Third Generation Gangs Strategic Note No. 58: Contracting of Former PMC Blackwater Founder Erik Prince by the Haitian Government for Port-au-Prince Intervention
Erik Prince, founder of the Blackwater private military company (PMC), has signed a contract with the Haitian government to intervene using lethal operations against the criminal gangs threatening to fully overrun Port-au-Prince.[1] The Haitian government confirmed in late April 2025 that they were in the progress of integrating “international, private firms” with their police and security forces to suppress the criminal insurgency being waged by these gangs. Additionally, Haiti’s Minister of Economy and Finance, Alfred Métellus, has confirmed plans for a “war budget” being implemented to support this effort.[2]
Key Information: Roberson Alphonse, “Will Haiti Turn to Private Firms in the Fight Against Armed Gangs?” Le Nouvelliste. 29 April 2025, https://lenouvelliste.com/en/article/255720/will-haiti-turn-to-private-firms-in-the-fight-against-armed-gangs:
The Haitian government is not ruling out the possibility of turning to international private firms to address gang violence, Le Nouvelliste has learned. “All options are supposed to be on the table. The population needs security, the roads must be cleared (…) We are open; we are seeking all Haitians, all foreigners who have expertise in this field and who want to support us, want to assist the police and the army in resolving the situation. The doors are open. All options must be on the table,” said Minister of Economy and Finance Alfred Metellus. “Security is one of the priorities. This priority has been reinforced with the arrival of Mr. Fritz A. Jean at the head of the Transitional Presidential Council (CPT). We are even talking about a war budget. We are heading in that direction,” said Alfred Metellus, who emphasized that funds are being allocated to the security forces. Requisitions are being processed promptly at the Ministry of Economy and Finance.
“There are no issues with budgetary credits for security. The issue may lie in execution,” he said. Le Nouvelliste has learned from diplomatic and government sources that discussions are underway regarding the acquisition of equipment for the security forces, who also need advisory support. Given the gangs’ advances and the looming threat of Haiti falling under their control, there is a high level of concern and demands from international partners, including donors, Le Nouvelliste has learned.
“All the donors are requesting that the government present a national security plan. We will organize a meeting to present this security plan. This will take place this summer, in June, so that by September, security in the country improves. Some donors are even conditioning their aid on the presentation of this plan,” Minister Alfred Metellus told Le Nouvelliste.
Key Information: David C. Adams, Francis Robles, and Mark Mazzetti, “Haiti Enlists Blackwater Founder and Trump Ally to Take on Criminal Gangs.” New York Times. 28 May 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/28/us/haiti-erik-prince-blackwater-gangs.html:
The Haitian government has signed a contract with Mr. Prince, the private military contractor who founded Blackwater, a company notorious for a civilian massacre in Iraq.
Erik Prince, a private military contractor and prominent supporter of President Trump, is working with Haiti’s government to conduct lethal operations against gangs that are terrorizing the nation and threatening to take over its capital…
Haiti’s government has hired American contractors, including Mr. Prince, in recent months to work on a secret task force to deploy drones meant to kill gang members, security experts said. Mr. Prince’s team has been operating the drones since March, but the authorities have yet to announce the death or capture of a single high-value target.
Key Information: Macollvie J. Neel, “Trump Ally Attempts to Recruit Haitian American Veterans for Haiti Mercenary Mission.” The Haitian Times. 29 May 2025, http://haitiantimes.com/2025/05/29/blackwater-haitian-american-veterans-haiti-mission/:
Haitian American military veterans are being recruited by Erik Prince, founder of the controversial private military firm Blackwater, to serve as paid mercenaries in Haiti this summer, according to a new report by The New York Times. The effort is part of a contract Prince has signed with Haiti’s transitional government to help suppress gang violence in and around Port-au-Prince.
The recruitment plan, first reported by The New York Times, involves sourcing as many as 150 foreign fighters, including U.S.-trained Haitian Americans, to operate under Prince’s leadership. The deployment is expected to include helicopters, weapon shipments, and drone-assisted assaults on gang territory…
Since Blackwater dissolved and was rebranded as Constellis, Prince has continued to run private military ventures in conflict zones, including Libya, Afghanistan, and now Haiti.
