Air force for hire

In Season 2, Episode 7 of the Guns for Hire podcast, host Alia Brahimi chats with mercenaries expert Alessandro Arduino, a top China analyst. They discuss recent seismic leaps in Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) technology and how the cost of drone defense is a magnitude greater than drone offense.

They explore how certain aggressive PMCs are marrying drone capabilities with their mercenary offerings, raising the specter of air forces for hire. Arduino describes a near future where autonomous drones run by AI systems remove humans from the decision-making loop. He also talks us through China’s developing thinking around privatized force, with some in China now pushing for more forceful security around the Belt-and-Road Initiative and the Chinese nationals constructing it. 

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Guns for Hire podcast is a production of the ’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 normalization of contract warfare tells us about the world we currently live in, the future of the international system, and what war could look like in the coming decades.

Image: Military vehicles carrying Chinese-made Wing Long drones march past the Tiananmen Rostrum during the military parade to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the victory in the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in Beijing, China, 3 September 2015.

Chinese President Xi Jinping announced on Thursday (3 September 2015) he would cut troop levels by 300,000 as China held its biggest display of military might in a parade to commemorate victory over Japan in World War Two. Xi, speaking on the rostrum overlooking Beijing’s Tiananmen Square before the parade began, said China would cut by 13 percent one of the world’s biggest militaries, currently 2.3-million strong. The Defence Ministry said the cuts would be mostly complete by the end of 2017. The move is likely part of long-mooted military rationalization plans, which have included spending more money on high-tech weapons for the navy and air force. Troop numbers have been cut three times already since the 1980s.No Use China. No Use France.