| Mercenaries: Scourge of the Developing World 1999 Edition Contributor(s): Arnold, Guy (Author) |
|
 |
ISBN: 0333733878 ISBN-13: 9780333733875 Publisher: MacMillan OUR PRICE: $104.49 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: August 1999 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - History | Military - Wars & Conflicts (other) - History | Revolutionary - Technology & Engineering | Military Science |
| Dewey: 355.354 |
| LCCN: 99-18562 |
| Physical Information: 0.63" H x 5.5" W x 8.5" (0.92 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. |