That the world is awash in weapons is not news. But the way weapons large and small flow from the United States, Britain and other producers to the world’s villains is ever astonishing. In “The Shadow World,” Andrew Feinstein gives us a sweeping and troubling story of how this happens, who benefits, and what consequences follow.
It is troubling because we have been at it for so long — the United States has been easily the largest arms exporter in the post-Cold War era — and still can’t seem to learn the ABCs of the arms trade: (A) the weapons we produce and sell or give away very often fall into the hands of people who want to use them to shoot at us; (B) the networks of arms merchants are also attracted to other forms of illicit commerce, like nuclear materials, drugs and human trafficking; and (C) the purported benefits of sustaining the “defense industrial base” by exporting weapons are grossly exaggerated. Yet none of these sturdy facts deters policy makers of all political persuasions from pushing lethal technologies onto petty tyrants and intermittent allies in Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia and indeed just about everywhere else.
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux) - ‘The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade’ by Andrew Feinstein
Feinstein, a South African politicianwho helped expose an infamous arms scandal involving $100 million in bribes allegedly paid to ANC politicians, writes with a crusading spirit and a depth of detail that lend “The Shadow World” urgency and authority. Many of the sensational stories he tells have earned attention before, but he adds depth and shows how often patterns repeat. The essential method of arms dealing is bribery, payoffs on a grand scale that enrich both the elites in the buying country and the arms makers in the selling country. While political agendas at times play a role in who gets what, the reigning ideology in the shadow world is greed.
The Saudis come in for a thrashing on this, the corrupters par excellence. Feinstein draws scathing portraits of Prince Bandar and Prince Turki, among other familiar figures in Washington, whose thirst for extravagance was matched only by their sheer brazenness in the arts of exploitation. For example, when quashing a British inquiry into bribery in the largest-ever arms deal, the so-called Al-Yamanah (“The Dove”) sale of British fighter jets to the Saudis, Bandar threatened to stop further purchases and intelligence cooperation if the inquiry went forward, a threat he delivered to Tony Blair at No. 10 Downing Street, saying that the cessation of Saudi intelligence cooperation would lead to “blood on the streets of London.” Blair buckled.
Less spectacular but just as consequential is the exploitation at work in antiterrorism. The meteoric growth of the homeland security state provides fresh opportunities for military contractors, who, like Lockheed, have diversified nimbly into the antiterrorism business. No one really knows how much has been spent on homeland security, but it surely approaches $1 trillion in the United States alone. For the arms merchants, the post-9/11 wars have also been, in the words of an army official quoted by Feinstein, “a feeding frenzy.” Iraq and Afghanistan have been good business not only for the usual giants of the military industry, but for many others in the darker recesses of the business.
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