Master of War: Blackwater USA's Erik Prince and the Business of War Review

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Master of War: Blackwater USA's Erik Prince and the Business of War ReviewSimons begins "Master of War" telling us us that "No company has ever amassed Blackwater's size, strength, and full-service military capabilities . . . within a few short years it boasted more weaponry, manpower, and high-tech systems than many small countries." A good buildup, but the book fails to deliver any information of significance.
Erik Prince, its founder, grew up in a well-to-family (family business was sold for $1.35 billion after father died at an early age) with family friends that included Chuck Colson, Gary Bauer, and James Dobson. Erik's was admitted to the Naval Academy, but left in his sophomore year because of "overly stringent rules," then enrolled in and graduated from Hillsdale College, became a White House Fellow, and ended up transferring to Rep. Dana Rohrabacher's office. Prince became enamored with Navy OCS and becoming a Seal, which he accomplished. However, after about two years, Prince resigned at a time when his wife was battling cancer (eventually died) and his family was dealing with issues following his father's death.
Prince decided to focus on providing training facilities for Navy Seals that would be superior to what he had experienced. Soon was providing assistance training local law enforcement, then began picking up Navy contracts after getting on the approved contractor's list. (Prince was also a major Republican donor, though the book does not link those donations to favors received.) Eventually became a contractor providing security for Paul Bremer in Baghdad - State Dept. supposedly lacked the ability to do so in a combat zone. Prince's wealth also allowed the company to provide helicopters, according to Simons.
Blackwater became famous when four of its contractors were killed and hung from a bridge in Fallujah. There were about 170 private security companies in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Blackstone alleges that it was constantly being blamed for the acts of the others - eg. running a U.S. division commander off the road, unwarranted killings of Iraqi civilians, etc. Blackwater started with $200,000 in contracts in 2000, and ended up with over $1 billion income in the next seven years. Simons explains very little of how that occurred. Blackwater employees were paid $500-$600/day for a variety of duties, including training Afghan police and other personnel.
Blackwater's downfall began in Sept. 2007 when it's contractors shot up the area in Nisoor Square - alleging they were fired upon first - 14-17 civilians were killed. By the time investigators initiated their inquiry, the evidence had been "cleaned up." Five contractors have been charged, one is cooperating with authorities; the company has not been charged. Regardless, the Iraq government banned Blackwater from operating within its borders.
"Master of War" offers little to commend reading it - my suspicion is that the author did little research beyond interviewing its CEO. If you're looking for an expose, this isn't it.Master of War: Blackwater USA's Erik Prince and the Business of War Overview

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Corporate Soldiers and International Security: The Rise of Private Military Companies (Contemporary Security Studies) Review

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Corporate Soldiers and International Security: The Rise of Private Military Companies (Contemporary Security Studies) ReviewKinsey makes a clinical contribution to the study of private warriors and military corporations. His attempt to define the various Private Military Firms that exist bogs the effort down and confuses when attempting to introduce an accepted typology. He acknowledges the difficulty in the exercise but falls victim to it nonetheless. Outside of this, he does a great job summarizing this history of freelancers through mercenaries to current day "contractors". He raises the need for greater oversight and regulatory guidelines for the entire industry. A solid contribution but retreads much of the same ground P.W. Singer covered in 2003 in Corporate Warriors.Corporate Soldiers and International Security: The Rise of Private Military Companies (Contemporary Security Studies) Overview

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Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army Review

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Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army ReviewI read this book in one night after hearing Mr. Scahill speak in Washington DC. The book is a remarkable and bracing wake up call about the privatization of war and how that subverts even basic notions of democracy. I find it remarkable that people criticize Mr. Scahill for using terms like "radical Christian right" - as if these terms are caricatures and ad hominem attacks. Hardly. In fact Schaill then spends hundreds of pages breaking down exactly what is so "radical Christian right" about Blackwater. He is a serious journalist who has uncovered a story that is both illuminating and frightening. It's hard to have any respect for people who say "I didn't even get to the first page" and then feel like they can write a review on its content.
Last point: As good a writer as Scahill is, he's a better public speaker. People should go hear what he has to say. These aren't easy truths to consume, but they are truths that define and explain the current calamaties unleashed on the worldBlackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army Overview

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Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry, Updated Edition (Cornell Studies in Security Affairs) Review

