The Supreme Entrepreneur
He appears to have successfully managed to obliterate his conscience, assuming he was possessed of one initially, to enable himself to become an enabler of gore and war. It took him twenty years to perfect his modus operandi but he excels at the art of provisioning all factions of any world or local conflict with the most up-to-date, technologically advanced armaments available. And he has a powerful nation behind this most orthodox of business ventures.The United States and Russia, both themselves involved - as are most technologically advanced countries - in selling the latest war gadgetry to a world surfeit with failed governments are slightly at odds. Though they have no compunction themselves to selling arms to governments anxious to use scarce national treasuries for the purchase of jets and missiles - far more preferential than the boring nuisance of providing decent civil infrastructure - they diverge in their opinion of Viktor Bout's activities.
Russia sees little amiss in supplying advanced arms to Middle Eastern countries whose agendas, like that of Syria and Iran, are no mystery to the larger world. And the United States, in its turn, is fairly agile in supplying similar advanced weaponry to other, less-threatening countries within that same geography. Despite which, their values are polarized, as are their world views.
Even while claiming they are against nuclear proliferation, nothing stops the highly profitable proliferation of 'conventional' weaponry.
And here is a Russian ultra-entrepreneur, who like Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, is a KGB alumni, happily transacting business deals initially using former Soviet arsenals and aircraft, presenting himself as a "Russian businessman" enjoying the full support of the government of Russia, enabling him to build his own personal empire. Viktor Bout, arms supplier to the world of war, fluent in many languages, a university and military college graduate, is an extraordinary man.
It would take an unusual intelligence, one quite devoid of a conventional conscience to see nothing amiss in supplying sophisticated armaments to the world's most vile hellspots, from Democratic Republic of Congo where he sold arms to all the warring factions, to Afghanistan and Liberia and Hezbollah. Mr. Bout, as a dealer and transporter of weapons and minerals is not troubled by his role in furthering bloody combat in every corner of the Globe.
His transport industry is also available for other purposes, as long as money is to be made in the pursuit of the supply. Flying AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades to Angola, supplier of arms to Bosnia, selling assault rifles and surface-to-air missiles throughout the world, while also delivering food for the UN to the world's poor, and UN peacekeepers to Somalia, along with international aid to Sri Lanka. How's that for a mixed bag of tricks?
His scruples? There are none. He is, after all, a creature of his times. A businessman extraordinaire. In a world of transnational conglomerates with obligation only to their bottom line. Even the Pentagon has used his contacts and his immense transport capabilities to ship goods into Iraq. Dictator, rebel, revolutionary, Islamist, who ever can afford to pay the price is who he will service.
And the United States, that paragon of world defence, seeks his head. Which is to say, is attempting to have him put behind bars.
Russia, not so much; he is, after all, one of theirs, and as such legitimately supplying goods where they are seen to be needed.
Labels: Political Realities, Russia, Technology, Troublespots, United States
posted by Pieface @ Monday, August 30, 2010
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