ISBN:
9781349277087
Language:
English
Pages:
Online-Ressource (XIII, 198 p)
,
online resource
Edition:
Springer eBook Collection. Humanities, Social Sciences and Law
Parallel Title:
Erscheint auch als
Parallel Title:
Erscheint auch als
Parallel Title:
Erscheint auch als
Parallel Title:
Erscheint auch als
Keywords:
History
;
Military history
Abstract:
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.
DOI:
10.1007/978-1-349-27708-7
URL:
Volltext
(lizenzpflichtig)
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