Merchants of Death and the Weapons Trade
Abstract
The recent highly publicized human trade between Russia and the United States involved one of the most infamous arms dealers in the world, along with an American basketball player, and brought arms dealing into the forefront of public opinion. Viktor Bout’s involvement in the arms trade is indicative of how lucrative the business can be for individuals. At the other end of the spectrum is the multibillion-dollar business of nations selling weapons to other countries. There are few instances of this resulting in what it was actually intended to do, aside from the immediate economic advantages. Unintended consequences have included American soldiers fighting and dying against weapons originally supplied by this country to nations either considered allies at the time, or for some related political agenda.