent cheaper with the prospect of being more effective. The Military Mentor Teams, Aviation Support Units, and Governance Support Elements are scaled and embedded with the indigenous forces for the duration of the fight, not rotating every six to 12 months. The need on the ground in both Syria and Afghanistan is for continued foreign internal defense, which only our special forces units can provide. The U.S. military doesn’t have enough special forces units to be everywhere they are needed.

History supports presidential authorization for the use of private military contractors during transition operations to help the U.S. and its allies achieve strategic aims. Now is the time to begin the transition, secure our vital interests, and husband our precious resources.

Retired US Army Brigadier Gen. Anthony J. Tata, Brigadier General, was the deputy commanding general of U.S. forces in Afghanistan from 2006-07

Erik Prince is CEO of Frontier Resource Group

Story here.

Wednesday, July 5, 2017

Industry Talk: Offense Industry In Syria?


The deal is distinct from the common practice of oil majors and other corporations outsourcing security in hot spots in the Middle East and elsewhere. Under the contract, the wells are not just to be guarded, but to be captured first, the article said.

“The arrangement returns to the times of Francis Drake and Cecil Rhodes,” it noted, referring to two figures from British history whose careers mixed warfare and private profit.-NYT

A couple years back, I came up with a concept that more accurately described the type of contracts PMSC’s were conducting in the war. Current contracts are more or less classified as ‘Defense Industry’, where companies profit from the defense of a client and their property. This kind of contract is more favorable because it is not geared towards destroying the enemy. You actually want the enemy to stick around so you don’t work yourself out of a job. lol

The second type of scheme is ‘Offense Industry’. Basically we are talking about contracts where a company profits from the destruction of a client’s enemy and their property. If XYZ company destroys ISIS, then they are payed 50 billion dollars for example. In my post about it, I brought up past examples of offense industry–like privateering.

Fast forward to today’s news coming out of Syria. According to the news site Fontanka, there is an offense industry contract that has been arranged between Syria and several Russian PMSC’s. Here is the quote from the NYT’s article on it:

So far, two Russian companies are known to have received contracts under the new policy, according to the reports: Evro Polis, which is set to receive profits from oil and gas wells it seizes from the Islamic State using contract soldiers, and Stroytransgaz, which signed a phosphate-mining deal for a site that was under militant control at the time.
The agreements, made with the Syrian government, are seen as incentives for companies affiliated with Russian security contractors, who reportedly employ about 2,500 soldiers in the country, to push the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, out of territory near Palmyra, in central Syria.
Most Middle Eastern wars are suspected of having some variant of this deal, but it is seldom made as explicit as in the Russian contracts.
“It’s all very simple,” Ivan P. Konovalov, director of the Center for Strategic Trends Studies, said by telephone of the deals, struck in December but just recently reported. “If a company provides security, then the country getting that service should pay. It doesn’t matter how the payment is made.”
In the petroleum deal, Evro Polis, a corporation formed last summer, will receive a 25 percent share of oil and natural gas produced on territory it captures from the Islamic State, the news site Fontanka.ru reported.

This contract is not just about defending a client’s asset. This first requires these companies to conduct offensive operations and seize this territory, and then defend it! That is a big difference and greatly adds to the risk of these types of contracts. But there is a big reward if they can take it.

It is that reward mechanism that creates an incentive for an investor to put so much into something like this. It is why investors put so much money into privateering vessels during the Revolutionary War and War of 1812 in the US–they were ‘incentivized’. But they also had a legal contract with the backing of the US Constitution and congress in the form of a Letter of Marque. I have not seen such legal protections talked about in this article by the NYT or Fontanka. Although I have to imagine the backroom dealings on this would be pretty comprehensive.

A final thought on this is that I held back on putting this story up at first. I do not have the resources to go to Syria and confirm all of this. So these forces might be legitimate Russian PMSC’s, or they might be just Russian special operations dressed up to be PMSC’s (little green men anyone?). I have written about PMC Wagner in the past, as well as the Slovanic Corps and the story always seems to be a little different that what was reported. There are a lot of groups out there pushing agendas and trying to trade up the chain as they say. So are we seeing the beginnings of new offense industry in Syria? We will see where this goes…. –Matt

 