Key Information: Brandy Knox, “Haiti enlists Blackwater founder Erik Prince to fight gang scourge with assassin drones.” Washington Examiner (at MSN). 31 May 2025, https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/haiti-enlists-blackwater-founder-erik-prince-to-fight-gang-scourge-with-assassin-drones/ar-AA1FFjGc:
Prince, a notable ally of President Donald Trump, was secretly hired months ago by Port-au-Prince to combat the deadly gangs that have wreaked havoc across the country, according to senior Haitian and American government officials, along with security experts familiar with the situation, speaking with the New York Times. Prince has been working as part of a team of lethal drone operators used to assassinate gang members.
So far, the drones have killed 200-300 people, according to Port-au-Prince human rights activist Pierre Esperance. He told the Wall Street Journal that his human rights organization hasn’t logged any civilian deaths in the strikes, suggesting impressive accuracy unbecoming of the beleaguered Haitian police…
The full details of Prince’s deal with the Haitian government remain unknown.
The involvement of Prince in Haiti doesn’t come as a complete surprise, as he’d publicly floated the possibility for up to a year before.
“Not even 2,000 men are needed,” Prince said of the number of troops needed to fix Haiti in a March 26, 2024, post on X. “100 capable police advisers working with the remnants of local police units would roll back the gangs and chaos.”
Key Information: Stavroula Pabst, “Erik Prince brings his mercenaries to Haiti. What could go wrong?” Responsible Statecraft. 6 June 2025, https://responsiblestatecraft.org/erik-prince/:
Reemerging after an extended absence from Washington circles, Prince’s Haiti venture coincides with a number of adjacent bids for the current White House, which during the first Trump term, turned down a Prince plan to privatize the war in Afghanistan.
But what Prince stands to gain by the venture may well be Haiti’s loss. Indeed, Prince’s private contractors, operating in a legally gray area in a functional conflict zone, could wreak further havoc — after a legacy of Western meddling that has undermined the country’s affairs…
And yet, Prince has been active in the rightwing-national security periphery and has resurfaced in official circles in recent months, even participating in group chats with State Department and National Security Council senior officials. And he’s been eager to showcase his usefulness through a barrage of pitches to the Trump administration as well as other relevant players in its orbit.
In recent months he has floated a scheme to Trump in which private contractors would assist the administration in hitting its deportation targets. In April, Prince also pushed for a plan in which his contractors would be in charge of a prison partly owned by the U.S. in El Salvador.
Third Generation Gang Analysis
The criminal insurgency taking place in Haiti over the last few years has continued to worsen. The present domestic security situation in the country is getting dire, with deployed police and governmental forces no longer able to contend with the increasing power of the heavily armed Haitian gangs. The gangs, led by Viv Ansanm and Gran Grif, have recently been designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) and Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs).[3]
Further, the Multinational Security Support (MSS) effort has proven totally ineffective in countering them and is witnessing a rapid deterioration of the mission. Some 400 of the 751 deployed MSS Kenyan police officers are now expected to return to their country in June 2025, upon expiration of their one-year contract. Furthermore, only 40% of the total number of 2,500 security forces initially pledged for the MSS mission has been realized.[4] This has caused the Haitian government, out of desperation, to turn to international PMCs—aka private military security companies (PMSCs)—to fill the vacuum left by both ineffective internal law enforcement and international stabilization apparatuses.[5]
The use of PMCs by a nation-state are not a new phenomenon:
PMCs are demonstrating a potential to inter-operate and serve common needs, clearly a signal of a change in the relations and roles among military institutions – state, non-state, and market-state. These trends are a consequence of the erosion of the ability of states to contain and counter violence in developing and newly emerging states, where weak states contract to private armies to raise national armies to fulfill security roles they cannot address, potentially signaling a shift in state identity.[6]
Hence, while Haiti turning to PMCs is very concerning, this consternation is further deepened by the contracting of Erik Prince—a prominent Trump administration supporter—being awarded a contract to engage in such activities.[7] Prince founded the infamous Blackwater PMC in 1997 which later was the cause of the 2007 Nisour Square Massacre in Iraq in which 17 Iraqi civilians were shot by the group’s personnel. At least 14 of the civilian deaths were deemed unjustified by the FBI.[8] In the aftermath of the massacre, four Blackwater contractors were eventually prosecuted and convicted in US federal court under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act (MEJA) in 2014—marking a rare and unprecedented instance of private military contractors being held criminally accountable for actions committed in a war zone.[9] While this example may seem to contradict to the claim above, the controversy surrounding Blackwater is an outlier with respect to legal accountability in the use of PMCs. Furthermore, it is worth noting that it took 7 years for the contractors to be convicted.
