DÉFENSE ZONE
As every month, we bring you a new digital supplement to Défense Zone magazine, available in your Premium Pro&Business area
If you are not yet a subscriber, click here: https://defense-zone.com/products/premium-pro-business
You will then have access to upcoming (and past) issues of the Pro supplement here: https://defense-zone.com/blogs/pro-business
The editorial of supplement #39, July/August 2026
War has always had its soldiers of fortune. What is changing is the scale: armed force has become a service that is bought, sold and priced, to the point of forming one of the most dynamic — and most opaque — markets in the global security economy.
This summer supplement explores this shadow industry in four parts. First Russia, which has turned mercenary work into an instrument of the state: after the mutiny and death of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Kremlin absorbed the Wagner empire into the Africa Corps, the official armed wing of its influence in the Sahel. The group’s departure from Mali in June 2025, followed by the setbacks suffered against the jihadist offensives of spring 2026, tell of both the power and the limits of this model.
Next, the global market, estimated at between 250 and 300 billion dollars: consolidation among Blackwater’s heirs, the breakthrough of Chinese companies along the new Silk Roads, and the resounding return of Erik Prince, whose contractors now operate from Haiti to the DRC by way of Gaza.
Then France. Long paralysed by the memory of the “affreux” (the “frightful ones”, as the mercenaries of the 1960s were known) and Bob Denard, it has just crossed a threshold almost without a sound: a decree published on 31 October 2025 institutionalises the use of private operators to support its military cooperation. A strategic shift that deserves better than the indifference with which it was greeted.
Finally, the people. Behind the fantasy of the “contractor” on 1,000 dollars a day lie demanding jobs, pay scales more modest than one might think, and a criminal-law red line that every would-be recruit must know. Four articles to understand what becomes of war when it goes private.
Enjoy your reading, and have a great summer!
