War is often used as a mechanism of defence or political manoeuvre (Biegon et al. 2021). The facet of state-corporate crime, on the other hand, explores the convergence of state and corporate interests in order to exploit conflicts for profit and power. State-corporate crime is described as illegal or harmful activities done in conjunction between governments and corporations as they are always projected under a cloak of political or economic expediency. This essay conceives war as a state-corporate crime, taking ideas from zemiology and social harm theories, thereby pointing to a broader implication. It is possible to examine some case studies on the Iraq and Vietnam Wars and show how corporate profiteering and state policies carry on with their harm in the name of national interest.
Thesis statement:
This essay aims to present war as a corporate-state crime spurred by the overlapping interests of corporate and state activities, resulting in severe social and economic as well as environmental problems, based on the case analysis of the war in Iraq and Vietnam.
The criminal nature of war as a mode of state-corporate crime may be understood by considering zemiology and the social harm approach-the former of which gives utmost emphasis to systemic harms by institutional alliances of states and corporations during conflict. Unlike traditional legal approaches toward crimes in wars such as international humanitarian law, these theories indicate how even war can be a means of economic exploitation and of causing social harm. Social harms, argues zemiology, are bad things that are not officially classified as crime but that certainly do massive damage to society. Researchers including Schwab (2021) argue that states and corporations have strong alliances with each other and exploit global conflicts to serve economic and political interests, often putting the interests of civilians last. It also extends the definition of harm to include environmental destruction, psychological trauma, and long-term destabilization of governance in its conceptual framework of war as a socially constructed institution serving elite interests.
Routine activity theory, a criminological framework often used to study white-collar crime, also supports this perspective (Wachs et al. 2021). It postulates that crime happens if motivated offenders--state and corporate actors-- meet vulnerable targets-populations in war zones--at a time of incapable guardians which are ineffective global governance. However, while it is true that zemiology as well as the social harm approach give a rather holistic framework regarding war as state-corporate crime, critical comments point to the fact that these theories do not have real legal enforceability. Whereas international humanitarian law, which offers legal tools for responsibility through war crimes tribunals, lacks structural legal instruments that prosecute harm, these frameworks succeed in exposing structural inequities perpetrated by war, especially those of political power and corporate motives.
Routine activity theory explains micro-dynamics state-corporate crime during war effectively but sometimes over-simplifies the complexities of geopolitical issues driving conflicts. For instance, Krishnakumar & Verma (2021) stated that though the theory underscores the lack of "guardians," it somewhat downplays the proactive role that global institutions play in legitimizing wars, like through strategic alliances or economic incentives for arms manufacturing. This criticism emphasizes the importance of considering war not as a series of disconnected criminal acts but as a well-organized enterprise led by state-corporate interests. Such frameworks directly support the argument that war constitutes a form of state-corporate crime.
As they focus attention on the systemic harms and the institutional structures of enabling conflicts, they illustrate how states and corporations co-opt war to secure economic benefits and political leverage. Unlike just war theory, which provides moral justification for conflict, or international humanitarian law, which speaks to crimes in the context of war, zemiology and the social harm approach provide a view of the more fundamental, systemic criminality of war itself (Canning & Tombs, 2021). Based on the critical analysis of motivations and mechanisms driving state-corporate alliances, this section sets the theoretical groundwork to understand war as an orchestrated crime with broad-reaching social, economic, and environmental effects. This view frames war not as an inevitable geopolitical event but as a calculated instrument of exploitation, similar to what the essay proposes as the main argument.
The Iraq War is an example of how state and corporate interests converge to exploit warfare for economic gain, and it exemplifies the characteristics of state-corporate crime through privatization, resource extraction, and war profiteering. Private corporations like Halliburton and Blackwater played a very important role in the conflict, making it very hard to distinguish between political strategy and economic exploitation. The Iraq War, which began in 2003, was initiated by the U.S. government on the pretext of a pre-emptive strike to remove WMDs and to bring democracy to Iraq. Subsequent investigations, such as those published by Karlas (2023), later showed that no WMDs existed and further questioned the economic motives for the war.
Undergirding such claims is military privatization in which corporations like Halliburton's subsidiary, KBR, receive billions in no-bid contracts to provide logistics, infrastructure, and energy services. For Mexhuani (2024), the neoliberal economic policy permitted such privatization of war, it transformed it into an outlet for corporate gain. It elaborates with her "disaster capitalism" theory, through crises, war, and even terrorism, "disaster" markets are constructed that benefit the private corporation; yet instability may be long-lived. According to empirical studies conducted by Semenova & Al-Dirawi (2022), corporations achieved considerable control of Iraq's oil industry, indicating the direct economic interest behind the war.
