Review: Blood, Gun, Money – How America Arms Gangs and Cartels – by Ioan Grillo

This is the third Grillo installment that I have tackled and Ioan is an author who is a gritty investigative journalist who tends to put himself into quite dangerous situations in order to explore very controversial and often violent global subjects. Following on from Grillo’s groundbreaking work on Mexican cartels, this book, which explores the Arms trade, begins with a flashbang as the author witnesses part of Joaquin Loera Guzman’s trial in New York City. El Chapo, extradited from Mexico and alleged head of the Sinaloa Cartel has to try explain away the RPG rocket launchers and weapons caches that are produced as evidence in front of the judge. This is a great example of how (mainly) US weapons are falling into the hands of foreign armies or cartels. The book follows a trail of foreign arms manufacturers in for example Eastern Europe and explores in detail the US Arms trade and its often uncomfortable politics. The US Constitution empowers the right to bear arms for citizens and strong bodies such as the NRA are strong political lobbyists in ensuring that this right continues into the modern age no matter how many mass shootings or proven deaths these lethal weapons can produce. To a reader from the United Kingdom were gun law is strict very often some of the book’s revelations can be quite eyeopening and shocking. It’s an alien culture really to what I would consider civilised society. Grillo makes an interesting point, however, that when he lived in London for a period, the high and often fatal rates of London’s knife crime made it perhaps more unsafe than a US City with high gun crime. The hospital emergency rooms can be just as bloody. The book neatly follows the arms trail and explores some of the major players involved and there is a lot of focus on the porous US-Mexico border where often large quantities of drugs are swapped directly for large quantities of US-made weapons. In an ideal modern world humans wouldn’t have to still go around killing each other but the Arms trade looks here to stay and I feel that this book successfully portrays it and demands of the reader some quite difficult questions regarding the whole ethical dilemma future generations face. It’s a page-turner and a thrilling ride of a read. Five stars.

Review: Wired for War by P.W.Singer

Although by the time I finally finished reading this book it was perhaps over a decade old and hence due the hi-tech nature of the subject, perhaps dated, I gained a lot of new knowledge about the robotics industry, technological progress in society and in particular, the application of robotics to warfare. Nowadays everybody from kids to adults play with their minidrones and they’ve become a regular sight in our modern lives. Drones in warfare have had a tremendous impact. The modern theatre of warfare benefits from technological advances where non-human robot systems can conduct some of the most dangerous activities and hence save the lives of soldiers and civilians. Unmanned bomb disposal robots or remotely flown drones have changed the battlefield. A US Army drone pilot can sit in the Arizona desert at a desk and pick up his kids from school and return home to dinner with his wife, all whilst commanding frontline missions against Taliban insurgents in the Afghan mountains. The whole concept of robotics is very much a new phenomenon and is changing the way military and political chiefs act and think. Aasimov’s laws of robotics, although fictional are philosophically analysed and the author spends a lot of time focussing on the whole ethics of non-human combat. The book is very well-researched and is enlightening and I gave it a five star rating. I’d be keen on any follow up work that the author may do in this field.