.MattPotter: Arms dealer Viktor Bout is not a unique figure in the global arms trade and by overestimating him we ignore the problem
Bout was 10 years into a 25-year sentence in a U.S. maximum-security prison. His conviction—on charges of terrorism—hinged on an alleged plot to supply weapons for Colombian guerrillas to shoot down American aircraft. Like his career, it is the very stuff of headlines.
I have some knowledge of Bout. I was one of the small army of monitors, sleuths, and aviation geeks who tracked him and the tidal wave of Russian arms consignments that spread across the world with ex-Soviet military aircrews in the years following the USSR’s collapse. These adventures becamethe definitive book on the tidal wave of stockpiled Kalashnikovs that Bout rode through wars Somalia and Afghanistan, massacres in the Congo and Liberia, wealth and fame.
Everything quickly decays into shades of grey. Western governments are not averse to channelling arms under the radar, when we feel it’s right to do so. From the Afghan Mujahedin to today’s Ukrainian forces, we use subcontractors in the cargo trade.
Yet if we want to stem its waves of death and chaos, instability and state failure, it demands our attention.
Belgique Dernières Nouvelles, Belgique Actualités
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