Nicholas Machiavelli, in his political treatise ‘The Prince’, threw some warnings about mercenary forces of which some great rulers such as Napoleon (who wrote his own comments on the Florentine’s work) took note, but perhaps not Vladimir Putin. This is Machiavelli’s view of these military forces:
“Mercenaries and auxiliaries are useless and dangerous; and The prince whose government rests on mercenary soldiers will never be safe or calm, because they are disunited, because they are ambitious, disloyal, brave among friends, but cowardly when faced with enemies; because they have no discipline, just as they have no fear of God or good faith with men; so that the ruin is not deferred until the rupture is deferred; and already during peace they despoil their prince as much as their enemies during war, since they have no other love or motive that leads them to battle than the prince’s pay, which, moreover, is not enough for them to desire die for him. They want to be his soldiers while the prince does not make war; but as soon as the war ensues, they either flee or ask for the discharge”.
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Machiavelli, of course, was thinking of another type of mercenary, very different from the prisoners released from the Wagner group who have joined a real coup, but rather of the forces that had led to “the current ruin of Italy” against foreign powers. .
“Mercenary captains -he added- either they are men of merit or they are not; they cannot be trusted if they are, because they will always aspire to forge their own greatness, already trying to subdue the prince his lord, already trying to oppress others outside of the prince’s designs; and much less if they are not, because they will surely lead the prince to ruin”. The Florentine recommended instead that a principality or a Republic have “own militias” directed by the sovereign.