War is business and business is war.

War is often viewed as an affair of men fighting for the political causes of their nations. History, however, is filled with examples of combatants who were instead motivated solely by economic profit. And as jarring as it sounds to us today, the conduct of violence used to be just another capitalist enterprise.

-- P.W. Singer, 'The Ultimate Military Entrepreneur' in Military History Quarterly, Spring 2003, 6-15. Or you could just grab the PDF here.

Comment: Why does Singer think it sounds jarring to us today? All this article proves to me that nothing changes.

File this under research for Praetorian the comic which I am (slowly) beginning to pull together mentally.