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We start with a look at the difficult question of who actually qualifies as a mercenary. As we work through the book several different types of troops are examined, from the ‘classic’ mercenary, foreign soldiers hired to fight in their own units by a government (as seen in the Congo), foreign volunteers serving in a different country’s armed forces to the modern Private Military Company.
After that we move on to look at individual cases, starting in Africa with the wars in Congo, Rhodesia, Nigeria, Angola and the South African Border War in Namibia and Angola. In each case the mercenaries can’t be said to have had much impact on the result of the war although some did carry out some succesful operations. One interesting feature of these wars is that the mercenaries worked for a mix of employers – the White governments of Rhodesia and South Africa, the Black governments and various rebel groups in Congo and Nigeria. The most famous of them were the white mercenaries working for black leaders in Congo and in Biafra (Nigeria).
We next move to the Indian Ocean, where we have one of the most succesful uses of the mercenary, on the Comoros Islands. Here a small mercenary force was able to overthrown the government not once, but twice. However the changing nature of the work is demonstrated by the aftermath. The first coup, in 1978, provoked no international response. However their repeat performance, in 1995, was quickly undone by French intervention. A similar attempt to overthrow the government of the Seychelles was something of a disaster.
South America paints a similar picture to Africa, with small groups of mercenaries fighting in various civil wars, both for the government and rebel forces. Yugoslavia appears to have seen higher numbers of foreign fighters, serving on all sides in the conflict.
As with many things the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001 changed the mercenary world. Although not legally mercenaries under the UN definition private contractors took on many roles in Afghanistan and Iraq, and in large numbers. We also look at the Russian Wagner group, now more famous after their involvement in Ukraine.
This is a good overview of the activities of mercenaries in the last sixty years, showing just how varied their activites, motivates and identities could be, as well as addressing the issue of exactly what makes someone a mercenary.
Chapters
Preface – Venezuela, May 2020
Introduction
Africa
The Indian Ocean
South America
The Break-up of Yugoslavia
War in the 21st Century
Dealing with the Fall-out
Author: Anthony Rogers
Edition: Paperback
Pages: 64
Publisher: Osprey
Year: 2020