🌍 Can Erik Prince save Haiti?
Plus: Dude, where's my church?
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Today’s briefing: |
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Good morning Intriguer. Diplomacy ranks as one of the world’s oldest professions. One of the (many) other contenders is private security and protection.
In ancient times, that included protection for the elites, or private armies hired to wage war on behalf of aggrieved/bored monarchs.
Today, it lives on in the mercenary profession. And it’s hard to think of a country where mercenaries are now more central to daily life than Haiti. That’s our top story today.
Number of the day
4
That’s how many consecutive days of decline the S&P500 has seen this week, amid a broader tech sell-off fuelled by concerns of AI overvaluation.
Mercenaries in charge
Haiti's situation has been tenuous for decades, but it somehow got worse after the 2021 assassination of President Moïse — more than a million locals (aka ~10% of Haiti’s population) are now displaced, and gangs still control 90% of the capital!
You’ll recall the international community finally backed a Kenya-led security mission last year, but the understaffed and underfunded operation has made little progress, while gangs have killed at least two Kenyan cops.
Haiti’s transitional authority? Still wracked by infighting and corruption allegations.
“Then send in the UN!”, you might say. But not so fast. Two Security Council members (China and Russia) reject the idea, ostensibly out of concern for Haiti’s history of foreign interference, but inevitably also out of an interest in distracting the US via regional instability.
The UN chief himself is now ruling it out, too: the UN's last mission in Haiti caused one of the world's worst cholera outbreaks in modern history.
So that's where a mysterious company called Vectus Global enters the picture. Founded by infamous Blackwater billionaire Erik Prince, Vectus bills itself as a company “typically hired when critical services or capabilities fail and need to be restored.”
The group has been in Haiti since at least March, quietly deploying drones to help the country's beleaguered transitional administration. But in a rare interview, Prince has now revealed his mercenary group actually plans to…
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a) stay in Haiti for at least 10 years, and
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b) help set up a tax collection system to finance Haiti's struggling institutions (and presumably pay Prince's fees).
His metric for success? Prince says he’ll declare victory when anyone can “drive from Port-au-Prince to Cap Haitian in a thin-skinned vehicle and not be stopped by gangs.”
That's ambitious, even with hundreds of mercenaries joining him from the US, Europe and El Salvador.
Why? First, there's the practicality of wresting control back from gangs: just this week, for example, Vectus drones accidentally killed Haitian police instead of criminals.
Second, there's the long-term sustainability of an operation that (even if successful) leaves Haiti’s key institutions dependent on a private company that’ll eventually leave.
Third, there's the legality of all this: the precise arrangements between Vectus and Haiti's Transitional Council remain pretty opaque. And most tax revenue would be generated from goods entering via…
Fourth, the neighbours: the other half of this beautiful island (the Dominican Republic) has long ago lost patience, with Santo Domingo’s popular president ditching his pleas for international help and instead pledging to deport 10,000 Haitians home a week.
So it’s a bumpy road ahead, but at this point, our world doesn’t seem to be offering Haiti any other options.
Intrigue’s Take
We've written previously about spooked governments burrowing deeper into the private sector to rebuild their own sense of security, but Haiti is an example of the opposite playing out: beleaguered governments ceding more space to the private sector in core public functions beyond security, and even into something as central as tax collection.
It's arguably all an example of how the very idea of sovereignty is now evolving under pressure. Whether authorities retreat from tax collection or charge into tech and mining, these evolutions all still share the same basic challenge of how you preserve the basics of public accountability. But then…
Third, it's also an example of how sheer desperation today can be enough to normalise a move that would’ve seemed wild just years ago.
Meanwhile, elsewhere…
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🇪🇬 EGYPT – High alert. Comment: For Egypt, it’s about avoiding both a) the destabilising effects of mass displacement, but also b) being seen to enable or legitimise that displacement. |
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🇨🇳 CHINA – Xi visits Tibet. Comment: This is only Xi Jinping’s second-ever visit to Tibet, and it comes amid renewed speculation around the next Dalai Lama, weeks after the incumbent celebrated his 90th birthday in exile. While the Communist Party wants control over the selection process, the Dalai Lama’s latest book set Beijing into panic by announcing his successor will be born in the “free world”. |
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🇪🇺 EU – No guarantees. Comment: Until Europe’s re-armament takes hold, it’s that third pillar (US involvement) that would really make any security guarantees credible. But President Trump just reiterated his opposition to any US boots on the ground, and a top Pentagon official (Colby) is telling Europe that any US role will be minimal. Meanwhile, Russia is now insisting it will have to approve any security guarantees given to Ukraine, effectively undermining the whole endeavour. |
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🇰🇵 NORTH KOREA – You can’t sell those. Comment: It’s a little wild the North Koreans tried sourcing arms direct from the US, though Pyongyang might’ve calculated that America’s vast civilian firearms market presented opportunities that outweighed the risks of US counterintelligence. |
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🇺🇸 US – Add them to the list. Comment: Interestingly, it’s playing out not just as an overture to Pakistan, but also Pakistan’s backers in Beijing, who’ve long bristled at Baloch attacks on Chinese nationals and Belt and Road infrastructure projects across Pakistan. |
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🇳🇿 NEW ZEALAND – First spy conviction. |
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🇩🇰 DENMARK – No tax on books. |
Extra Intrigue
Here’s what people around the world are googling
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🇮🇹 Italian music fans googled ‘Maneskin reunion’ as news broke the rock band is planning a reunion tour.
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Folks in 🇧🇷 Brazil wanted info on the mysterious ‘avião americano no Brasil’ (American plane in Brazil), as speculation swirls around an unmarked CIA ‘gatekeeper’ jet that landed briefly in Porto Alegre before continuing its voyage.
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And 🇮🇳 Indian netizens searched for ‘extreme rainfall alert’ as Mumbai experienced over 400mm of rain in 36 hours.
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Feat of the day
@bjoernjaevel via Twitter/X.
Imagine waking up one morning, dropping your frosted strawberry PopTart in the toaster, then glancing outside while opening up the latest edition of Intrigue, only to realise the church that’s been sitting across the road for over a century is gone!
You start to question everything you thought you knew: am I dreaming? where am I? was the third season of The White Lotus really that bad? Then you open up Intrigue, and learn that Swedish authorities had to relocate the historic church opposite your home in the town of Kiruna because a nearby iron ore mine was posing a ground subsidence risk.
Turns out it took two whole days to shift the house of worship 5km (3mi) because the special trailer moved at 0.5 kph (0.3 mph), just slightly faster than a giant tortoise.
Then you kept reading to check out Intrigue’s latest poll.
Today’s poll
Beyond boots on the ground, what do you think the international community should do to help Haiti? |
Yesterday’s poll: Which screen medium do you think wields the most cultural clout?
🎥 Movies (21%)
📺 TV series (37%)
🎮 Video games (5%)
📱 Vertical 'mini dramas' (3%)
💻 YouTube (31%)
✍️ Other (write in!) (2%)
Your two cents:
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📺 M.C: “Series is the key. Humans are hardwired to follow a story until the end.“
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💻 J.M.W: “Everyone under age 35 that I know only watches YouTube, so if it isn't the main medium now, it will be soon.”
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🎥 J.W.A: “Movies are easier to consume as they’re less of a ‘commitment’ to watch while still being gratifying.”
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✍️ C.O: “Social media is arguably (and algorithmically) the most intense screen based battle ground for both subtle and overt attempts to influence or manipulate.”