"The Yugoslav Wars Never Ended; They Just Entered into Global Circulation" (With John Lechner)
On the afterlives of the wars of the 1990s
It’s Christmas, which means it’s a fantastic time to buy yourself or someone else a very last minute monthly subscription to my Substack. At just $5, it costs about the same as a single cup of coffee.
This week, I’m continuing with my experiment in adding video interviews to this newsletter. I may keep doing it or I may not–it really depends on how I feel. As ever, I'm happy to hear feedback about what you prefer.
For this week’s interview, I finally got to talk to John Lechner, a great writer, journalist and exceptionally talented linguist who wrote Death is Our Business: Russian Mercenaries and the New Era of Private Warfare, one of my favorite books of the year. John and I spoke about Death is Our Business, with a special emphasis on the Balkans, Ukraine and Syria. We also talked about what motivates mercenaries and mujahideen to go and fight, the afterlives of the Balkan Wars of the 1990s in Ukraine and Syria, and the idea that “the Yugoslav Wars never ended; they just entered into global circulation”. We also revisit the battle between Wagner and the US military in Syria in 2018 and Wagner leader Yevgeny Prighozin’s love of Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony.
You can follow John on X.