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Reshaping War For The 21st Century / Shana Marshall

May 5
 The largest donors to these think tanks are always military contractors and sort of secondary industries. Like there's insurance companies that specialize in providing insurance for what they call third-party contractors, third-party nationals, which are like the caterers and the security guards and stuff that are at overseas US military bases. They are major contributors to these think tanks too because their bottom line is also war-making. These contractors will even provide funds for specific initiatives at different think tanks around very particular sort of war aims. There was a specific case with the C- Center for a New American Security which was provided a lot of money from, actually from the Emirates to basically produce a series of policy papers to argue for the expanded export of sensitive US drone technology and why this was critical to Middle East security. And then they took that money and produced a series of papers that argued explicitly for the relaxation of those arms export controls that would allow for more weapons to be exported to the Emirates.

Shana Marshall joins This Is Hell! to talk about her new piece for Security In Context titled “A Violent Convergence: How Silicon Valley and Private Finance Are Reshaping War”.  Shana Marshall is Associate Director of the Institute for Middle East Studies and Assistant Research Faculty member at the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. Her work has been published by The Middle East Report, The International Journal of Middle East Studies, Middle East Policy, Jadaliyya, the Carnegie Middle East Center, and various edited volumes.

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Guest

Shana Marshall

Shana Marshall is Associate Director of the Institute for Middle East Studies and Assistant Research Faculty member at the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. She is also a board member of the Middle East Research & Information Project as well as the Political Economy Project. She earned her PhD in International Relations and Comparative Politics of the Middle East at the University of Maryland in 2012. Her dissertation, “The New Politics of Patronage: The Arms Trade and Clientelism in the Arab World” examines how Middle East governments use arms sales agreements to channel financial resources and economic privileges to domestic pro-regime elites. Her work has been published by The Middle East Report, The International Journal of Middle East Studies, Middle East Policy, Jadaliyya, the Carnegie Middle East Center, and various edited volumes. Her current research focuses on patterns of military entrepreneurship in Egypt, Jordan, and the UAE, as well as the intersection of militarization and finance capital.