By James Schuldt
In recent years, Africa has been becoming increasingly important to Russian foreign policy. The Kremlin has been “aggressively” pursuing strategic objectives on the continent, successfully securing mining concessions, port access in the Red Sea, and a foothold in the eastern Mediterranean. According to the Brookings Institute, rather than relying on conventional statecraft, Russia is using a series of asymmetric measures to expand influence. Perhaps the most well-known of these measures is the “Wagner Group” private military company (PMC). Wagner, founded by former Russian military intelligence officer Dmitry Utkin and close Kremlin ally Yevgeniy Prigozhin, is doing Putin’s bidding all over Africa, providing security assistance in exchange for concessions important to the Kremlin. Wagner’s presence is destabilizing and poses a threat to U.S. interests. In 2019, the head of U.S. Africa Command stated that the expansion of Russian influence is the “most significant threat to U.S. interests after terrorism.” To effectively counter the spread of Russian influence in Africa, the United States must commit more resources to the continent and dissuade nations from seeking out Wagner’s services by offering more attractive alternatives.
Wagner offers the Russian government a cheap and effective way of spreading influence abroad. Wagner’s front man, Russian oligarch Yevgeniy Prigozhin, is a close friend of Putin, nicknamed “Putin’s Chef” for his background in the restaurant business. Wagner also receives well-documented support from the Russian state, from sharing a base with the GRU to relying on the Russian military for transportation. Because of Prigozhin and Wagner’s ties to the Kremlin and Russian military, many experts consider Wagner a proxy organization of the Russian state rather than a private company. Using the group’s services instead of relying on the Russian military allows the Kremlin plausible deniability, the opportunity to deny knowledge and control over the group’s actions. It also allows for the Russian government to hide losses, as losses suffered by “private companies” like Wagner do not count towards Russian Ministry of Defense casualty reports. When the Kremlin wants to spread influence in politically sensitive places, they rely on the services of Wagner Group.
Wagner’s origins can be traced back to Russia’s 2014 assault on Ukraine, where the group’s fighters were sent to support pro-Russian separatists in the Donbas region and were among the ranks of unmarked “Little Green Men,” Russian soldiers, during the annexation of Crimea. The group then expanded operations to Syria in 2015, where Wagner mercenaries fought to secure oil and gas fields and assist the Assad regime. Wagner is thought to have around 10,000 fighters, mostly recruited from the ranks of the Russian military. Because of losses suffered in Ukraine the group has been prompted to look outside the Russian military for recruitment, recruiting from Russian prisons and from abroad like Moldova, Hungary, and Latin America. The group is able to attract recruits with pay and benefits better than those of many militaries, a common tactic among PMC firms.
In 2016, Wagner saw opportunity in Africa and deployed fighters to Libya. The group supplied Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar with an estimated 1,200 mercenaries and military equipment including fighter aircraft and air defense systems in exchange for concessions. While Haftar’s forces have suffered repeated setbacks, Russia is still set to achieve a number of strategic objectives, like gaining access to naval ports in the eastern Mediterranean and oil fields in eastern Libya. Following a similar blueprint in Sudan, the group cozied up to the Sudanese military, which took power in a coup in October of last year. According to records obtained by the New York Times, Wagner has secured several concessions, including rights to valuable gold mines and the ability to stage forces in western Sudan to prepare for operations in neighboring countries. Wagner is even assisting in the Kremlin’s quest for a naval base on the Red Sea.
Efforts to reign in Wagner have been futile thus far. Sanctions levied by the U.S. and EU targeting individuals connected to Wagner have done little to hinder the group’s activities. Because of how valuable the group is proving to be, the Kremlin will do all it can to protect Wagner from sanctions. To effectively counter Wagner and the spread of Russian influence in Africa, the United States must adopt a stronger stance that offers more attractive alternatives to the services of Wagner and cultivates relationships with African governments.