Prince gained an even more sordid reputation after he moved on in 2010 from being the CEO and a board member of Blackwater. He sold his sword to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 2011—at the time a more dependable US ally—with his newly-formed the PMC, Reflex Responses (R2). His activities included operations in Yemen, the promotion of autocratic interests (including engaging in possible anti-democratic actions), and the use of Colombian mercenaries.[10] After moving on from his contract with the UAE, he then partnered with China via the Frontier Services Group (FSG) and directly supported the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) backed global Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) from 2017 through part of 2021.[11] This fully cemented his transition from former Navy SEAL and US patriot to amoral and global mercenary company commander. It also helped earn him the moniker ‘The Dark Prince’ in some media outlets.[12]
Prince has been very active recently in forming relationships and alliances with foreign states. In March 2025, the president of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, announced a “strategic alliance” with Prince on his X (Twitter) social media account, aiming to fight against organized crime and narcoterrorism.[13] In April 2025, news reports indicated he had contracted with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for PMC operations to help “secure and tax its vast mineral wealth.”[14] These are the same types of contract arrangements the Wagner Group (now Africa Corps) has secured to further Putin regime (and inner circle oligarch) business interests—applied to US (and likely Trump supporter) linked entities.
Prince’s PMC is now beginning to conduct what are essentially combat operations—including weaponized drone strikes—against gang members and their leaders in Haiti. He is said to be coming in with about ‘150 private mercenaries’ this summer to engage in such direct action.[15] The new FTOs and SDGTs designations of the Haitian gangs instituted by the US via an Executive Order has given Prince high level cover for his lethal ‘gang suppression’ activities. However, many issues arise concerning the actual legality of those actions within the context of international law and the use of a PMC hired by a state to conduct extra-judicial operations.
The blurring of crime and war in operational environments such as Port-au-Prince and the emergence of ‘criminal-soldiers,’ such as heavily armed Viv Ansanm and Gran Grif gang members, directly challenge Haitian state integrity and contemporary perceptions of how counter-gang operations are to be conducted. Issues readily exist as to whether gang members should be designated as ‘criminals’ (non-combatants) or rather as ‘soldiers’ (combatants) and the legality of the later designation. These state response dilemmas are part and parcel of the rise of third generation gangs (3 GEN Gangs) and the criminal insurgent challenges that the more advanced and stronger of these may pose to weak capacity states.
What makes PMCs incredibly attractive to nation-states is the ability to conduct these forms of lethal operations with plausible deniability when they cross the line into illegal acts.[16] This is because many problems are not resolved with respect to PMCs, with issues regarding the grey-zone legality of combatants, engagement of questionable operations such as coup d’etat, lack of long-term stability, and the ineffectiveness to prosecute for war crimes.[17] One of the most important examples of a PMC using this obfuscation is the previously mentioned Wagner Group (Africa Corps) linked to Russia. That state does not explicitly allow PMCs, but that seems to take a backseat due to the questionable legal status of the organization and alignment of the goals and interest of the Russian government.[18]
Blackwater, Wagner (Africa Corps), and a number of other PMCs represent an evolution or new type of military system that has been described as “proxy military companies”:
…unlike traditional private military companies, these entities are deeply intertwined with the state—or, more precisely, with the individuals who hold state power. This creates a hybrid reality where the line between public and private blurs almost beyond recognition. Their operations as combat surrogates further complicate this distinction, positioning them at the intersection of state actors, mercenaries, and PMSCs.”[19]
These proxy military companies have the potential to cause discrepancy between the Haitian government andits long-term goals and stability after the criminal insurgency is eradicated. Haiti is one of the most governmentally corrupt countries in the world. It was, as 0f 2024, the 13th most corrupt country and has been anywhere between the 8th and 23rd most corrupt country in any year since 2014.[20] After the criminal insurgency is quelled, the Haitian government could then use these proxy military companies as an oppressive force against their own citizens or the PMC leaders may even attempt a coup d’etat as was the case with the Wagner Group in Russia in June 2023. This could lead to a future dictatorship or non-democratic government which was the case of Haiti from 1957 to 1986 when the Duvalier family was in power and during which tens of thousands of Haitian citizens were killed and far larger numbers fled the country.
