The lucrative business of war

‘Yalla! Yalla! Yalla!’ shouts a Saudi man. There are arms dealers, fixers, military men and gun geeks; tanks, assault rifles, mortars and drones. Jets do aerobatics overhead and a band plays Maroon 5. A Chinese robot dog bangs into delegates. Welcome to the International Defence Exhibition in the United Arab Emirates. Business is booming. On the conference floor, Erik Prince is talking to the Emirati President, Mohamed bin Zayed. People are taking photos of MBZ, who smiles out from a dark robe and aviator sunglasses, but no one seems to recognise Prince. He’s an ex-Navy Seal who sold mercenaries to the Americans in Iraq, trained Somalis to fight pirates in the Gulf of Aden, and allegedly broke arms-trafficking laws shipping weaponised agricultural planes to Libya. After some of his mercenaries killed 17 Iraqi civilians in 2007, he left America for the UAE. He became friends with MBZ, they fell out, and now they’re close again.