Outside of counterterrorism (CT) operations, Africa has long been neglected by U.S. policymakers. According to U.S. officials assigned to the continent, the last three decades have seen a gradual “stripping of resources,” making efforts to dissuade African governments from seeking out Wagner’s services difficult thus far. The U.S. must commit more resources to the African continent. To properly allocate these resources, the first step is to engage in dialogue with the nations where Wagner currently operates and anticipate where the group might seek to deploy in the future. Considering that the Kremlin’s primary motivation is to undermine U.S. policy objectives and spread influence in Africa, Wagner’s deployments thus far follow an identifiable pattern. The group typically deploys to geopolitically significant but unstable countries with rich natural resources. These governments are often faced with security crises that internal security forces struggle to handle, and their sketchy human rights records leave them no choice but to turn to Russia for assistance. Therefore, to have any chance of successfully deterring Wagner, the U.S. must provide alternative options to solve these security crises.
The first option that comes to mind is deploying U.S. advisors to these nations. While not logistically challenging due to the U.S.’s current CT presence on the continent, directly assisting these governments with U.S. advisors would be politically controversial and set a dangerous precedent reminiscent of U.S. policies during the Cold War. Instead, the U.S. should opt to encourage these governments to hire more “traditional” PMCs. This would prevent the U.S. from becoming entrenched in complex and messy conflicts that could result in another disaster like Operation Gothic Serpent in Mogadishu or the 2017 Tongo Tongo ambush. Furthermore, the U.S. should encourage African governments to choose PMCs native to Africa. African PMCs know the lay of the land and would likely have an easier time earning the trust of their hosts.
One viable option is a company called Specialised Tasks, Training, Equipment and Protection International (STEPP). While STEPP itself is not well known, its chairman certainly is, at least in African defense circles. Eeben Barlow, who became chairman of STEPP in 2009, founded and led Executive Outcomes (EO), a PMC firm that rose to notoriety in the 1990s for being the first “modern PMC.” EO’s notoriety was fueled primarily by the assistance the firm provided to the governments of Angola and Sierra Leone during civil wars in the respective countries. EO’s assistance had a significant impact, turning the tide in both conflicts. EO’s impact was so great that in Angola, UNITA rebels were forced to accept a peace deal after less than two years of EO being in-country. In Sierra Leone, a peace deal was reached after just ten months. More recently, as chairman of STEPP, Barlow is overseeing operations to assist the Nigerian military in their fight against Boko Haram. While EO was disbanded in 1997 due to pressure from the South African government, Barlow announced in 2020 that EO is back and ready to provide “African solutions to African problems.”
Encouraging the use of PMCs does not come without downsides. The U.S. wouldn’t be allowed as much insight into operations, influence wouldn’t be directly spread, and PMCs could downright refuse riskier opportunities. However, these downsides can be mitigated through conventional statecraft. Contingent on the termination of Wagner’s services and/or the hiring of a PMC firm favorable to the U.S., the U.S. could offer measures like economic assistance and arms sales to African nations. Not only would this make the hiring of PMCs favorable to the U.S. more attractive, but it would also allow for U.S. influence to be spread. Most importantly though, Wagner would lose market share and access to strategic objectives, hindering Russian efforts to spread influence in Africa.
Another downside worth considering is public perception. The American public may not be so supportive of the United States encouraging the use of PMCs. To address this, African government officials could be asked to make statements clarifying that the use of PMCs in their nations was at their own volition, and they were happy to not have been forced to choose Wagner Group. Coupled with a campaign educating the American public on growing Russian influence in Africa and the destabilizing effects it has on the region, public opinion could be swayed to support the move. On the other hand, the U.S. could just opt to keep the strategy secret, claiming plausible deniability whenever the strategy is employed. While the backlash would be massive should details ever be revealed, claiming plausible deniability could prevent the U.S. from taking a legitimacy hit and establishing a possibly dangerous precedent that could lead our adversaries to do the same, which could spark a PMC “arms race.”
The Kremlin has realized the importance of Africa to the wider geopolitical game and has been making strides in recent years. To successfully counter tools of Russian influence like the Wagner Group, the U.S. must commit more resources to Africa and offer more attractive alternatives to the services that Wagner provides. By encouraging the use of PMCs, the U.S. can avoid becoming bogged down in foreign conflicts and spread influence through more conventional means of statecraft. As the world enters a new era of great power competition, the U.S. must step up its game in the second most populated continent on Earth, Rising Africa.
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