Legal Controversy
The use of private military and security companies as proxies for states has a long and controversial background. While the legal issues surrounding PMCs and PMSCs be extremely complex, the following sources provide context for appreciating that complexity. For example, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has examined the legality of these actors on the battlefield (in both international and non-international armed conflicts (IACs and NIACs).[21] Additional commentary on PMCs/PMSCs is provided by Chiara Redelli who notes that:
First of all, it is necessary to distinguish between private military security companies (PMSCs) and mercenaries. PMSCs are private business entities that provide military or security assistance to states, companies, or other organizations. On the other hand, mercenaries are defined in Article 47 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions (AP I). It should be noted that seldom the staff of PMSCs can be considered a mercenary as defined in AP I.
IHL does not prohibit the use of PMSCs and mercenaries during armed conflicts. Nevertheless, two conventions ban the use of mercenaries in armed conflicts: the 1977 Organisation of African Unity Convention for the Elimination of Mercenarism in Africa and the 1989 International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries. These conventions criminalize not only the resort to mercenaries but also the participation in armed conflicts as a mercenary.[22]
The distinction between mercenaries and PMCs/PMSCs is further explored by Sean McFate in Mercenaries and War: Understanding Private Armies Today.[23] Additional details on PMCs/PMSCs are provided by the ICRC in How does Law Protect in War?[24] and by Medecins Sans Frontieres in “The Practical Guide to Humanitarian Law: Private Military Companies.”[25]
Regulating PMCs/PMSCs is an imperative for states—at least it should be. These entities can provide valuable services and expand state capacity. They can also challenge state capacity and legitimacy if not constrained by law. As Jelena Aparac, Gobor Rona, and Shista Shemeson note despite this importance only two non-legally binding instruments “of an international nature address their regulation: the Montreux Document (2008) and the International Code of Conduct (ICoC) ( (2010).”[26]
A good overview of the legal issues involving mercenaries on the battlefield is provided by Jeffrey S. Thurber in this essay for legal advisors at the Lieber Institutes’s Articles of War.[27] Both commanders and legal advisors could use this as a starting point for understanding the rise of mercenaries and PMCs/PMSCs in contemporary operations. In addition, Esti Tambay and Anna Khalfaoui provide a good overview of the issues surrounding prosecuting arms bearers from PMCs/PMSCs for international crimes while engaged in military operations through a brief case study of the implications of Wagner Group personnel in Urkraine.[28]
Conclusion
The potential use of PMCs/PMSCs as state proxies in Haiti’s criminal insurgency/crime war is problematic. The legal status of personnel operating in this arena is unclear. A review of the legal sources discussed above shows a lacuna in the international legal framework for addressing the use of proxy forces comprised of PMCs/PMSCs in these situations. Accountability for their actions is ambiguous and may inhibit the development of the state legitimacy necessary for containing the spread of gang warfare in fragile and weak states. Additional research and policy discussions are needed to address the gaps in both legal and operational capacity.[29]
Sources
Roberson Alphonse, “Will Haiti Turn to Private Firms in the Fight Against Armed Gangs?” Le Nouvelliste. 29 Apr. 2025, https://lenouvelliste.com/en/article/255720/will-haiti-turn-to-private-firms-in-the-fight-against-armed-gangs.
David C. Adams, Francis Robles, and Mark Mazzetti, “Haiti Enlists Blackwater Founder and Trump Ally to Take on Criminal Gangs.” New York Times. 28 May 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/28/us/haiti-erik-prince-blackwater-gangs.html.
Macollvie J. Neel, “Trump Ally Attempts to Recruit Haitian American Veterans for Haiti Mercenary Mission.” The Haitian Times. 29 May 2025, http://haitiantimes.com/2025/05/29/blackwater-haitian-american-veterans-haiti-mission/.
Brandy Knox, “Haiti enlists Blackwater founder Erik Prince to fight gang scourge with assassin drones.” Washington Examiner (at MSN). 31 May 2025, https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/haiti-enlists-blackwater-founder-erik-prince-to-fight-gang-scourge-with-assassin-drones/ar-AA1FFjGc.
Stavroula Pabst, “Erik Prince brings his mercenaries to Haiti. What could go wrong?” Responsible Statecraft. 6 June 2025, https://responsiblestatecraft.org/erik-prince/.
