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Guns for Hire

Guns for Hire

By: Atlantic Council
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About this listen

 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.© 2025 Guns for Hire Science Social Sciences
Episodes
  • "Yes, really": American PMCs (back) in Gaza

    "Yes, really": American PMCs (back) in Gaza
    Jun 4 2025

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    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 Gaza – with American PMCs at the core of the system. Craig offers his assessment of why the Israeli-led Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) was established, its rejection by the UN and the international aid community for weaponising hunger, as well as the international laws it is breaching. He describes the cruelties and dangers inhering in this new aid system and outlines how individuals, including PMC employees, may be held legally accountable for their participation in the GHF and their association with the IDF’s wider war crimes.


    "This is not an aid operation. It is an extension of the unlawful Israeli occupation and its plans for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza."


    The Guns for Hire podcast is written, produced and hosted by Dr Alia Brahimi.

    Get in touch at: gunsforhirepodcast@gmail.com.

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

    "Do not come for adventure here": Mercenaries in DRC
    Feb 28 2025

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    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 reflects on the reasons behind the rebels’ advance, as well as the perennial need for DRC’s government to look to external security providers for help with managing threats. They also discuss Rwanda’s support for M23, regional jockeying for access to DRC’s vast mineral wealth, and a recently thwarted coup involving three US nationals.

    The Guns for Hire podcast is written, produced and hosted by Dr Alia Brahimi.

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    48 mins
  • “No, really”: American PMCs in Gaza

    “No, really”: American PMCs in Gaza
    Jan 30 2025

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    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 outsourcing a key task of stabilisation to the market, and of depending on low-profile companies for a high-profile job. He argues that the Israeli Defence Forces have a poor track record when it comes to stabilising any of the territories they have controlled and that Gaza might be a case where the profit motive of PMCs is preferable to the motivations driving two deeply traumatised societies.


    The Guns for Hire podcast is written, produced and hosted by Dr Alia Brahimi.

    Get in touch at: gunsforhirepodcast@gmail.com.

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    46 mins

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