The Wagner coverage asymmetry
=============================

The Wagner coverage asymmetry is John Kiriakou's account of why one private military company dominated American news in 2023 while its American counterparts went unmentioned.

Why Wagner is visible

Asked whether the Wagner Group's prominence underscored the outsized role of private military contractors in modern combat, Kiriakou agreed and supplied the mechanism: "the only reason we're getting press coverage on it is because the Wagner group doesn't belong to the United States. It's not run by Eric Prince, let's say. And so there's no real desire or necessity in the American media to keep it secret."

The counterpart is silence. "For example, we don't have any idea what our own private armies or our own special forces for that matter are doing in places like the Sahel or Somalia or Central Asia. We just don't know. It's not being reported. But my God, the Wagner group does something and it's on every show."

The political function

Kiriakou attached a second purpose to the volume of coverage. It kept American attention on Ukraine at a moment when that attention was slipping: "there's already been sort of crack in the foundation of the Republican Party where they just don't want to keep writing these checks, these blank checks to the Ukrainians."

He made the point immediately before turning to the Richard Haass back channel, the NBC News report published the same day, which he read as the quiet preparation of a diplomatic exit while the coverage ran the other way.

See also

- Rival factions in Libya
- The Richard Haass back channel
- Ukraine as a proxy war
