Who is Erik Prince? Tom Barnett gives an opinion based on personal experience

What is the truth about anyone? Some times it is even hard to find the truth about ourselves. One thing is surely correct - if you have never met a person - you rely only on what you hear or on your own prejudices or world view acting as a filter.

So who is Erik Prince?

Many believe his is a devil - none who state this have ever met him. Few if any who rage on and on about him have ever met anyone from Blackwater. His primary antagonist, Jeremy Scahill, has never met him.

I just don't see that position as being reasonable - hence my prior post of Rage . Why should I trust opinion that is based on no factual basis and on only a McCarthy like demonization? 

So who has met him? Who has met him that has studied what is going on in the world rather than is captured by an ideology?

Tom Barnett is a leading thinker on the conflict that is affecting us all and has some very well thought out ideas about what is really going on and what might be done. Here is his tour de force at TED on his views.

His take on what is really going on is that the process of outsourcing is well developed and has deep roots. He sees Blackwater and Erik Prince as actors in this drama and not its source. Here are 3 intelligent links to this thesis that Tom selected today:

OP-ED CHART:  “Foreign Policy Privatized,” by Allison Stanger and Omnivore, New York Times, 5 October 2007, p. A27. ARTICLE:  “Blackwater Chief at Nexus Of Military and Business:  From Scion to Navy Seals, Tied to G.O.P.,” by James Risen, New York Times, 8 October 2007, p. A6. EXCLUSIVE:  "The Man Behind Blackwater: Dutiful and intense, son of a self-made billionaire, Erik Prince is an adventure seeker and conservative true believer," by Evan Thomas and Mark Hosenball, Newsweek, 22 October 2007, p. 36.

Allison Stanger and I went to Harvard together, in both the Soviet program and the PhD program in Government. She’s now a Wellesley prof working on a book on the privatization of American foreign policy. Should be good, as this is a fascinating process we’re watching unfold.

Total federal spending on contractors has gone up from $219B in 2000 to $389B in 2005. The bulk of that is with DoD (rising from $132B to $268B, but DHS is up to $10B in 2005 and State’s up to $5.5B, so no chump change there either. Some geography (cumulative 2000-2005): →$5B in North America →just under $3B in South America →$3B for all of Africa →$30B in Europe →$64B in Asia (with most to just two countries, one imagines).

We contract in all UN member states, save three. It began to take off under Clinton and continued to grow dramatically with Bush. Smart bit by Stanger:

"Some are tempted to turn back the clock and reassert traditional government authority, denouncing the private-sector greed and the “coalition of the billing.”

But that would be a terrible mistake, for outsourcing is in part a rational response to the new possibilities of the information age.

The challenge will be to manage creative forms of collaboration between government and the private sector in ways that serve the public interest. No hyperbole there whatsoever, which is exceedingly rare on this subject.

Erik Prince won’t be the last private-sector visionary type to take advantage of this growing market niche.

Blaming his success on political ties doesn’t cut it. He’s simply a smart and very aggressive contractor with a lot of ambition and a sense that history is now on his side.

And he’s right."

The second piece quotes Robert Young Pelton (author, Licensed to Kill) describing him as a conflicted Bruce Wayne/Batman figure, but I find that a bit much, having spent a day flying down with him and Steve DeAngelis in his personal plane to Blackwater’s HQ in Moyock NC and touring it with him (flying back to DC with him driving right into some scary storm clouds with a certain élan befitting his former SEAL status), and subsequently interacting with him in business meetings.

He doesn’t strike me as conflicted whatsoever. He seems to know exactly who he is and what Blackwater can end up becoming.

So in my mind, it ain’t about demonizing Prince, but co-opting him and his entire industry into adequate levels of regulation. What is adequate? It will take more than one or two interventions to figure that out.

OP-ED CHART:  “Foreign Policy Privatized,” by Allison Stanger and Omnivore, New York Times, 5 October 2007, p. A27. ARTICLE:  “Blackwater Chief at Nexus Of Military and Business:  From Scion to Navy Seals, Tied to G.O.P.,” by James Risen, New York Times, 8 October 2007, p. A6. EXCLUSIVE:  "The Man Behind Blackwater: Dutiful and intense, son of a self-made billionaire, Erik Prince is an adventure seeker and conservative true believer," by Evan Thomas and Mark Hosenball, Newsweek, 22 October 2007, p. 36.

Allison Stanger and I went to Harvard together, in both the Soviet program and the PhD program in Government. She’s now a Wellesley prof working on a book on the privatization of American foreign policy. Should be good, as this is a fascinating process we’re watching unfold.

Total federal spending on contractors has gone up from $219B in 2000 to $389B in 2005. The bulk of that is with DoD (rising from $132B to $268B, but DHS is up to $10B in 2005 and State’s up to $5.5B, so no chump change there either. Some geography (cumulative 2000-2005): →$5B in North America →just under $3B in South America →$3B for all of Africa →$30B in Europe →$64B in Asia (with most to just two countries, one imagines).

We contract in all UN member states, save three. It began to take off under Clinton and continued to grow dramatically with Bush. Smart bit by Stanger:

"Some are tempted to turn back the clock and reassert traditional government authority, denouncing the private-sector greed and the “coalition of the billing.”

But that would be a terrible mistake, for outsourcing is in part a rational response to the new possibilities of the information age.

The challenge will be to manage creative forms of collaboration between government and the private sector in ways that serve the public interest. No hyperbole there whatsoever, which is exceedingly rare on this subject.

Erik Prince won’t be the last private-sector visionary type to take advantage of this growing market niche.

Blaming his success on political ties doesn’t cut it. He’s simply a smart and very aggressive contractor with a lot of ambition and a sense that history is now on his side.

And he’s right."

The second piece quotes Robert Young Pelton (author, Licensed to Kill) describing him as a conflicted Bruce Wayne/Batman figure, but I find that a bit much, having spent a day flying down with him and Steve DeAngelis in his personal plane to Blackwater’s HQ in Moyock NC and touring it with him (flying back to DC with him driving right into some scary storm clouds with a certain élan befitting his former SEAL status), and subsequently interacting with him in business meetings.

He doesn’t strike me as conflicted whatsoever. He seems to know exactly who he is and what Blackwater can end up becoming.

So in my mind, it ain’t about demonizing Prince, but co-opting him and his entire industry into adequate levels of regulation. What is adequate? It will take more than one or two interventions to figure that out.