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Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry, Updated Edition (Cornell Studies in Security Affairs) ReviewThroughout history, private interests have performed military duties and always proved a critical political factor. Celts and Germans worked in the Roman Emperor's personal Praetorian Guard, King Edward I employed professional companies of archers, and the Swiss fought all over Europe, and are still guarding the Vatican. It's only in the 19th and 20th centuries that the state has become the sole legitimate agent in the conduct of military operations. The 1990s, however, have witnessed the emergence of private organized interests at every level of military operations. The twist comes because today these private military firms (PMFs) are organized as twenty first century corporations, with business plans and long term profit objectives.
Singer's analysis begins with an account of private military interests in ancient and modern times. This gets us used to the idea that PMFs have been around before and are really nothing new. In the second section, Singer classifies PMFs in three segments, each characterized by how far its activities are from actual fighting. First and most obvious there are the military provider firms that place frontline military units (e.g. Executive Outcomes) second there are the consulting firms who train and shape a client's military (e.g. Military Professional Resources Inc.) and third there are the firms that provide logistical and support services such as food delivery (e.g. Brown and Root).
Lastly, Singer examines the implications of using PMFs, which of course being corporations are motivated by profit. Singer illustrates how seemingly simple precepts result in fiendishly complex moral problems.
Do we feel uneasy at for-profit military firms? Of course we do and so we are tempted to dismiss any question of using them. But In 1994, one of the more unsavory firms, Executive Outcomes, created a plan that for some 150 million dollars could have stopped the Rwandan genocide and saved hundreds of thousands of lives.(*) The UN Security Council balked at the costs, nothing was done until the genocide was well under way and half a million people were butchered.
Do we support relief organizations such as CARE? Do we give them money? I do. But how should we feel about the Red Cross and CARE using that money to hire PMFs as protection? Is it right for them to support PMFs? Is it right of us to expect them to go into dangerous situation with inadequate UN or local military protection?
Singer's conclusions are only tentative, and given the emphasis he's placed on how complex the moral dilemma is, this is only proper. He neither condemns nor supports the rise of PMFs, he merely states that they exist and are on the rise, he describes how they operate, and he points out the practical and moral dilemmas that arise from making use of them. He ends with a rewording of the proverb that war is too important to be left to generals: war is too important to be left to private industry. In other words, he warns us that while PMFs are here to stay we must keep them in check and on a leash.
Vincent Poirier, Tokyo
(*) See comments for more on this.
VPCorporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry, Updated Edition (Cornell Studies in Security Affairs) Overview

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Licensed to Kill: Hired Guns in the War on Terror Review

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Licensed to Kill: Hired Guns in the War on Terror ReviewLicensed to Kill is Robert Young Pelton's broad survey of the modern world of mercenaries. Strike that, of contractors. Mercenaries, after all, as Doug Brooks of IPOA (International Peace Operations Association) said in the movie Shadow Company: anyone convicted as being a mercenary should be shot along with his lawyer (Doug, pardon my paraphrasing). Regardless, Pelton's subtitle captures what these guys are: hired guns. Or as one of the contractors in the book put it: "guns with legs".
Pelton's book is (or can be) a quick read. It's conversational, often with the feel that you're sitting in a pub having a beer while he tells you a story (as you do in his World's Most Dangerous Places books). For me, however, it wasn't a quick read. I found myself highlighting sentences, scribbling in the margins, and applying colored flags for quick and future reference. Pelton may challenge the journalist\ community with how he gets into the action (journos not always being the type who will ride with the bad guy when something might happen), but this is how he gets the facts, the story, and the respect that opens doors later. A perpetual cycle, his access gets him more access and so on. Unlike other others who seek to justify a point of view, Pelton comes off balanced, telling it like it is and, very importantly, with context.
Licensed to Kill is more than a narrative of private operators, it is an almost forensic look into the use of private military forces. High profile actors in the world of hired guns, such as Erik Prince and Blackwater, Tim Spicer, Simon Mann, and Michael Grunburg (profiled deeper in Three Worlds Gone Mad) of various ventures, and even a con-artist who's convinced he's the greatest American hero.
This book is a great resource that pulls the curtain aside to see how PMCs operate, a look into their motivations, and where they are being used. If you're not provoked to learn more, you're not paying attention.Licensed to Kill: Hired Guns in the War on Terror Overview

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WAR DOG: Fighting Other People's Wars -The Modern Mercenary in Combat Review