Russian EOD personnel in Palmyra, Syria. -NBC

Russia Deploys a Potent Weapon in Syria: The Profit Motive
By ANDREW E. KRAMER
JULY 5, 2017
The Kremlin is bringing a new weapon to the fight against the Islamic State militant group in Syria, using market-based incentives tied to oil and mining rights to reward private security contractors who secure territory from the extremists, Russian news outlets have reported.
So far, two Russian companies are known to have received contracts under the new policy, according to the reports: Evro Polis, which is set to receive profits from oil and gas wells it seizes from the Islamic State using contract soldiers, and Stroytransgaz, which signed a phosphate-mining deal for a site that was under militant control at the time.
The agreements, made with the Syrian government, are seen as incentives for companies affiliated with Russian security contractors, who reportedly employ about 2,500 soldiers in the country, to push the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, out of territory near Palmyra, in central Syria.
Most Middle Eastern wars are suspected of having some variant of this deal, but it is seldom made as explicit as in the Russian contracts.
“It’s all very simple,” Ivan P. Konovalov, director of the Center for Strategic Trends Studies, said by telephone of the deals, struck in December but just recently reported. “If a company provides security, then the country getting that service should pay. It doesn’t matter how the payment is made.”
In the petroleum deal, Evro Polis, a corporation formed last summer, will receive a 25 percent share of oil and natural gas produced on territory it captures from the Islamic State, the news site Fontanka.ru reported.
The website has a record of accurately reporting about private security companies in Russia, and just last month Washington appeared to corroborate one of its earlier reports by imposing sanctions on a Russian whose activities first came to light in the publication.
Fontanka’s latest article on the topic, published last week, detailed how Evro Polis was cooperating with a shadowy Russian private security group called Wagner, which American sanctions suggest has also provided contract soldiers to the war in Ukraine.
The deal is distinct from the common practice of oil majors and other corporations outsourcing security in hot spots in the Middle East and elsewhere. Under the contract, the wells are not just to be guarded, but to be captured first, the article said.

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Friday, December 18, 2015

Syria: Nine Russian Contractors From PMC Wagner Killed

Rest in peace to the fallen…

In my last post on Russian contractors, I mentioned briefly about a PMSC called PMC Wagner or OSM. The Wall Street Journal is the first large media group that I know of that has talked about this company in a story, and I thought I would share that here. I want to keep a record of this stuff so that it can be a reference for how the Russian market is developing in Syria, Ukraine and elsewhere.

So why do I continue to focus on the Russian market? Primarily because if the Russian PMSC’s start delving more into offensive operations, then that could be a sign of things to come for the rest of the industry. I like to follow the offensive aspects of PMSC use because that will have impact on the future of this industry. Meaning as more and more private companies from other countries get into the game of war fighting, and actually winning wars like what Executive Outcomes was able to do, then that would move the marker of what is acceptable and possible within this industry.

It will give countries an option other than using and paying for a standing military, or for countries who lack those kinds of war fighting and winning capabilities within their own military.

One country might view another country’s PMSC industry as a strategic advantage. Something that they want in their tool kit of force. Especially if PMSC’s start winning wars and battles, and especially if a country is flush with cash but lacks manpower. A country that is in a fight for their survival (like Assad’s Syria) will do everything it can to win, and really could care less where that manpower comes from at the end of the day. Enter the PMSC market.

Back to the article below. The quote that caught my attention was this one:

An official close to the Russian Defense Ministry said that the group had numbered around 1,000. Unlike Western security contractors, who are typically armed with only light weapons, members of the group were operating T-90 tanks and howitzers.

Contractors operating T-90 tanks and howitzers? lol That is some serious weaponry and I would love to hear more about what exactly these guys were doing with this stuff. EO used tanks and APC’s in their wars pretty effectively, and it is interesting to hear about private companies actually operating this type of equipment. Imagine that training course? lol

The other interesting quote below is the leader of PMC Wagner/OSM, came from the Slavonic Corps. The Slavonic Corps was also given tanks to use, but that was a big surprise for the contractors involved apparently.  So will PMC Wagner pick up where the Slavonic Corps left off, and do better?  We will see. –Matt

Edit: 12/19/2015- The guy in the photo below was an entertainer that was working at Latakia Air Base at the time and not some soldier or contractor according to my readership. There is a question on how many contractors were killed as well. One of my readers said that an article from Reuters was written last October in regards to this incident and they only mentioned three Russians that were killed. Also, the 1,000 contractor headcount is not realistic according to the readership. That is a pretty big footprint for a contractor force so I would imagine that number is a lot lower.

Edit: 03/10/2016- War is Boring wrote an interesting article that talked more about Russia and it’s use of PMSC’s. This quote on PMC Wagner is what I wanted to put out there for the record:

It now seems the TchVK Wagner is building on the Slavonic Corps’ misfortune. Indeed, many members of this mysterious organization, as well as its leader — a former major in the Spetsnaz and ex-employee of Moran Security — were also members of the luckless 2013 expedition in Syria. According to the journalist Denis Korotkov, author of numerous articles on the TchKV Wagner, these contractors are active in Syria and entertain “close links with the Russian army.”

“TchVK Wagner is not a PMC, but a paramilitary organization with no official status,” Korotkov insists. “It is obvious that this task force could not exist without serious support from high-ranking government officials.”

Oleg Krinitsyn, head of the Russian PMC RSB Group, says he agrees with that assessment.

