Mercenaries: Scourge of the Developing World 1999 Edition Contributor(s): Arnold, Guy (Author) |
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ISBN: 0312222033 ISBN-13: 9780312222031 Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan OUR PRICE: $104.49 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: November 1999 Annotation: Mercenaries have been employed as auxiliaries since early times, but in the post-1945 world they have operated, almost exclusively, in weak Third World countries. From Columbia to the Congo, Angola to Papua New Guinea, Cambodia to Nicaragua, they have appeared: training the drug cartel armies, assisting rebellions or civil wars, acting as the agents of the major powers. In the Congo crisis (1960-1965) they earned an especially unsavory reputation for greed, brutality and racism; it is a reputation that has stuck to the mercenary and on the whole justly. During the 1990s a new phenomenon has emerged in the form of the mercenary corporations such as Executive Outcomes or Sandline. These corporations offer a range of military expertise and weaponry, have the covert support of governments in the countries from which they come and are rapidly becoming a power to themselves, ultimately far more dangerous than the individual freebooters of the past. |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - History | Military - Wars & Conflicts (other) - History | Revolutionary - History | Military - General |
Dewey: 355.354 |
LCCN: 99-18562 |
Physical Information: 0.77" H x 6.2" W x 9.42" (0.95 lbs) 198 pages |
Themes: - Cultural Region - Developing World |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: Mercenaries have been employed as auxiliaries since early times, but in the post-1945 world they have operated, almost exclusively, in weak Third World countries. From Columbia to the Congo, Angola to Papua New Guinea, Cambodia to Nicaragua, they have appeared: training the drug cartel armies, assisting rebellions or civil wars, acting as the agents of the major powers. In the Congo crisis (1960-1965) they earned an especially unsavory reputation for greed, brutality and racism; it is a reputation that has stuck to the mercenary and on the whole justly. During the 1990s a new phenomenon has emerged in the form of the mercenary corporations such as Executive Outcomes or Sandline. These corporations offer a range of military expertise and weaponry, have the covert support of governments in the countries from which they come and are rapidly becoming a power to themselves, ultimately far more dangerous than the individual freebooters of the past. |