Follow us on social

Prince-scaled

When opportunity knocks: Erik Prince pops up in Afghanistan chaos

The privateer is reportedly doing what he does best — lending a hand to stranded souls for cold hard cash.

Analysis | Asia-Pacific

One shouldn't be surprised to find Erik Prince popping up amid the chaos of the Afghanistan withdrawal. Or, that he is trying to profit from it.

Reports today indicate that he is offering to fly stranded people from the Kabul airport on his private plane for $6,500 — for extra, he will extricate people who are cannot get to the airport.

There are few details in the Wall Street Journal article and no sense where this nugget came from, or what kind of resources he has. A former Navy Seal, Prince is the founder of Blackwater, a private security company infamous for its work on behalf of the U.S. government in the early years of the 9/11 wars. He has had his hand in several incarnations and a litany of privateering schemes since then. Most recently he was accused (but has denied) of violating the arms embargo in Libya in a plot to arm militant Gen. Khalifa Haftar so he could overthrow the transitional government there. He has also been connected to a proposal to build a private army for Ukraine against the Russians. He has been tied to the UAE, Somalia and the Chinese government. In fact, his last company Frontier Services Group, co-founded in 2014, reportedly had a contract to train Chinese police in Beijing and build a training center in Xinjiang, home to the imprisoned minority Uighurs.

At any given time, Prince has had access to more than guns. He's had planes and even ships to battle pirates on the high seas. Most of his gun-for-hire proposals never pan out, and his multi-billion-dollar salad days with the federal government seem to be behind him. Maybe even his primo access to Capitol Hill (his connections to Trump put him in the hot seat during the Russiagate period, and his sister Betsy DeVos is no longer the education secretary) is gone too.

But that doesn't mean he's out of the game. Clearly, where there is human misery and conflict, Prince is around, nibbling at the edges of opportunity. Kind of like the "Howling Man," in that Twilight Zone episode:

Wherever there was sin. Wherever there was strife. Wherever there was corruption. And persecution. There he was also. Sometimes he was only a spectator, a face in the crowd. But, always, he was there.


Erik Prince arrives New York Young Republican Club Gala at The Yale Club of New York City in Manhattan in New York City, New York, U.S., November 7, 2019. REUTERS/Jeenah Moon
Analysis | Asia-Pacific
Cutting commands is just the start for broken military system
Top photo credit: NORFOLK, Va. (Apr. 15, 2008) Navy Capt. Patricia Cole, director of the Tailored Maritime Operations Center (T-MOC) at the Naval Network Warfare Command, inspects fellow officers during a command-wide bi-annual uniform inspection. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Corey Lewis File# 080415-N-2147L-001

Cutting commands is just the start for broken military system

Military Industrial Complex

On April 30, new Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Stuart Scheller, a former Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel, announced his intent to push for military reform, echoing the frustrations that led to his 2021 court-martial for publicly criticizing the Afghanistan withdrawal.

His call for accountability resonates with my decades-long work as an advocate for transforming the broken U.S. military personnel and leadership systems and addressing the deep-rooted issues in military culture. These would include bloated bureaucracies, careerism, a lack of ethical leadership, and fossilized military doctrine — all which Scheller’s remarks brought into sharp focus.

keep readingShow less
Emmanuel Macron,  Keir Starmer, Friedrich Merz
Top image credit: TIRANA, ALBANIA - MAY 16: France's President Emmanuel Macron, Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Germany's Chancellor Friedrich Merz speak during a Ukraine security meeting at the 6th European Political Community summit on May 16, 2025 at Skanderbeg Square in Tirana, Albania. Leon Neal/Pool via REUTERS

In twist, Europe appears to be deliberately undermining Iran talks

Europe

In a dangerous echo of past miscalculations, the E3 — France, Germany, and the United Kingdom — are once again escalating tensions with Iran, this time by threatening to trigger the reinstatement of U.N. Security Council sanctions (the so-called “snapback”) if U.S.-Iran nuclear talks collapse.

The E3 sees such a step as deploying leverage to force concessions from Iran on its nuclear program. However, it risks derailing diplomacy entirely and plunging the Middle East into deeper crisis.

Leading this charge is France, reprising its role as the E3’s most hawkish voice, reminiscent of its hard line in the JCPOA negotiations in 2015. At a closed-door U.N. Security Council meeting on proliferation at the end of April, French Foreign Minister Jean Noël Barrot exemplified this combative turn, saying that if the U.S. – Iran talks do not bear fruit, France and its European partners “will not hesitate for a second to reimpose all the sanctions that were lifted 10 years ago.”

keep readingShow less
Zelensky
Top photo credit: Volodymyr Zelensky (Shutterstock/Dmytro Larin)

The 2026 bill for the Ukraine war is already in the mail

Europe

Ukraine is already asking for more money to continue fighting into 2026, a sure sign that President Volodmyr Zelensky has no plans to end the war.

With the battlefield continuing to favor Russia, European leaders have their collective heads in the sand on who will pay. How long before President Trump walks away?

keep readingShow less

LATEST

QIOSK

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.