Master of War: Blackwater USA's Erik Prince and the Business of War

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Overview

The world first learned of Blackwater USA in March 2004 when several of its men were ambushed and killed in Fallujah, Iraq. Their bodies were badly beaten, and two were then hung from a bridge as a sign of Iraqi resistance to the U.S. occupation. In the years that followed, Blackwater grew to become one of the U.S. government’s most trusted partners in Iraq and Afghanistan, despite headline-grabbing controversies such as the shooting of Iraqi civilians by Blackwater guards in a Baghdad traffic circle in 2007.

Based on her extraordinary access to Blackwater founder Erik Prince and dozens of his key executives, author Suzanne Simons offers a riveting, eye-opening portrait of the former Navy SEAL and the company that became the face of private warfare in the twenty-first century. Prince sat atop an empire that not only included a massive training complex for military and law enforcement but also comprised an entire aviation division that catered to military needs in the world’s most dangerous locations and a private spy company run by former top CIA men. Master of War is an intimate look at the rise and fall of an extraordinary company—led by a contemporary prince, unaccountable to American voters, with the instruments of war at his disposal.

  • Suzanne Simons
    Suzanne Simons

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

CNN executive producer Simons balances private and public accounts of Erik Prince, founder and owner of the country's most notorious private military contractor. In this often glowing, mildly critical portrait, Prince is depicted as a fierce individualist, visionary entrepreneur and patriot, an upstanding guy's guy, albeit born into enormous privilege, right-wing values and Beltway ties. A determined overachiever, Prince trained as a navy SEAL until his father's death led him to an enterprising idea to provide the training facilities SEALs needed. Certain contradictions ensue: Prince is known to be deeply religious, so his affair while his first wife is dying of cancer surprised many friends. Likewise, Prince's free market faith denigrates government involvement in business, but his Blackwater project only survived by means of hefty government contracts. Simons's premise-that all questions arising from Blackwater's relevance go back to "one man"-justifies emphasis on the personal, but the book is most instructive when straying to include Dick Cheney's impact on Pentagon outsourcing or General Sanchez's frustration over boundary confusion in Iraq between U.S. soldiers and the State Department's veritable "private army." (July)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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The Barnes & Noble Review
Erik Prince didn't have to go into the military at all, but he's ended up as the leader of America's shadow army, Xe (formerly known as Blackwater). CNN executive producer Suzanne Simons' detailed new book, Master of War, chronicles the story of the 40-year-old Navy SEAL who left the military after his entrepreneurial father (who made the family a boatload by inventing automobile sun visors that light up) died and his wife was diagnosed with cancer. Prince took his inheritance and started Blackwater in 1997 to simply provide training sites for law enforcement and the U.S. military. Instead, he's frighteningly changed the nature of war. Simons traces the company's dramatic growth and changing mission, as well as the rise of the billion-dollar military-contracting business that Blackwater has come to represent. The government can now outsource many of its nastier military assignments to a once virtually unchecked band of well-armed former cops and soldiers from across the globe. Prince, who recently stepped down as CEO of the company, ran Blackwater with the same industrious zeal his father embodied: ?The lion wakes up in the morning, he knows he has to outrun the gazelle, or he's gonna starve,? Prince says in the book. ?The gazelle wakes up and knows he has to outrun the lion, or he's gonna be eaten.... Whether you're the lion or the gazelle, when you wake up, you'd better be running.? All that running and explosive growth can get you in some trouble, though. In the past few years, Blackwater has brought the U.S. some controversial black eyes in Afghanistan and Iraq and has become a symbol of the gunslinging, tough-talking Bush administration. While the world is changing, the outsourced military isn't going away anytime soon. Simons' book offers a tremendously important look into the hidden corners of that world. --Mark J. Miller

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780061651359
  • Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
  • Publication date: 6/23/2009
  • Pages: 288
  • Sales rank: 822,135
  • Product dimensions: 6.30 (w) x 9.10 (h) x 1.20 (d)

Table of Contents

Prologue 1

1 The Prince 7

2 Hell and High Water 27

3 The Blackwater Project 45

4 How to Rent a War 65

5 The Bridge in Iraq 83

6 Private Air, Private Eye 111

7 Under the Gun 141

8 September 16, 2007 175

9 The Secretary and the Prince 195

10 Mission in Afghanistan 215

11 The Blackwater Behemoth 233

12 The Cost of Business 249

Acknowledgments 279

Index 281

Customer Reviews
Average Rating 4
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  • Anonymous

    Posted August 13, 2009

    Balanced, Fair

    Simons has written an excellent book about Blackwater and Erik Prince. Anyone who has an opinion of Blackwater should read Master of War. This is not an expose but a balanced reading of the frustrations of political intrigue and games. A fascinating portrait of a fascinating company and its founder.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted June 2, 2011

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  • Posted August 14, 2009

    The author clearly had a different agenda

    Suzanne Simons has managed to take an incredibly interesting topic, and write a very boring book. She clearly used the book simply as a vehicle to criticize the fact that we ever went to war in Iraq. (She does work for CNN, so it would be pointless to act surprised). More than 50% of the book is filled with side stories intended to either poorly pull at your heartstrings or anger the reader about incidents during the war that did not even involve Erik Prince or Blackwater. The writing is choppy and and there is no finesse or style to the story telling. Chances are high that a better book will be written at a later time, and by another author.

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  • Posted July 8, 2009

    more from this reviewer

    Great book and well written

    Suzanne Simons gives an objective account of a controversial policy of hiring outside of the military for protection. A true page turner and you'll want to read more about many topics that are discussed within the book. Excellent job!

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    Posted August 6, 2009

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    Posted July 27, 2009

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    Posted August 12, 2009

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