VICE is no stranger to the Special Operations Force Exhibition, the annual meeting of military brass and weapons slingsmen in Jordan. Correspondent Shane Smith checked out SOFEX 2010 and saw firsthand all the insanity of the business of war. But that was before the Arab Spring. In the wake of so many ousted tin-pots, then, is the market in the people-killing business changing? Matt Yoka recently dove into SOFEX 2012 to size up the demand for weapons in a moment of uneasy transition for so much of the Middle East:According to numbers the arms-trade journalists were tossing around in the lunch tent, Jordan apparently bought about a dozen AH-6i light attack and reconnaissance helicopters from Boeing at SOFEX 2010—UPI reported that a letter of intent was even signed—but the deal has yet to be finalized. It might never be finalized; that kind of vagueness is common.Outside the King Abdullah Design and Development Tent I watched a demo for a Micro Air Vehicle. ($120K reconnaissance drone—an item on every country's wish list this year.) A Jordanian colonel marveled with his head cocked back as the drone ascended 50 meters into the bright blue desert sky. When the drone quietly returned to the hot concrete, onlookers huddled around the colonel and the drone rep as they shook hands. "Yes, yes, that was very good," the colonel said. "I will have my people get in touch with you and we will have more discussions—which will perhaps lead to a deal." At SOFEX, just like the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, destruction is imminent, but who knows what actually happened.Head over to VICE for the rest of Mr. Yoka’s jaunt through a whirring mass of be-medaled generals, mannequins of indeterminate gender, surfer-dude drone salesmen, and of course defense tech’s latest, most scary-awesome kill toys.
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