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WAR DOG: Fighting Other People's Wars -The Modern Mercenary in Combat ReviewAll I can say is reading this was a very emotional experience as I relived some of those memories from Ventor's book, War Dog.
It is not only a work of truth but an amazing story of historical facts that should be read by anyone who truly wants to understand the nature of modern, post cold war conflict and how closely integrated international economy is with these small wars.
He also, speaks not only of the 'contrary to popular opinion' fact, that most modern mercs were former distinguished soldiers who left their service and continue to serve with more honor than many civilians will ever know or have. Mercs who also were smart enough to see a way to make some money doing what they were already good at from years of service. Mercs who risk their lives for causes, not just money, and that many of these causes, still actually serve the good of their own homelands through indirect means.
Also, they understand that many of their enemies are not out for anything other than pure greed and will stop at no inhumane horror to attempt achieving this. Using child soldiers, hacking off limbs of old people with dull machetes, taking bets and then cutting the babies out of pregnant women to see if it's a boy or girl that falls out...
These mercs understand what no politician or self professed peace lover will ever understand or be able to say, much less take action on...And that is that some people in this world are not kind, but ruthless and the only way to stop them is with force...
And that's what this book is all about, these men who choose to lay their lives on the line, sure for some money, if they live and when they get paid (if ever), but mostly for a cause they believe in, in places most can't even fathom and in ways, many will never understand, until they live it.
These men fall in love with a woman, or a country, or an ideal and often, money is the least of their motives. Read for yourself and form your own opinion. This is the closest to ground truth anyone can ever get without actually going there and living through it- if they live though it.
For me, my tour in Africa in some ways, was one of my quietest in terms of combat actually fought, as my wars were in other places. But, in terms of the blood shed and horrors of inhumanity, I've seen nothing like these wars.
And, I've seen nothing like the brave men I met there. The Russian crews I served with were some of the best ever and the South African men I met and worked with there, make many heros look small in comparison. To those men go the real honors and salutations.
And to Ventor for capturing it, so that their stories will be told, the truth will be know, people can understand and maybe, just maybe, someone somewhere, who is in a position to make a change, might just do so and in that, all our efforts combined, will make a difference.
A good read, a better book and a great story for everyone who seeks to understand where we are and where we're going.
Salute!
>>----->WAR DOG: Fighting Other People's Wars -The Modern Mercenary in Combat OverviewMercenaries have been around since the dawn of civilization, yet today they are little understood. While many modern freelance fighters provide support for larger military establishments, others wage war where the great powers refuse. In War Dog, Al Venter examines the latter, in the process he unveils a remarkable array of close-quarters combat action.

Having personally visited everywhere he describes, Venter is the rare correspondent who had to carry an AK-47 in his research along with his notebook and camera. To him, covering mercenary actions meant accompanying the men into the thick of combat. During Sierra Leone's civil war, he flew in the government's lone Hind gun ship-piloted by the heroic chopper ace "Nellis"-as it flew daily missions to blast apart rebel positions. In this book Venter describes the battles of the South African mercenary company Executive Outcomes and after stemming the tide of Jonas Savimbi's UNITA army in Angola they headed north to hold back vicious rebels in West Africa.

This book is not only about triumph against adversity but also losses, as Venter relates the death and subsequent cannibalistic fate of his American friend, Bob MacKenzie, in Sierra Leone. Here we see the plight of thousands of civilians fleeing from homicidal jungle warriors, as well as the professionalism of the mercenaries who fought back with one hand and attempted to train government troops with the other.

The American public, as well as its military, largely sidestepped the horrific conflicts that embroiled Africa during the past two decades. But as Venter informs us, there were indeed small numbers of professional fighters on the ground, defending civilians and attempting to conjure order from chaos.

In this book we gain an intimate glimpse of this modern breed of warrior in combat. Not laden with medals, or even guaranteed income, they have fought some of the toughest battles in the post- Cold War era. They simply are, and perhaps always will be, "War Dogs."



REVIEWS

"A disturbing insight into the ever growing world of unconventional private armies. Like it or not, Venter tells it to us the way it is."John Le Carre

"In this work Al Venter has delved into the real-life exploits of the War Dogs... to illuminate how the privateers have continued to conduct battle in the wake of the Colonial Age.The true stories in this work are more impressive than fiction, and in terms of Africa, this book should be on the must read list for the U.S. State Department and British Foreign Office." Frederick Forsyth

"...a gripping and hugely informative read. ...highly recommended. ...impressive and enlightening."The Herald, 07/2008

"...a remarkable read with thriller moments that take you deep into the action"Raider, 11/2008

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