In the Bavarian town of Rhein, a monument stands on the market square, serving as a reminder of turbulent times.. It is dedicated to Johann Tserklass, Count of Tilly, who led the armies of the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II against the Protestants in the first decade of the Thirty Years' War..

Empire supporters considered Count Tilly a hero. But his enemies despised him for the terrible war crimes committed by his mercenaries during the robbery of Magdeburg in 1631.. Avoiding this inconvenient detail, a monument in Rheina commemorates his death near the city in a battle that took place in 1632 and ended in defeat at the hands of Swedish Protestants.. The armies ruled by Count Tilly consisted of mercenaries called landsknechts or condottieres.. The crucial role they played in saving the imperial army echoes the history of the Russian Wagner group.. Their fates are similarly intertwined with the regimes they serve.. But they also break the command hierarchy of these modes equally.. Alexander Clarkson, Lecturer in European Studies at King's College London, writes about this in an article for Business Insider..

He admits that historical comparisons are a thankless task.. Each conflict has its own unique social context, which is not so easy to adjust to the dynamics that determined the wars of past eras.. Understanding the specifics of combat space is critical to ensure that attempts to find common patterns do not lead to absurd analogies that completely ignore the difference between battles with spears and muskets in the 17th century and artillery battles using drones that are fought in Ukraine today.. But with all these caveats in mind, there are two historical patterns that can suggest how the role of mercenaries in the Russian political system will evolve over time..

The first of these concerns how mercenaries usually intertwine with ruling elites in the political system.. The origins of the Wagner group have deeper roots than observers thought a few years ago, wondering at the expansion of the role of this “private army” in the Russian invasion of the Donbass in 2014 or Syria in 2015. After the collapse of the USSR in 1991 and the almost complete decline of the Russian army and special services in the post-Soviet period, many cadres of special operations forces left the civil service, in which they were paid a penny. Instead, they began working for businesses and corporations run by oligarchs, such as Rosneft and Gazprom.. Since Vladimir Putin came to power, a constant flow of personnel between special operations forces, intelligence services and private military companies has become part of the institutional landscape..

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The Russian state became increasingly dependent on mercenaries after 2013, when hostilities began against Ukraine, Syria, Libya and the Central African Republic, where Putin wanted to show strength, but without the use of formal military units to deny involvement. And it wasn't random improvisation. This dependence was based on the gradual evolution of relations between the Russian army and intelligence on the one hand and various key figures in the private defense business on the other.. Among them are Yevgeny Prigozhin, an oligarch whose income depends on contracts with the Russian Ministry of Defense, and Dmitry Utkin, a former intelligence officer whose popularity among neo-Nazi groups helped turn Russian right-wing extremists into mercenaries.. The central role of both of these people illustrates how blurred the lines between state institutions and military business have become under Putin's rule..

The close connection between the country's ruling elite and the mercenary networks it relies on due to the weakness of the formal military is not unique to Putin's Russia.. Successful military entrepreneurs during the Thirty Years' War, such as Count Tilly, came from the lower nobility. They took advantage of the situation to increase their influence and get " Like Prigozhin or Utkin almost 400 years later, the 17th century mercenary captains remained loyal to the established social order they were born into, despite the fact that they used their military power to extract more profit from it.. Despite a reputation for freeloading with impunity, the mercenaries invested considerable effort in maintaining the status quo, which provided them with a reliable stream of profits.. No matter how dissatisfied with the failed ruler, the landsknechts in the early Modern era or the PMC fighters in Russia today, they strived and are striving to replace those who stand at the top of the state system. They don't want to change it.

However, a second recurring historical pattern is that over-reliance on mercenaries can lead to a severe disruption of the power hierarchy in the state, even if the mercenaries are deeply loyal to the protection of the social order that feeds them.. The more difficult it is for a state to find recruits and adequate equipment for formal security institutions, the more it depends on mercenaries to protect its interests.. And this gives the owners of the PVK great influence in power circles at the expense of officers and officials in the establishment.

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Often this dynamic leads to a transfer of influence from one part of the regular army to another.. As networks of officers with close ties within the PMC begin to realize that their rise to the top of the political system is intertwined with the willingness of mercenaries to provide support on the battlefield.. Such shifts in the balance of power within the military establishment often lead to instability and even violence among warring factions.. And the current government of Russia should think about it. In Syria and Libya, the number of Wagner mercenaries and other PMCs deployed on behalf of the Russian state remains limited. But with the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, heavy casualties have forced Moscow to increasingly rely on thousands of Wagner mercenaries to try to support combat operations..

In addition, too much dependence on the leader of the mercenaries with his semi-autonomous income stream can lead to a loss of control over events on the ground.. Emperor Ferdinand II learned this bitter lesson in 1623 after the promotion of Duke Albrecht von Wallenstein, one of Count Tilly's bitter rivals.. At the height of his power, Wallenstein had more direct control over the military structures of the Holy Roman Empire than the Emperor himself..

Three centuries later, the French government made the same mistake in the 1970s when it hired the mercenary Bob Denard to intervene in Africa.. Denard tirelessly pursued his own ambitions in the Comoros and elsewhere.. In the end, he began to bring Paris more trouble than good.. Again, it is worth remembering the difference in historical context. But these examples from the past, in which members of the lower strata of the ruling elite used opportunities on the battlefield to replace more powerful players in state power, indicate how dangerous Wagner mercenaries can become if their influence in modern Russia continues to increase..

A wider network linking active GRU and VDV officers with Wagner mercenaries could result in sufficient force being concentrated within the Russian state system to quell competing factions in other security services and military institutions..

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There is also the example of Francesco Sforza, a former condottiere who became ruler of Milan in the 15th century.. However, such cases are relatively rare.. More often than not, state leaders either paid off mercenaries or killed them if their ambitions threatened to destabilize the ruling elite.. Wallenstein's dreams of greatness ended with the fact that in 1634 he was assassinated by agents of Emperor Ferdinand II. Denard was captured in the Comoros and thrown into a prison in Paris in 1995. This was done by the same intelligence of France, which financed it for a very long time..

At the same time, efforts aimed at bringing recalcitrant mercenaries to their knees are very costly to the state system.. One has to either resort to extreme violence to physically eliminate the threat to power, or spend a lot of money to pay other military forces to do the dirty work.. Most likely, it will be difficult for Russia to bring the recalcitrant Wagner mercenaries to their knees. Since Russian state institutions are already experiencing incredible economic and political problems. A defeat in Ukraine could further discredit the Russian military and weaken the ability of Putin or his successors to deter the Kremlin-paid and armed mercenaries.. And if that happens, today's partial "