Satirizing the Entrepreneurial Way of War: Phil Klay’s Short Story Money as a Weapons System

Authors:

Pages: 387-396
DOI: https://doi.org/10.54664/JDPU1465

Abstract:

The paper focuses on the satirical rendition of “the entrepreneurial way of war,” an aspect of the American involvement in Iraq (2003–2011) that has not been widely represented in war fiction to appear from the conflict. This is the strategy of employing money as a “weapons system” in the process of reconstructing Iraq in an attempt to “win the hearts and minds” of the local population and to help introduce a democratic system of rule and establish a market economy after the disintegration of the Ba’athist regime. Set in war-ridden Iraq, Phil Klay’s darkly comic short story offers a personal narrative of ambition to help mediate normalcy in human relations during a global crisis. While satirizing bureaucratic and military ineptitude it foregrounds the importance of personal integrity in a world gone mad.

Keywords:

Phil Klay, Redeployment, Money as a weapons system, Iraq, American war fiction

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