This book explores an alternative perspective for evaluating the phenomenon of contemporary private armies in the Americas, Central Asia and the Middle East. I proceed with the basic assumption that there is a worldwide culture of capitalism—whose goal is uninterrupted economic growth—that is the milieu for the creation and development of such armies. The advance or decline of such entities may be related to economic factors and/or the resistance of state structures. While many private armies are antisystemic, a response to the rapidly changing worldwide capitalism and the uncertainties that such changes entail, there are also prosystemic private armies such as Blackwater, USA whose job is to maintain a milieu for sustained economic growth throughout the world, wherever hot spots may arise. Private armies can be employed to uphold an economic system as well as to disrupt it.