This episode examines what private military companies and campaigns look like.

I discuss traditional and emerging trends in private military warfare which tends to still take place in nation-state warfare. While combat support and combat service support billets have been filled with private military entities for all know history, the emergence of larger and larger forces of private kinetic and trigger puller entities has gotten larger over time.

References:

‘The last supper’: How a 1993 Pentagon dinner reshaped the defense industry…

Erik Prince at Hillsdale: “The Future of Dynamic Warfare”

Sean McFate Mercenaries and War: Understanding Private Armies Today

The mercenary boom: How private military contractors are redefining modern warfare

International Stability Operations Association

Eeben Barlow Executive Outcomes: Against all Odds

Al J. Venter War Dog: Fighting Other People’s Wars

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HR Kedward In Search of the Maquis: Rural Resistance in Southern France, 1942-1944

George Millar Maquis: An Englishman in the French Resistance

Ian Wellsted SAS with the Maquis: In Action with the French Resistance, June–September 1944

Stephen Biddle Nonstate Warfare: The Military Methods of Guerillas, Warlords, and Militias

Anyone attending the Special Operations Forces Week festivities in Tampa on 5-8 May 2025?

If so, we should arrange a rendezvous.

Email at cgpodcast@pm.me