Today’s guest is John Lechner, a writer and researcher. He's here today to talk about his new book about the Wagner Group, a Russian state-funded private military group, or PMC. The book is called Death Is Our Business: Russian Mercenaries and the New Era of Private Warfare, and is out March 4th (you can preorder it here). It’s a crazy read, and draws on multiple trips John took to frontlines in Ukraine, Syria, Libya, the Central African Republic, and Mali.

As a mutual friend told me, “John knows more about the Wagner Group than anyone not in the Wagner Group.” I asked John to help me better understand how state capacity works, through the lens of private military companies.

Some questions I came into our conversation with:

* How does a private military company (PMC) work? What’s the bureaucratic structure of a PMC?

* How does a successful PMC operate? How does it scale?

* How does a state like Russia use a PMC for its own ends (and how do PMCs use states for their own ends)?

* How do Russian PMCs like Wagner compare to American PMCs like Blackwater?

Read the full transcript of this episode at www.statecraft.pub.