Mercenaries, that is, mercenaries as we often hear. Friends who like military themes may see mercenaries in film and television dramas, such as Ross in "The Expendables", and daddy in "Wolf Warrior 2".
The impression left by mercenaries on us is superb skill, courage to die, even high pay, and classic scenes of winning more with less. These all make our blood boil.
In real life, the scene where mercenaries appear the most is on the battlefield, taking the Syrian civil war as an example, the number of mercenaries alone has appeared more than 600,000, which is equivalent to one mercenary for every 30 people in Syria's domestic population.
This is much higher than the official number of troops participating in the Syrian civil war. It can be seen that the mercenary branch is also active everywhere in the Syrian civil war, and even plays a large role in it.
First, the first appearance of mercenaries in the Syrian civil war
The Syrian civil war broke out in early 2011 due to the national economic recession, the country's unemployment rate rising year by year, and the people's misery. The leadership, on the other hand, does not want reform and the political system is rigid. The discontent that led to national discontent reached a near flashpoint. Finally, the Arab Spring became the trigger for all this.
The fuse originated from a self-immolation incident in Tunisia. In 2010, a young man in Tunisia had to set up a stall because he was unemployed, but he was rough treated by the local police. In protest, the young man took an extreme act - self-immolation, which eventually led to death.
The incident aroused local sympathy and further intensified dissatisfaction with rising unemployment, rising prices, and government inaction, which eventually turned into a conflict that spread throughout the country and even affected other countries in the Arab world, such as Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Syria and other countries.
In Syria, at the beginning, it was only peaceful demonstrations by ordinary people, but due to the complicated situation in Syria, some opposition groups, Islamic State and other struggles have been continuous, resulting in the situation in Syria has been unstable. As early as November 2019, the mainland embassy in Syria issued an announcement advising domestic tourists to travel cautiously to various parts of Syria in the near future.
This demonstration by the people became a trigger for the outbreak of various contradictions. It eventually turned into an armed conflict on March 15, 2011. Later, with the intervention of the Arab League led by Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries, as well as the European Union, the situation in Syria deteriorated rapidly.
Among them, Europe and the United States and other countries have publicly expressed their condemnation of the Syrian government's armed suppression of the people and demanded economic sanctions against Syria, especially the United States has proved its opposition to Syrian President Bashar with actions, asked him to step down, and withdrew the US embassy in Syria.
It has also invested heavily in helping the anti-Syrian Sunnis provide basic public services such as sewerage facilities, education, and security in areas under their control, as well as providing food and medicine assistance to the Free Syrian Army.
At the suggestion of the United Kingdom, the EU has also provided vehicles and other non-lethal equipment to the Syrian opposition. And neighboring countries have also extended their hands to Syria, which eventually led to a multi-party chaos between government forces and opposition forces in Syria, as well as armed extremist organizations.
The Syrian government was pressured by all parties and had no choice but to ask Russia for help, and with Russia's accession, it has long evolved from the initial internal contradictions to a contest between countries, and the battlefield has become Syria.
However, after World War II, all countries in the world tried to avoid large-scale conquests, so the major powers only acted as the force behind or provided some economic assistance, without clear armed intervention, but there were many means behind it. In the case of Russia, for example, Russian mercenaries had quietly entered Syria before the Russian government formally intervened in the Syrian civil war.
This was the first time that Syrian-Israeli mercenaries were widely reported by the media at that time. It should be reminded that this group of mercenaries entered Syria for the first time as a private military company.
Private military companies are not allowed to provide military services that actively attack enemy forces, otherwise they will violate the relevant regulations of the United Nations and be internationally condemned, and Russian law clearly prohibits citizens from participating in mercenaries.
However, because there were too many retired soldiers in Russia at that time, and most of them were not easy to find jobs, in order to prevent these people from being used by criminal groups and causing social unrest, the Russian government tacitly accepted these people to join paramilitary private military companies.
The private military company called "Slavic Legion" came to Syria at the beginning of the Syrian civil war and was hired by a Syrian oil magnate to defend the local oil fields in Syria. So the "Slavic Legion" recruited 267 security personnel composed of retired soldiers to go to Syria.
