Making a Killing
The Business of War
an 11-part series
from The Center for Public
Integrity website
Amid the military downsizing
and increasing number of small conflicts that followed the end
of the Cold War, governments turned increasingly to private military
companies a recently coined euphemism for mercenaries
to intervene on their behalf in war zones around the globe. Often,
these companies work as proxies for national or corporate interests,
whose involvement is buried under layers of secrecy. Entrepreneurs
selling arms and companies drilling and mining in unstable regions
have prolonged the conflicts.
A nearly two-year investigation
by the Center for Public Integrity's International Consortium
of Investigative Journalists has also found that a handful of
individuals and companies with connections to governments, multinational
corporations and, sometimes, criminal syndicates in the United
States, Europe, Africa and the Middle East have profited from
this war commerce -- a growth industry whose bottom line never
takes into account the lives it destroys.
Weapons page
Index
of Website
Home Page
The Business of War