Guns for Hire

Guns for Hire

Atlantic Council

Episodes 26
Avg. Duration 51m
Activity Highly Active
Since Feb 2023
Latest Episode Mar 2026

Outreach Signals

Features Guests

Publishing Details

Schedule
Monthly
Format
Episodic
Consistency
67%
Hosting
feeds.buzzsprout.com

Contact & Outreach

About This Podcast

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.

Podcasting 2.0 Features

person soundbite

Explore Statistics

Recent Episodes

S2E15 Fighting mercenaries: A Ukrainian soldier’s perspective

Mar 05, 2026 51m

Send Alia a Text MessageAlia sits down with Dimko Zhluktenko, a Ukrainian drone pilot and analyst within the Unmanned Systems Forces of the Ukrainian military. They discuss the realities of drone…

S2E14 Narco noir: Drugs, gangs and mercenaries in Latin America

Feb 01, 2026 1h 1m

Send Alia a Text MessageAlia is joined by Dr Vanda Felbab-Brown, a renowned expert on non-state armed groups and organised crime. They begin by discussing the escalation of gang violence in Haiti…

S2E13 “Youth as merchandise”: Iraqi mercenaries in Ukraine

Dec 06, 2025 59m

Send Alia a Text MessageAlia is joined by the Iraqi political analyst Mohammed Salih to discuss the legion of Iraqi men turning up on the frontlines of the war in Ukraine. They explore how poverty…

S2E12 Death is our business

Jul 08, 2025 59m

Send Alia a Text MessageAlia is joined by John Lechner to discuss his new book, Death is Our Business: Russian Mercenaries and the New Era of Private Warfare. They chat about the Wagner Group’s soft…

S2E11 "Yes, really": American PMCs (back) in Gaza

Jun 04, 2025 36m

Send Alia a Text MessageIn 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…

S2E10 "Do not come for adventure here": Mercenaries in DRC

Feb 28, 2025 48m

Send Alia a Text MessageHost 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…

S2E9 “No, really”: American PMCs in Gaza

Jan 30, 2025 45m

Send Alia a Text MessageAlia 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…

S2E8 A mercenary client collapses

Dec 23, 2024 35m

Send Alia a Text MessageAlia sits down with acclaimed author and former CIA analyst, David McCloskey, to discuss the spectacular collapse of a major mercenary client in Syria. They discuss why,…

S2E7 Air force for hire

Nov 30, 2024 1h 2m

Send Alia a Text MessageAlia is joined by the mercenaries expert Alessandro Arduino, who is also a top China analyst. They discuss recent seismic leaps in UAV technology and how the cost of drone…

S2E6 Sledgehammer: The Wagner cult in Syria

Oct 23, 2024 54m

Send Alia a Text MessageHost and Nonresident Senior Fellow Alia Brahimi chats with the defence researcher Jack Margolin about his new book on the Wagner Group. They focus on its operations in support…

S2E5 "Borrowed servants"? PMCs and sadism at Abu Ghraib

Sep 26, 2024 1h 2m

Send Alia a Text MessageAlia is joined by the international criminal lawyer Katherine Gallagher to explore her litigation against a prominent PMC for war crimes at Abu Ghraib. Katherine talks us…

S2E4 I was a Blackwater mercenary in Iraq

Jul 27, 2024 59m

Send Alia a Text MessageAlia is joined by former Blackwater contractor Morgan Lerette. In a wide-ranging conversation about Morgan's experiences, they look at Blackwater’s lax vetting procedures, the…

S2E3 Mercenary meatgrinder: The price of Bakhmut

Jun 26, 2024 1h 1m

Send Alia a Text MessageAlia is joined by the Russian reporter and photojournalist, David Frenkel, to consider the staggering toll of the “Bakhmut meatgrinder”– Russia’s bloodiest battle since the…

S2E2 What makes Colombian mercenaries so interesting?

May 29, 2024 47m

Send Alia a Text MessageHost Alia Brahimi speaks with  Dr Andrés Macías, a Bogota-based expert on Colombian mercenaries. They begin by discussing the explosive case of 26 Colombian nationals arrested…

S2E1 American hit-squad in Yemen

Apr 24, 2024 48m

Send Alia a Text MessageIn the season two opener of the Guns for Hire podcast, Alia chats with Emmy award-winning BBC investigative journalist Nawal Al-Maghafi about her film exposing American…

S1E10 Mercenaries and Gaza

Jan 09, 2024 49m

Send Alia a Text MessageIn Episode 10 of the Guns for Hire podcast, host Alia Brahimi is joined by Renad Mansour, an expert on Iraq, Iran and allied groups. As the region convulses from the war in…

S1E9 What's Charlie Sheen got to do with it?

Nov 28, 2023 1h 2m

Send Alia a Text MessageIn episode nine of the Guns for Hire podcast, host Alia Brahimi speaks with the Russia analyst Sergey Sukhankin about the 2019 arrest in Libya of the Wagner Group political…

S1E8 Prosecuting the Wagner Group

Oct 26, 2023 47m

Send Alia a Text MessageLawfare is the use of legal systems for strategic advantage. One of its pioneers, the international human rights lawyer Jason McCue, joins host Alia Brahimi on episode eight…

S1E7 Tracking mercenaries

Sep 21, 2023 37m

Send Alia a Text MessageAs humans share more of their experiences online for the world to see, the blank zones are shrinking. In episode seven of the Guns for Hire podcast, host Alia Brahimi is…

S1E6 Semtex teddy bear: The mercenary build-up in Libya

Aug 24, 2023 48m

Send Alia a Text MessageHost Alia Brahimi is joined by the Libyan security expert and Atlantic Council Nonresident Senior Fellow Emadeddin Badi. They discuss the surge of African, Syrian and Russian…

Frequently Asked Questions

How many episodes does Guns for Hire have?

Guns for Hire has published 26 episodes since February 2023, covering topics in Science, Social Sciences.

Is Guns for Hire still active?

Guns for Hire is currently highly active with new episodes monthly. Average episode length is 51m.

How do I contact Guns for Hire for sponsorship or guest appearances?

Sign up on Grep.FM to access contact details for Guns for Hire, including email and social media links.

Similar Podcasts