Endnotes
[1] David C. Adams, Francis Robles, and Mark Mazzetti, “Haiti Enlists Blackwater Founder and Trump Ally to Take on Criminal Gangs.” New York Times. 28 May 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/28/us/haiti-erik-prince-blackwater-gangs.html.
[2] Roberson Alphonse, “Will Haiti Turn to Private Firms in the Fight Against Armed Gangs?” Le Nouvelliste. 29 April 2025, https://lenouvelliste.com/en/article/255720/will-haiti-turn-to-private-firms-in-the-fight-against-armed-gangs.
[3] Jean-michel Newberg, Robert J. Bunker, and John P. Sullivan, “Third Generation Gangs Strategic Note No. 57: Designation of Haitian Viv Ansanm and Gran Grif as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs).” Small Wars Journal. 5 June 2025, https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/06/05/third-generation-gangs-strategic-note-no-57-designation-of-haitian-viv-ansanm-and-gran-grif-as-foreign-terrorist-organizations-ftos/.
[4] Ken Opala and Romain-Le-Cour Grandmaison, “A wasted opportunity? Haiti on the brink as Kenya’s aid mission remains paralyzed.” Global Initiative Against Organized Crime (GI-TOC). 14 May 2025, https://globalinitiative.net/analysis/haiti-kenya-mission-paralyzed/.
[5] Op. cit., Alphonse at Note 2.
[6] John P. Sullivan, “Terrorism, Crime and Private Armies.” Low Intensity Conflict & Law Enforcement. Vol. 11, no. 2–3, June 2002, pp. 239–53, https://doi.org/10.1080/0966284042000279018.
[7] Op. cit., Adams, Robles, and Mazzetti at Note 1.
[8] David Johnston, John M. Broder, “F.B.I. Says Guards Killed 14 Iraqis Without Cause.” New York Times. 17 November 2007, https://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/14/world/middleeast/14blackwater.html.
[9] United States Department of Justice, District of Columbia, “Four Former Blackwater Employees Found Guilty Of Charges.” Press Release. 22 October 2014, https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/four-former-blackwater-employees-found-guilty-charges.
[10] Creede Newton, “Erik Prince and the US foreign meddling investigation.” Al Jazeera. 6 April 2018, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/4/6/erik-prince-and-the-us-foreign-meddling-investigation.
[11] Marc Fisher, Ian Shapira and Emily Rauhala, “Behind Erik Prince’s China venture.” Washington Post. 4 May 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/world/wp/2018/05/04/feature/a-warrior-goes-to-china-did-erik-prince-cross-a-line/ and “Ally Dorian Barak steps into Erik Prince’s shoes at Frontier Services Group.” Africa Intelligence. 26 April 2021, https://www.africaintelligence.com/eastern-africa-and-the-horn/2021/04/26/ally-dorian-barak-steps-into-erik-prince-s-shoes-at-frontier-services-group,109660494-art.
[12] See, for instance, Noah Kirsch, “Blackwater’s Dark Prince Returns.” Forbes. 4 April 2018, https://www.forbes.com/return-of-erik-prince/#1c30083750aa and Kelley Beaucar Vlahos, “The Dark Prince.” Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. 29 March 2021, https://quincyinst.org/2021/03/29/the-dark-prince/.
[13] Daniel Noboa Azin [@DanielNoboaOk]. “Trabajamos sin descanso para cumplir con el país. ¡Lo estamos logrando! 🇪🇨.” X (Twitter). 11 March 2025, https://x.com/DanielNoboaOk/status/1899603651133374664.
[14] Jessica Donati and Sonia Rolley, “Exclusive: Trump supporter Prince reaches deal with Congo to help secure mineral wealth.” Reuters. 17 April 2025, https://www.reuters.com/world/trump-supporter-prince-reaches-deal-with-congo-help-secure-mineral-wealth-2025-04-17/.
[15] Op. cit., Adams, Robles, and Mazzetti at Note 1. See also Stavroula Pabst, “Erik Prince brings his mercenaries to Haiti. What could go wrong?” Responsible Statecraft. 6 June 2025, https://responsiblestatecraft.org/erik-prince/.
[16] “The Practical Guide to Humanitarian Law.” Medecins Sans Frontiers. n.d., https://guide-humanitarian-law.org/content/article/3/private-military-companies/.