According to Korotkov, neither Moran Security nor RSB Group are active in eastern Ukraine — and this for legal reasons and in order to preserve their contracts abroad. Furthermore it seems the Russian army in Syria does not make use of these two PMCs. For sure, these companies do employ droves of former FSB agents, and one can easily imagine that they offer piecemeal services to the Russian state while on duty abroad, especially in Africa.

CTnknb5WUAA4XdM.jpg-large 

 

Up to Nine Russian Contractors Die in Syria, Experts Say
Incident shows how the country is using private groups to avoid deploying uniform troops, they say
By THOMAS GROVE
Dec. 18, 2015
As many as nine Russian contractors died in October when a mortar round hit their base in western Syria, according to several people familiar with the matter.
The incident, experts say, shows how Russia has used contractors to perform quasi-military tasks, avoiding the political repercussions of deploying uniformed troops—and steering clear of the domestic concerns that come with the deaths of soldiers.
The Russian government hasn’t acknowledged the deaths, described to The Wall Street Journal by three people.
“It’s one of Russia’s first attempts at trying to create a private military company like what was Blackwater,” said one of them, Ivan Konovalov, director of a Moscow-based security think tank and a consultant to lawmakers who are trying to create the legal basis for such military companies, which now fall in a legal gray zone.
Blackwater, which provided armed security, logistics and other support to U.S. government agencies, became emblematic of Washington’s reliance on private-sector firms to advance foreign-policy aims in conflict zones.
Unlike Blackwater, though, the Russian Defense Ministry hasn’t publicly acknowledged their existence. It isn’t clear whether the men’s role went beyond protecting government installations to direct involvement in fighting.
Founded by former Navy SEAL Erik Prince, Blackwater was involved in a series of controversial incidents, including a deadly 2007 shootout in Iraq that ultimately led to its reorganization and rebranding as Academi and to Mr. Prince’s exit from the business. Blackwater said it was carrying out dangerous work on behalf the U.S. government in a way that was more cost-effective than using uniformed personnel. Four former guards were convicted after the shooting, but said they shot in self defense.
The Russians killed in Syria belonged to a private group called OSM, according to Denis Korotkov, a former security adviser and journalist. The group is known informally as Wagner, after the nom de guerre of its leader, a former military intelligence officer who has served in several conflicts since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Syria wasn’t the group’s first deployment. According to all three people, the group operated in eastern Ukraine, where its members were charged with protecting factories and pro-Russian rebel leaders.
In Ukraine, the Kremlin employed “hybrid warfare”—a term national-security experts use to describe the use of irregular forces, propaganda campaigns, economic coercion and sometimes direct military action.
Groups with connections to Russian military and intelligence, and whose activities can be denied, have operated in the conflict zones that flared up since the fall of the Soviet Union. Wagner’s group however has emerged as one of the most prominent both in terms of the size and missions, according to Mr. Konovalov.
Based in the southern Russian region of Krasnodar, the group deployed to Syria after a contract was drawn up with Syrian authorities, Mr. Konovalov said.

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Thursday, November 26, 2015

Russia: So Where Are Russian PMSC’s Working In The World?

Filed under: Russia,Syria,Ukraine — Tags: , , , , — Matt @ 11:28 AM

This is a great graphic from InformNapalm, along with a link to the article. I have heard about a few of these companies, but this is by far the most comprehensive collection that I have seen posted. There was quite a bit of interest the last time I posted about Russian PMSC’s here and here, and we will see if anyone wants to pop up and add to this stuff.

The story about PMC Vagner (or Wagner) is interesting. I actually heard some information about them from other sources and they are definitely mixing it up in Syria. Here is a quote from the article that perked me up.

For example, ‘Vagner’ private military company (incorporated in Argentina) poses itself as a closed militarized structure; its training camp is located in the village of Molkino in Krasnodar krai, at the training site of the 10th special forces brigade of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Federation. With high probability we can assume that we observe here the mentioned above mechanism for the creation of voluntary units of Russian GRU’s reservists.

Everything is organized as in a Special Forces: arrival, interviewing, testing, quarantine, intensive special training, examination and sending on a mission. At the same time the main priority is to keep the information in secret.

According to closed sources, the main task is to prepare the ‘Vagner’s fighters for the war in Syria and send them there. This version is confirmed by the data from numerous printed materials.

Obviously, these men are the backbone of ground operations’ troops and they fight under the guise of Assad’s volunteers. Detachments of ‘vacationers’ are sent to Syria from Primorsko-Akhtarsky military airfield, which is located in 200 km from the training center.

According to confidential information, there are hundreds of killed fighters in the ranks of ‘Vagner’ PMC. This information is partially confirmed by the data in open sources:

24.09.2015 – 10 coffins arrived to Sevastopol from Syria;

20.10.2015 – Vessel with bodies of 26 killed marines from 810th brigade arrived to Sevastopol;

27.10.2015 – A coffin with a soldier died in Syria arrived to Sevastopol.

In the article they also posted a video and links to these various companies. Check it out. –Matt

 

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