While proponents of the Iraq War argue that privatization is necessary to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure and economy, critics emphasize its exploitative nature. For instance, companies like Halliburton profited from destruction rather than reconstruction, pointing to incomplete projects, overbilling, and human rights violations. These are white-collar crime characteristics, as the routine activity theory views corporate opportunism in the lack of proper oversight. Privatization proponents argue that it promotes efficiency and innovation because appropriate resources are rapidly deployed in times of crisis. But actual statistics like that provided in the assessment by Glynn (2022) demonstrate how there is systemic corruption, no accountability, and inflated costs.
The second reason is that the contracts are distributed disproportionately to U.S. firms rather than to local Iraqi businesses, which makes this a case of economic imperialism in the guise of humanitarian aid. The case of Blackwater, a private security contractor, also exemplifies this criticism. The company was involved in civilian casualties, including the 2007 Nisour Square massacre, which drew international condemnation and exposed the lack of accountability in privatized military operations (Quadri, 2022). These incidents are just illustrations that prove the privatization argument which not only encourages violence but also undermines democratic governance and the rule of law.
The Iraq War provides a clear case of how warfare functions as a state-corporate crime, more so than real security concerns, but rather based on economic interests (La Prairie, 2023). The theories of zemiology and social harm place emphasis on the systemic harms of Iraqi civilians such as displacement, environmental degradation, and economic instability, all furthered by corporate profiteering. While international humanitarian law addresses crime in war, it fails to identify the structural criminality inherent within war's motivation based on an economic rationale. Rather, through the Iraq War, it focuses attention on more extensive consequences caused by corporate exploitation in the war process, brought about by power in the states.
Churchill et al. (2021) stated that the Vietnam War is the most representative of state-corporate crime which is a close relationship between governments, defence contractors, and the military that perpetuates warfare to further economic and political interests. Corporate profits and political agendas fuelled long periods of war and led to the devastation of social harms in the Vietnam War. President Dwight D. Eisenhower's 1961 warning of the military-industrial complex actually predicted the Vietnam War (1964–1975), during which defence contractors made huge profits by producing arms and military technology. It has been observed that Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and General Electric corporations determine U.S. foreign policy by promoting interventionist strategies to maintain military contracts.
Greenway et al. (2024) further emphasizes the economic dimension of the war by revealing that defence spending during Vietnam exceeded $140 billion, which contributed to economic growth in the arms sector. Simultaneously, it has been analysed that how lobbying efforts by defence contractors influenced Congress to authorize escalations, demonstrating the interrelatedness of corporate and state interests. This evidence is supported by the routine activity theory because it identifies the military-industrial complex as the "motivated offender" capitalizing on geopolitical instability and the lack of a world police force. An application of Nazemipour et al. (2023) use of zemiology expands this analysis further to include examples of social harms experienced through environmental damage, mass casualties, and protracted destabilization.
Whereas the Vietnam War was touted as a necessary defence against communism under the domino theory, critics argue that this rationale served to mask economic interests. Gautney (2023) shows how military escalation served corporate elites at the expense of taxpayers and Vietnamese society. Accounts of Agent Orange exposure—a toxic herbicide manufactured by firms such as Dow Chemical—illustrate the profit-driven objectives of business entities that caused ecological and health catastrophes with generations of birth defects and destruction of the natural environment. The Vietnam War reveals how the military-industrial complex is a typical example of state-corporate crime, with the waging of war being a means to gain economic benefits at the pretext of ideological defence. The application of zemiology and social harm theories reveals the systemic and long-term harms caused by this alliance, from environmental devastation to generational trauma.
On the contrary, Chadwick (2023) argued that although international humanitarian law covers particular war crimes, it does not term the structural exploitation involved in the war itself criminal. The case of the Vietnam War well explains how corporate and state agents institutionalize violence for profit in warfare, giving strength to the notion that war acts as a type of state-corporate crime. The consequences of state-corporate crime in war are profound and enduring, especially in the contexts of civilians, governance, international law, and world stability. Thus, the intertwining of state and corporate interests within the prosecution of war leads to systemic social ills, ecological destruction, and devaluing democratic processes. These implications further underscore a wider set of consequences in approaching war not as merely a political or military instrument but as an instrument of state-corporate crime.
According to van Baar (2024), state-corporate crime is an organized harm because state policies or military actions create an opportunity for the exploitation of war for corporate gain. Zemiology, the study of social harm, highlights how wars, initiated for both state and corporate interests, produce environmental, social, and economic harms that are long-lived. Wright et al. (2021) follows up on that by showing how warfare becomes an area of resource exploitation, privatizing public assets as well as applying "disaster capitalism”. Even in the scenarios of Iraq and Vietnam, profits from the wars were not the only things accomplished but also were continued social damages and environmental maladies, providing an example for the long-time social damage created by war profiteering.
