ABSTRACT
Weapons contractors, like other profit-making corporations, are not particularly interested in the general economic development of the countries in which they operate or to which they sell. They are not inherently antagonistic to encouraging economic development. But their primary interest and motivation is in selling their products and making money. That is what they are in business to do. Consequently, from the weapons contractors’ point of view, cost offsets are a marketing tool, a way of building enthusiasm for or overcoming resistance to buying their products. Whether offsets encourage development or not is quite beside the point.
