http://lobelog.com/the-rise-of-the-development-industrial-complex/#more-32937

The Rise of the Development Industrial Complex

by David Isenberg
The private military and security contracting (PMSC) industry has long claimed, not without some justification, that all the publicity about private security contractors—that is, guys carrying guns—overshadows and unfairly tars the work of reconstruction. This latter subcategory of unarmed contractors, much larger in terms of the number of people and contract value, is engaged in the far more prosaic but critically important work of rebuilding shattered infrastructure and restoring or creating the economic and social structures to enable a war torn country to rebuild and develop itself.
The international stability operations of the PMSC are considered so vital that they have required several U.S. oversight bodies over the years, such as the Commission on Wartime Contracting, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, and the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.
Yet the IDC (international development contractor) sector is closely connected to the PSC (private security contractor) sector and shares the same neoliberal organizing principles. In fact, in a twist on President Eisenhower’s prescient warning about the military industrial complex, we now have a Development Industrial Complex (DIC).
This is the true multi-billion dollar industry, which includes whales like the Louis Berger Group or Chemonics. Compared to it, private security companies like the former Blackwater are small piranha..http://lobelog.com/the-rise-of-the-development-industrial-complex/#more-32937