The direct effects of state-corporate crime in warfare often most directly impact civilians, who are the target of military violence and economic exploitation. The cases of Iraq and Vietnam show the degree to which corporate involvement in warfare exacerbates civilian suffering. In Iraq, for example, the private military contractors such as Blackwater and Halliburton, which protected the oil fields and infrastructure, often operated with no regulation whatsoever and caused significant civilian casualties, exploitation, and displacement. Krahmann (2023) argues that this privatization of military operations denied accountability in the face of human rights abuses and, in many ways, targeted the local population. Similarly, in Vietnam, the use of Agent Orange by U.S. military forces, manufactured by companies such as Dow Chemical, caused long-term severe health problems, such as cancers and birth defects, and environmental destruction. The effects of Agent Orange can still be seen in Vietnam today, which are passed down through generations.
The social harm theory is confirmed by the negative consequences of war profiteering by corporations; that is, the exploitation of war for personal gain causes societal suffering that no legal framework is capable of dealing with. Faison (2024) talk about the routinization of harm. It shows how corporations and states become domestic to violence and exploitation inherent in the process of war—just masked usually as a sound national security policy or economic recovery measure. They, being corporate actors with a motivation to maximize profits, are operating in such an environment where accountability is watered down, thus consequences of their acts are very limited. Beyond the immediate human costs, state-corporate crime in warfare has important economic implications, particularly in the way it shapes governance.
In both Iraq and Vietnam, war profiteering had deep impacts on local economies, often privatizing national resources, leading to debt accumulation, and the exploitation of natural resources. For instance, in Iraq, the billions of dollars poured into private companies for reconstruction work created a system in which costs were socialized while profits were privatized (Kuruüzüm, 2022). the privatization of oil and infrastructure in Iraq, primarily conducted by American firms such as Halliburton, transferred public resources into private hands, an action that tended to create inequality because corporate elites gained at the expense of poverty-stricken populations.This pattern of privatization and resource extraction is similarly evident in the Vietnam War. The U.S. military was involved in this war, which inadvertently allowed American corporations to extract the resources. In this case, the military-industrial complex benefits from the acquisition of resources that significantly weakens local governance, leading to generalized corruption and political instability. This results in increased corporate influence over government policy and further diminishes democratic processes while diverting power from citizens to corporations. Regulatory capture by the emerging alliance of state and corporate actors could then mean that laws and policies would focus on maximizing profits rather than serving public welfare.
Environmental impacts from state-corporate crime in warfare are very drastic and lastingly disastrous. Both wars brought about a marked environment destruction, with the consequence of ecological breakdown and long-term health risks as the aftermath of war. The use of chemical agents, for example, Agent Orange during the Vietnam War, is an excellent example of direct environmental harms due to corporate interests and military strategy overlap. Environmental degradation is a very common feature of state-corporate crime that is not discussed in most discussions about war profiteering.The long-term environmental effects of the Iraq War are also massive. In addition to the toxic exposure from military contractors, the war devastated Iraq's infrastructure, polluting water supplies and causing enormous ecological damage from the destruction of oil fields and oil spills. Rawtani et al. (2022) argues that the environmental damage caused by the war is still affecting public health in the region, which has led to socio-economic instability. The corporations involved in these activities, operating in a regulatory vacuum, are often protected from accountability, and the environmental harm continues with little repercussions. One of the most significant impacts of state-corporate crime in warfare is its effect on international law. In a way, this is exactly why international humanitarian law is useless regarding the prosecution of war crimes and crimes against humanity but useless to address structural features of war.
As seen in both Iraq and Vietnam, the failure of international law to hold corporate actors accountable during times of warfare underscores that there is a need for its application against state-corporate actions. International jurisprudence does attempt to hold individual perpetrators accountable for committing war crimes; however, corporate malfeasance appears to be left unchecked whenever companies like Halliburton stand accused of fraud, overcharging, and corruption and yet remain unaccountable for their actions during the Iraq War. This reflects the widespread effects on individuals and societies of state-corporate crime in warfare.Wright (2023) argued that theoretical approaches, including zemiology and social harm, point towards the diverse as well as long-term effects caused by war profiteering, including environmental degradation, economic inequality, and democratic governance erosion. War as a state-corporate crime is not just an act of violence but also a structural system of exploitation; this structurally perpetuates harm for the economic and political benefits of entities such as corporations or the state. This section, discussing impacts of state-corporate crime in warfare, will focus on how such crime produces systemic harm and what legal reforms this calls for to address the full scope of war's exploitation. It thus cements the central argument of this essay so that war, the confluence of state and corporate interests, becomes a serious form of state-corporate crime with the consequences far-reaching in the social, political, and economic domains.
In conclusion, war, through the lens of state-corporate crime, reveals the significant and enduring harms caused by the convergence of state and corporate interests. Case studies of Iraq and Vietnam can illustrate how corporate profiteering worsens human suffering, undermines governance, and continues environmental and economic destruction. The social harm and zemiology theoretical frameworks shed important light on the long-term implications of exploitation. Ultimately, this essay draws attention to the imperative for accountability and legal reform in ending systemic injustices by the military-industrial complex within war, clarifying that war itself is a form of state-corporate crime.
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