Defense contractors retooling for humanitarian emergencies

National Catholic Reporter, March 24, 1995 by Carole Collins

Intervening in humanitarian emergencies is one of the few growth industries for defense contractors in today's world of military cutbacks.

Amid all the exotic acronyms, business was booming at the American Defense Preparedness Association's sixth annual SO/LIC (special operations/low intensity conflict) Symposium and Exhibit on OOTW (operations other than war) last December at the Washington Hilton.

The American Defense Preparedness Association is an organization of largely retired military officers that works to help them make the transition to civilian life and jobs. One way is to identify areas where previous work in the military gives retirees a special competitive advantage. As humanitarian crises have grown in number, so have the number of former military (mostly) men interested in identifying profitable business opportunities -- from arranging transportation for non-governmental organization food shipments to providing uniforms and rations to U.N. troops.

An immense American General jeep -- twice as wide as a regular passenger car -- loomed just inside the exhibition hall entryway, sporting camouflage paint and steel plates on the bottom, to protect against land mine explosions. Lining the aisles were a diverse mix of booths hawking the wares of Boeing, BOFORS, California Microwave, Colt, ETA Technologies, GTE, Lockheed, Motorola, Smith & Wesson and other corporations that provide both high-tech communication equipment and weapons for OOTW. Some even offered souvenirs: a McDonnell Douglas back scratcher, a Rockwell decal with a death head in purple garb, a plastic bag bearing a detailed picture of a semiautomatic handgun and the legend, "In a world of compromise, some don't," from Heckler and Koch, a German company.

Amid the booths of various military branches and publications, perhaps the most popular was Ranger Joe's, where conferees eagerly gathered to try on some of its "World Famous Military and Law Enforcement Gear" (they never make women's clothes with this many pockets). Most interesting were the wares offered by the special operations table: samples of leaflets dropped from the air by U.S. forces in Somalia and Iraq.

At a seminar on humanitarian operations assistance, discussion ranged from how various military supply operations could be privatized to how to identify business opportunities for "those of us in the contractor establishment," how to get insurance coverage for staff working in war zones, and how to get onto the Defense Department's approved list of providers of goods and services.

George Talbot, a vice president of Star Food Processing, described how he developed "culturally adjusted' MREs -- "meals ready to eat' such as Oriental pork with rice, Spanish rice and black beans with rice -- to meet differing "operational environments."

Peacekeeping is becoming big business for NGOs as well as corporations. Last November, the Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies and the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies jointly sponsored a similar exhibition and seminar at the Washington Sheraton.

Exhibitors ranged from the American Red Cross, Interchurch Medical Assistance, Overseas Development Council and Interaction -- a coalition of more than 150 U.S. relief and development agencies -- to UNICOR-Federal Prison Industries, Swiss-based Siemens Defense, Georgia-based Training Systems and numerous other U.S., Canadian and European military contractors.