Blackwater's Founder Talks Guns, Tactics, Logistics, And Politics

Blackwater’s founder talks guns, tactics, logistics, and politics

- Iain Harrison

It’s hard to find a person with a neutral opinion of Erik Prince. To some, he’s the epitome of the hard-charging capitalist, finding solutions to problems where the big government failed miserably. To others, he’s a war profiteer, singlehandedly responsible for the deaths of 17 civilians in Nisour Square in Iraq, and whose company was supposedly banned from doing business in that country because of it. It wasn’t, but hey, why let facts get in the way of the narrative? Somewhere between the characters of Hank Rearden and Mephistopheles lies the real Erik Prince, and in order to divine which end of that spectrum someone falls, it’s usually a good idea to observe what they do, rather than rely on what they say.

We first encountered Prince at SHOT Show in January 2019, when he was signing copies of his autobiography. A 30-ish double amputee ambled up on prosthetic legs, shook Prince’s hand, and for the next five minutes, the two of them cracked jokes, bullsh*tted, and reminisced, while Prince’s staff glanced nervously at their watches, anxious about missing the next appointment. If anyone had reason to resent the globe-trotting venture capitalist, the man who had given his legs while a Blackwater contractor would be a good candidate. Instead, he quietly said, “Best job I ever had,” as the two parted company.

Growing up in the Midwest, Prince managed to escape the fate of many sons born to self-made millionaires. In our experience, such scions often mature into men devoid of purpose or responsibility, lacking challenge and content to live off their trust fund. In Prince’s case, he left home to join the SEALs, the start of a career that’d revolve around military operations in both the public and private sectors for the next 27 years, and result in the creation of a company synonymous with the private sector’s involvement in America’s Middle Eastern wars.