“Little” players: wars after the regular armies!

A group of Wagner mercenaries (Al Jazeera)

I do not know - yet - whether the world will take into consideration the “small players” and their role in resolving what cannot be resolved through large traditional powers, after the war on Gaza ends. In other words: Will Gaza turn the page on the “ministries of defense” and open another page for “wars after the regular armies”?!

No one can accept this hypothesis, especially in “fragile” countries that fear the existence of organizations outside official control, even though this fragility opens up every closed person to establish militias parallel to the regular armies.

Rotate the militias

Perhaps Corinne Dufka, an expert in the Sahel region at Human Rights Watch, was right when she warned that these organizations “have overcome the armies of the regions, and have fed on difficult geography and weak and often corrupt governance.”

The most prominent of these big headlines was the “Islamic State/ISIS” seizure in 2014 of seven thousand five hundred miles, equivalent to 12 thousand kilometers, of Iraqi territory, and the collapse of the Iraqi army armed with the latest American weapons.

Then this version was reproduced in “Burma” and “Mali” in 2022, Central Africa (2000 Wagner mercenaries), and in Afghanistan (the Hazara minority, the Afghan Fatimid militias - also spread in other fragile states, such as Syria, Yemen, and Sudan) and Ethiopia (10 local militias) and Congo (M23 militias).

However, countries and major regional powers have become aware of the possibility of “recycling” the idea/militias, whose security services are in charge of establishing and arming them, and assigning combat missions to them on behalf of the state, in conflict zones to which the umbrella of their vital interests extends, thereby reducing the moral and legal burdens resulting from militias. What these militias are doing, which are subject to their secret and indirect supervision.

A study by the European Counter-Terrorism and Intelligence Center says: Militias can be one of the “arms” that fight on behalf of parties to regional or international powers in conflicts and wars. These militias can fight against each other or to impose control over the state, thus enhancing regional influence through... An indirect and less expensive approach.

The British established a local Kenyan militia, the African National Guard, to suppress the Mau Mau uprising of 1952-1960.

Blue men

Although China has a larger naval fleet than its American counterpart, Western reports say; Beijing relies on naval militias called “Little Blue Men” deployed in the South China Sea to carry out specific tasks in order to avoid an open military confrontation with Washington.

China used these maritime militias in its operations that led to control over the areas of the Meiji Reef and Scarborough Shoal, which are also disputed with the Philippines, in 1995 and 2012, respectively.

In this context, the United States of America has taken this approach since the mid-nineties of the last century, and there have been reports confirming that it invested about $300 billion in (12 militias), especially in the period from 1994 to 2007, which is a very huge investment, but despite In most countries, this is a good investment, because they, the “contractors”, are well trained and bring their own equipment.

In this context, the first private military contracting company, “Blackwater,” was founded in the first third of the 1990s by former naval officer Erik Prince, and obtained its first official contract from the US government in 2000 after the bombing of the US destroyer “U.S. S.S. Cole.”

It is the company that committed horrific massacres in Iraq (the Nisour Square massacre in Baghdad in 2007), and the presence of private military contracting companies operating in Iraq grew until it reached about 181 security companies with a total of 160 thousand people in Iraq in 2007, which was approximately equivalent to the total number of American forces. at that time.

Ambitions and achievements

According to The Atlantic, hiring contractors is big business. In fiscal year 2014, while the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were ongoing, the Pentagon committed $285 billion to federal contracts, an amount greater than all other government agencies combined. It was equivalent to 8% of federal spending, three and a half times the entire UK defense budget, and about 45% of these contracts were for services, including private military contractors.

On the other hand, the American “Blackwater” militias were an inspiration to Russian security policy makers, and were nearly 20 years behind the American experience in this context. The “Wagner” company was founded in 2014 by the well-known Russian businessman “Yevgeny Prigozhin.” “The President’s Chef” is an “illegitimate” company, but it is under official Russian jurisdiction and works “underground” for its own benefit.

"Wagner" carries out its work as an agent for Russia's continental ambitions without officially involving the Russian government in battles and wars, which enhances the value of "Wagner", as it allows Moscow to achieve its goals without great cost at the same time.

That is why Kimberly Martin, a professor at Barnard College, said in her testimony before the US Congress in 2020: Keeping Wagner illegal and in limbo in Russia has allowed the Kremlin to distance itself from any unsavory or dangerous actions taken by this group, which was evident when hundreds of Wagner fighters were killed during a fierce battle against American forces in Syria. In 2018, it resulted in the killing of about 300 Wagner mercenaries.

Ambiguous relationships

It is perhaps important to point out that Israel was founded by armed militias/gangs (Bar Giora, Irgun, Stern, Jewish Brigade, and Haganah), which are the gangs that later formed the Israeli army in 1948.

At that time, Israel fought the militias that refused to join the regular army, and forced them to join it under duress. However, the “militia/state” duality did not disappear within Israeli society. Since the second half of the 1980s, Tel Aviv has tended to establish militias. He has a "mysterious" relationship with the army - responsible and not responsible for it at the same time - such as the so-called "Duvovian" unit, which is a vague and loose mixture of volunteers, professional soldiers, and Bedouins in the Negev in 1986.

And the “Haredi Brigade” militia, in 1999, which is said to be affiliated with “Unit 903” in the Israeli army, which is pure unconfirmed speculation. And the “Nahal” unit, which existed before the founding of the state, as well as the “Kfir” militias.

It appears, with the frequency of reports that were written about her, that she is subject to, in a deceptive way, the security and military decisions of the army, which caused her to suffer from the “tumor” and sagging that befell the army, which the resistance revealed in its major operations on (10/7/2023) and after. Perhaps this is what prompted the extremist Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, to form independent popular militias in his security decision, which he called “reserve teams,” which, in his words, amounted to 600 teams.

No observer can help but see that the experience of the Palestinian resistance in its last war (10/7/2023) and beyond), whatever its results, may be an inspiration for establishing the stage of “post-regular armies wars”... What makes it a possible hypothesis is that it It is less expensive on both levels: legally and morally for major regional countries and powers... while it is considered a tool in the hands of vulnerable peoples whose cause - in terms of legitimacy and justice - matches the Palestinian cause in all its details currently.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.