Unfortunately, this group of people was deceived, and when they got off the plane, they learned that the oil fields they were supposed to protect had long been occupied by extremist forces, and in order to get the salary agreed in advance, these people had no choice but to attack each other.
However, due to the outdated weapons, the battle ended in failure, and the lost documents of a Russian personnel were picked up by the other side during the battle, which was reported by the media as ironclad evidence of Russian mercenaries participating in the Syrian Civil War. In the end, Russia had to recall the "Slavic Legion" and disband it, and sanctioned two of its executives.
This was the first intervention of mercenaries in Syria to participate in the war, although it was said to be a private military company and on the grounds of security work, but it was the first case for subsequent countries to send mercenaries.
Second, the large number of mercenaries in the Syrian civil war and their role
With the escalation and deterioration of the Syrian civil war, countries hidden behind government and anti-government forces, as well as extremist organizations, have come to the forefront, among which the contest between Russia and the United States is the most obvious.
In addition to sending regular troops to direct assistance, the large number of mercenaries in the two countries has become the best option. Of course, these mercenaries also entered as security guards of private military companies, after all, the United Nations strictly prohibited the use of mercenaries on the battlefield by participating countries.
In order to avoid large-scale wars, all major powers have tacit agreement not to send large-scale national armies to war, but to send mercenaries. From 2014 to 2016, at the height of the fighting in Syria, an average of 2,000 people entered Syria each month as mercenaries.
The most famous of these are the American company "Blackwater" and the Russian "Wagner" company, of course, their public identities are not mercenaries, but "private security personnel". And why on earth are these transformed mercenaries so popular on the battlefield? Let's look at their origins and their role on the battlefield.
In the case of the Russian company "Wagner", the announced commander is the former agent Lieutenant Colonel Dmitry Utkin, who served in the Russian intelligence organization "GRU" and participated in the aforementioned "Slavic Legion" operation.
He appeared many times in the war and was an experienced combatant. Many of the personnel of the "Wagner" company are from the elite soldiers of the Russian Airborne Forces, special forces, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs who have served in the Russian Airborne Forces, and they have also participated in the conflict in eastern Ukraine and anti-terrorist operations in Russia many times, and have rich combat experience.
Because of its complete range of arms and clear division of labor, this unit is fully equipped with reconnaissance companies, tank companies, artillery, engineers, communications, etc. of regular troops. Although there are not many personnel, each of them is elite.
They often appeared in the places where the fighting was most intense, and this mercenary force even participated in offensive battles to liberate the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra, inflicting great losses on the enemy side.
In addition to participating in the war head-on, they also carried out some tasks that the regular army could not perform according to the needs of the government. With excellent strength, he has obtained great benefits for himself. There were once reports in the Russian media that Russian mercenary camps even received leaflets with the words "leave forever." The influence of Russian mercenaries in the Syrian civil war can be seen on the side.
The old mercenary organization "Blackwater" company in the United States is also the earliest mercenary sent by the US military into the Syrian civil war, and this mercenary is basically all retired US military veterans with extremely rich combat experience. As soon as they arrived, they gradually took over the task of training the rebels in Syria on behalf of the US military.
Another Russian army has speculated that in the battle near the Syrian town of Palmyra, this unit has used electromagnetic interference to help its side hide large-scale troop movements, and even does not rule out the use of clouds and sandstorms to cover troop movements.
In the direct fighting, 26 Syrian soldiers were killed, forcing the Syrian military to transfer elite troops from other places, which shows that this force plays a vital role in both combat effectiveness and war role.
Mercenaries can provide intelligence, engineering and logistical support for military operations, and can also act as the "vanguard" of the regular army, because of their flexible mechanisms, which can avoid government and media surveillance and achieve the goals that the military needs, without violating international laws and within the limits of national tolerance.
In addition, some mercenaries have strong combat effectiveness, and as temporary combat strength, they are very popular with the participating parties. If you succeed, you only need to pay a certain economic price, and if you fail, you only need to put the responsibility on the individual, and you can avoid a lot of political risks. For the belligerent countries, losses can be minimized and gains maximized.