[17] Lindsey Cameron, “Private military companies: their status under international humanitarian law and its impact on their regulation” International Review of the Red Cross. Vol. 88, no. 863, September 2006, pp. 573–598, https://international-review.icrc.org/articles/private-military-companies-their-status-under-international-humanitarian-law-and-its.
[18] Kimberly Martin, “Russia’s use of semi-state security forces: the case of the Wagner Group.” Post-Soviet Affairs. Vol. 35, no. 3. 2019, https://doi.org/10.1080/1060586X.2019.1591142.
[19] Robin Van Der Lugt, “The 1%: Doing Business with Proxy Military Companies.” Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights. December 2024, https://www.geneva-academy.ch/joomlatools-files/docman-files/The%201%20Percent%20Doing%20Business%20with%20Proxy%20Military%20Companies.pdf.
[20] “Corruption Perception Index.” Transparency International. 2004, https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2024.
[21] See the Special Issue on “Private military companies,” International Review of the Red Cross , IRRC no. 863: Private Military Companies, September 2006 , pp. 573–598, https://international-review.icrc.org/reviews/irrc-no-863-private-military-companies.
[22] Chiara Redaelli, “The involvement of mercenaries and private military security companies in armed conflicts: what does IHL say?”Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights. 9 November 2021, https://www.geneva-academy.ch/news/detail/482-the-involvement-of-mercenaries-and-private-military-security-companies-in-armed-conflicts-what-does-ihl-say.
[23] Sean McFate, Mercenaries and War: Understanding Private Armies Today. Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 2019.
[24] “Private military and security companies (PMSCs),” Casebook: How Does Law Protect in War? International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). n.d., https://casebook.icrc.org/a_to_z/glossary/private-military-and-security-companies-pmscs.
[25] “The Practical Guide to Humanitarian Law: Private Military Companies,’ Medecins Sans Frontieres. n.d.,https://guide-humanitarian-law.org/content/article/3/private-military-companies//.
[26] Jelena Aparac, Gabor Rona, and Shaista Shameem, “Regulating Private Military and Security Companies: What’s in it for States?: EJIL: Talk! 7 April 2025, https://www.ejiltalk.org/regulating-private-military-and-security-companies-whats-in-it-for-states/. The Montreux Document is available from the ICRC at https://www.icrc.org/sites/default/files/external/doc/en/assets/files/other/icrc_002_0996.pd.
[27] Jeffrey S. Thurnher, “Mercenaries on the Battlefield: What Legal Advisors Must Know.” Articles of War. (Lieber Institute, West Point), 2 December 2020, https://lieber.westpoint.edu/mercenaries-battlefield-legal-advisors/.
[28] Esti Tambay and Anna Khalfaoui, “Status of Private Military Companies Personnel under IHL: Implications for Prosecuting Members of the Wagner Group in Ukraine.” Opinio Juris. 14 November 2023, https://opiniojuris.org/2023/11/14/status-of-private-military-companies-personnel-under-ihl-implications-for-prosecuting-members-of-the-wagner-group-in-ukraine/.
[29] For additional context, see “Locked in Transition: Politics and Violence in Haiti.” International Crisis Group. Report No107. 19 February 2025, https://www.crisisgroup.org/latin-america-caribbean/caribbean/haiti/107-locked-transition-politics-and-violence-haiti and Christopher Sabatini and Robert Greenhill, “Haiti is Burning, but There is a Path Forward.” Foreign Policy. 2 June 2025, https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/06/03/haiti-blackwater-international-peacekeeping-mission/.
For Additional Reading
Sean McFate, Mercenaries and War: Understanding Private Armies Today. Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 2019.
John P. Sullivan and Robert J. Bunker, Eds., Strategic Notes on Third Generation Gangs. Bloomington: Xlibris, 2020.
John P. Sullivan and Robert J. Bunker, Eds., Third Generation Gangs and Transnational Cartels. Bloomington: Xlibris, 2025.
Jean-michel Newberg and Robert J. Bunker, “Third Generation Gangs Subject Bibliography No. 2: Haitian Gangs.” Small Wars Journal. 11 March 2025.
Jean-michel Newberg, Robert J. Bunker, and John P. Sullivan, “Third Generation Gangs Strategic Note No. 57: Designation of Haitian Viv Ansanm and Gran Grif as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs).” Small Wars Journal. 5 June 2025.
