ben_sch's review against another edition
3.0
I've been trying to understand the cold war better, because when I was reading the history of the atomic bomb and nuclear (un)safety, I had a bunch of questions, largely around why did the cold war seem.... way more 'fake' than I had assumed?
- Why were the plans for nuclear war not anything like a real plan, but literally a plan to place 3 nukes on every population center and installation of any kind in Russia and China [despite that
- Why was the U.S spending hundreds of millions on missile systems that didn't work, and this was just mentioned in a single off hand comment?
- Why was it so politically advantageous, at all levels all the up to the president, to pretend that Russia was much more dangerous than it actually was? Examples of this include Kennedy campaigning on the missile gap, George H.W. Bush setting up Team B to come up with an alternate analysis of the missile count to show more missiles, other incidents involving Reagan, Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld]
On attempting to answer the second question, I started thinking about the Military Industrial Complex, which I had previously just assumed was a slur used by hippies who want to feel comfortable being angry about something.
The phrase comes from a speech president Eisenhower made before he left office, as a warning. It turns out a concern of his was how to demilitarize the united states after WW2, since the entire country had been turned into a war economy. Part of his strategy was to implement the New Look policy (1953), which emphasized a shift towards nuclear weapons as a cheap alternative to a large military force. He then implemented a series of propaganda campaigns, such as radio and tv programs, to emphasize that the Russians also had nukes and we needed to make more, as cover to allow him downsize the traditional military. This somewhat backfired because people were more terrified than expected, and politicians were able to capitalize on the fear and demand that we increase our our defenses and build more missiles. All within this, military contractors were doing their best to sell as much as possible to military, capitalizing on the defense budget. At least, this is my current understanding of part of the tale that is told less often. (New look did lots of other things talked about more often, like support non-communist allies abroad, contemplate escalation to nuclear war from conventional war, etc, that contributed to increased conflict)
Which brings us to the military contractors, famously Lockheed Martin. What's going on here? First off, as seen in Skunk Works, part of their business was making the best planes the U.S. airforce has ever seen, often quite quickly and under budget. This was going on while other parts of the business where having huge cost overruns, overcharging the government, and bribing members of other countries to buy their airplanes.
Here's some info from the current book[the shadow world]
- so it's pretty common for arms manufacturers to give commissions to the people in the other country that help the purchase of airplane/guns/missles/rpgs/etc. This is illegal in some countries and is called a bribe, but often it's not illegal because they are doing it in a roundabout way, or between countries. The author often seemed to think of this as super bad, but salespeople get commissions and if you help your government buy 70 billion dollars of stuff, why should I care if some prince or executive gets a bonus of 200k or a million?
- answer: Often the commissions are about 1-2% of the sale, so it can be a lot more than 200k.
- a lot of the times arms sales are illegal, but they happen anyways. For example, if the U.S. Congress blocks your sales of airplanes, you can construct a runway that is halfway across the the u.s. Canadian border, and move them to Canada, then deliver them to your country!
- generally, it seems like the defense industry is a pretty inefficient market, too-big-to-fail, bureaucratic, etc. It seems like this is an issue that both the government and those within the industry are upset about, and it largely comes down to new regulations being needed, and having been needed for a long time, but never getting implemented. (Why?)
- Arms deals pretty much vary from slightly shady to very shady. Book covered many arms networks and dealers in depth.
This journalist seemed to operate as if the Merchants of Death hypothesis was true, namely that arms dealers purposefully lobby for war and perpetuate conflict with a profit motive. It's also true that governments and warlords have a desire for weapons, and I have a hard time faulting weapons dealers for giving into molochian incentives --- if they didn't sell, someone else would. But throughout the book I kept being reminded of Stephen Pinker's thesis, where despite these massive arms deals, war and violence has generally diminished. In some cases it was clear that the arms trade increased the violence, as the Rwandan genocide happened only once they were able to acquire the arms shipments allowing them to do so. Just in general, something about this in this area is confusing to me.
On the political connections between the defense contractors and the government --- some of what I'm supposed to be upset about here seems to rely on assumptions that I don't understand. Why is it bad that there is a revolving door between the DoD and defense contractors? Isn't there a revolving door among many other parts of the private sector and government? (Banking... lobbying...) Sometimes I think that I might need a better imagination to understand how government *could* be, but it seems most ideas completely ignore the constraints of human nature.
Then with the lobbying of Lockheed --- I don't understand why politicians are so influenced by jobs and money going to their district? Do voters really care about jobs?
- Why were the plans for nuclear war not anything like a real plan, but literally a plan to place 3 nukes on every population center and installation of any kind in Russia and China [despite that
- Why was the U.S spending hundreds of millions on missile systems that didn't work, and this was just mentioned in a single off hand comment?
- Why was it so politically advantageous, at all levels all the up to the president, to pretend that Russia was much more dangerous than it actually was? Examples of this include Kennedy campaigning on the missile gap, George H.W. Bush setting up Team B to come up with an alternate analysis of the missile count to show more missiles, other incidents involving Reagan, Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld]
On attempting to answer the second question, I started thinking about the Military Industrial Complex, which I had previously just assumed was a slur used by hippies who want to feel comfortable being angry about something.