The need for military-political purposes, as well as the cheap economic cost, are the reasons for the massive appearance of mercenaries on the battlefield.
Third, mercenaries against a glamorous background
It is said that mercenaries love war and that war is everything in their lives. Just because of the high income, and many of them are forced by life to join the ranks of mercenaries.
Ivan Srischkin, a 23-year-old Russian boy, joined Wagner in order to raise funds for his marriage to his fiancée, and Wagner paid him 250,000 rubles a month, equivalent to 26,000 yuan. There is also a retired veteran named Stressful Karchenkov, who joined Wagner because he couldn't find a job. There are many more similar cases.
Mercenaries from the "Wagner" company are paid a monthly salary of between 3,500 and 5,000 US dollars in the fight for the Syrian government, which is equivalent to more than 20,000-30,000 yuan, which is definitely a high income.
However, the money was also paid by Bashar. Of course, Bashar's money is not easy to get, first you have to complete the task, but the death rate is also very high. After the mercenaries of some security companies entered the Syrian territory, the weapons assigned were actually some old-fashioned weapons from the fifties and sixties, and the mercenaries often performed some dangerous tasks, so the casualty rate was very high.
In the case of Wagner, the most visible company in the Syrian civil war, 73 of its more than 2,000 members were identified as dead, while the conflict intelligence team, Moscow's investigative agency, estimated that more than 150 mercenaries were killed and more than 900 injured.
Even if you get lucky enough to complete the task, it's hard to say whether you can get the money, after all, years of civil war have made Syria's economy close to bankruptcy, and you have to rely on the resources of other countries to help yourself, so it is really difficult to say whether you can get this salary in the end.
And although mercenaries also do the tasks of soldiers, and some even have the support of the state behind them, in essence, they do not belong to soldiers, and of course they do not have the treatment of regular troops. Nor does it have the right to become a prisoner of war as a combatant. During the Syrian civil war, captured mercenaries were either used as bargaining chips to threaten government forces or tortured to death.
But after all, many mercenaries need to "feed on war". Currently, there are more than 100 mercenary companies worldwide.
Almost all of them have a strong government background, they provide "direct war services" to the state or large cross-border companies, and as part of the war economy, mercenary groups around the world make more than $200 billion a year. This has led to many people coming to admire, especially some unemployed veterans.
Of course, ordinary people as mercenaries, some also need to undergo strict training, in the United States, some private training camps called "strengthening survival skills in the wild", in fact, is to train mercenaries, including basic skills training, various security measures and anti-terrorist tactics, of course, the training method is also very cruel, terrifying, and even humiliating.
A Wall Street Journal reporter once said he saw a cadet naked hanging on a campfire for exams. Only 1 out of 10 trainees can complete the two-week training, and most of them can't stand the cruelty of training and choose to quit.
However, these can not organize the increase of mercenaries, on the contrary, the number of mercenaries is increasing, of course, the quality and ability are still uneven, or the public's perception of mercenaries will not be so bad, after all, in the Syrian civil war, some mercenaries will wear military clothes and do some illegal things.
Although the international community strongly opposes the use of mercenaries, the fundamental reason for the large number of mercenaries involved in the Syrian civil war lies in the needs of war and the impact of the economic environment.
War requires mercenaries to achieve certain military goals for themselves, and the government also needs mercenaries to avoid some political risks for them, coupled with the different economic conditions in various places, many people also need high salaries of mercenaries, which leads to mercenaries becoming a special group under the "war economy", and even becoming a new war economic situation.
Some Western scholars also believe that mercenaries will become one of the main participants in war in the future.
Resources:
Demystifying Mercenaries: Everything Fights for Money Can Work for Anyone Xinhuanet
Why do Western countries love to fight with mercenaries - Chinese military network
Revealing mercenaries: annual salaries can reach $200,000 far more than US military salaries - Chinese military network
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Author: Yeonjin
Editor: Murray