The phrase comes from a speech president Eisenhower made before he left office, as a warning. It turns out a concern of his was how to demilitarize the united states after WW2, since the entire country had been turned into a war economy. Part of his strategy was to implement the New Look policy (1953), which emphasized a shift towards nuclear weapons as a cheap alternative to a large military force. He then implemented a series of propaganda campaigns, such as radio and tv programs, to emphasize that the Russians also had nukes and we needed to make more, as cover to allow him downsize the traditional military. This somewhat backfired because people were more terrified than expected, and politicians were able to capitalize on the fear and demand that we increase our our defenses and build more missiles. All within this, military contractors were doing their best to sell as much as possible to military, capitalizing on the defense budget. At least, this is my current understanding of part of the tale that is told less often. (New look did lots of other things talked about more often, like support non-communist allies abroad, contemplate escalation to nuclear war from conventional war, etc, that contributed to increased conflict)
Which brings us to the military contractors, famously Lockheed Martin. What's going on here? First off, as seen in Skunk Works, part of their business was making the best planes the U.S. airforce has ever seen, often quite quickly and under budget. This was going on while other parts of the business where having huge cost overruns, overcharging the government, and bribing members of other countries to buy their airplanes.
Here's some info from the current book[the shadow world]
- so it's pretty common for arms manufacturers to give commissions to the people in the other country that help the purchase of airplane/guns/missles/rpgs/etc. This is illegal in some countries and is called a bribe, but often it's not illegal because they are doing it in a roundabout way, or between countries. The author often seemed to think of this as super bad, but salespeople get commissions and if you help your government buy 70 billion dollars of stuff, why should I care if some prince or executive gets a bonus of 200k or a million?
- answer: Often the commissions are about 1-2% of the sale, so it can be a lot more than 200k.
- a lot of the times arms sales are illegal, but they happen anyways. For example, if the U.S. Congress blocks your sales of airplanes, you can construct a runway that is halfway across the the u.s. Canadian border, and move them to Canada, then deliver them to your country!
- generally, it seems like the defense industry is a pretty inefficient market, too-big-to-fail, bureaucratic, etc. It seems like this is an issue that both the government and those within the industry are upset about, and it largely comes down to new regulations being needed, and having been needed for a long time, but never getting implemented. (Why?)
- Arms deals pretty much vary from slightly shady to very shady. Book covered many arms networks and dealers in depth.
This journalist seemed to operate as if the Merchants of Death hypothesis was true, namely that arms dealers purposefully lobby for war and perpetuate conflict with a profit motive. It's also true that governments and warlords have a desire for weapons, and I have a hard time faulting weapons dealers for giving into molochian incentives --- if they didn't sell, someone else would. But throughout the book I kept being reminded of Stephen Pinker's thesis, where despite these massive arms deals, war and violence has generally diminished. In some cases it was clear that the arms trade increased the violence, as the Rwandan genocide happened only once they were able to acquire the arms shipments allowing them to do so. Just in general, something about this in this area is confusing to me.
On the political connections between the defense contractors and the government --- some of what I'm supposed to be upset about here seems to rely on assumptions that I don't understand. Why is it bad that there is a revolving door between the DoD and defense contractors? Isn't there a revolving door among many other parts of the private sector and government? (Banking... lobbying...) Sometimes I think that I might need a better imagination to understand how government *could* be, but it seems most ideas completely ignore the constraints of human nature.
Then with the lobbying of Lockheed --- I don't understand why politicians are so influenced by jobs and money going to their district? Do voters really care about jobs?
bakudreamer's review against another edition
2.0
This should be half as long and written by someone else, but it does contain some interesting information. Skipped over section 3 mostly. ( I was thinking of writing about the arms trade in 2000 or so )
auspea's review against another edition
3.0
Interesting and well researched but quite dry. Exposing the shady international trade can be quite exciting or like this, just a long monolog of names, places, quantities with little historical background.
dangerousnerd's review
4.0
Fascinating look at the legal and illegal arms trade in the world. A must read for anyone concerned about international conflict, America's role in the world, and rampant government spending and corruption.
auspea's review
3.0
Interesting and well researched but quite dry. Exposing the shady international trade can be quite exciting or like this, just a long monolog of names, places, quantities with little historical background.
strong_extraordinary_dreams's review
4.0
This really functions as a (very detailed) primer on the world's unofficial & criminal arms trade. If you want to learn about the large structures of the world's illegal arms trade, this is the place to start.
Heavy on detail, as others have commented, but that's necessary, I think, to give a good initial introduction to the student of these dark arts. Maybe 1/3 of the book deals with Saudi Arabia, which is probably appropriate.
I was entertained, somewhat educated (quickly forgot a lot of the details) and, at times, shocked.
Heavy on detail, as others have commented, but that's necessary, I think, to give a good initial introduction to the student of these dark arts. Maybe 1/3 of the book deals with Saudi Arabia, which is probably appropriate.
I was entertained, somewhat educated (quickly forgot a lot of the details) and, at times, shocked.