John Perkins's Animation on Debt, War and Terrorism, Explained

Originally published 2016-07-19.

This two-minute animated film sets out a bold argument in very little time: that loans to poor countries, sold as development aid, end up enriching foreign corporations and local elites, trap ordinary people in debt, and feed the conflicts and resentment that drive war and terrorism. The narration is by John Perkins, author of the bestselling book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, and the animation was produced by the activist filmmaker Wesley PP Hall of Projecting Reality.

Below you can watch the film, read a plain summary of what Perkins says, and find the context the short format leaves out: who Perkins is, which parts of his story have been questioned, and what is actually documented about debt and developing countries.

What the animation argues

Perkins describes a cycle in a few steps:

1. Target a resource-rich country. A developing nation with oil, minerals or strategic value is identified.
2. Offer a huge loan. The money is presented as aid for infrastructure such as power plants, ports and highways.
3. Route the money back. The contracts go largely to foreign engineering and construction firms, while the benefits to the poorest citizens are small and the environmental costs can be high.
4. Collect on the debt. When the country cannot repay, its leaders come under pressure to offer something else: cheap access to oil, votes at the United Nations, or land for a military base.
5. Escalate if needed. Leaders who refuse face harder measures. In the film Perkins says that "where we fail, the jackals go in to overthrow or assassinate the leaders", and that military force follows when even that fails, giving Iraq as his example.

His conclusion is that removing or undermining governments to control their resources breeds anger and instability, and that this is a major contributor to terrorism and to what he calls a dangerous, unjust and unsustainable world.

Who John Perkins is

John Perkins, born in 1945 in New Hampshire, worked during the 1970s for Chas. T. Main, a Boston consulting and engineering firm. He says he rose to chief economist there and advised the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and governments in Latin America, Asia and the Middle East, before leaving in the 1980s to start an energy company.

In 2004 he published Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, in which he describes his former job as persuading developing countries to accept large loans for projects that went to American companies, leaving those countries indebted and politically dependent. The book spent more than 70 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and was followed by several sequels, including The Secret History of the American Empire (2007), Hoodwinked (2009) and The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (2016). A 2009 Greek documentary by Stelios Kouloglou was built around interviews with him.

What critics say about his claims

Perkins's story is powerful, but parts of it are disputed, and it is worth knowing where the evidence is strong and where it is thin.

• The intelligence link. Perkins says the US National Security Agency vetted him for the job. Reporters at The New York Times and Boston Magazine found no documents or witnesses to confirm this, although the Times judged the basic outline of his career to be accurate. In 2006 the US State Department called much of the book a fabrication and pointed out that the NSA is not an economic agency.
• Assassination claims. The book suggests that the 1981 plane-crash deaths of Ecuador's president Jaime Roldós and Panama's leader Omar Torrijos were not accidents. These allegations have not been proven.
• Former colleagues. Einar Greve, a former vice president at the firm, agreed that heavy foreign borrowing had harmed poor countries, but denied the NSA connection and other dramatic details.
• Economists. The journalist Sebastian Mallaby, writing in The Washington Post, dismissed Perkins as a "frothing conspiracy theorist" whose central claims were wrong.

In other words, the film presents one man's account as a complete explanation of world affairs. It is a viewpoint to weigh, not a settled finding.

What is documented about debt and poor countries

Even many critics of Perkins accept that foreign debt has caused real harm. Several points are well established:

• The debt crisis was real. Many countries in Latin America and Africa borrowed heavily in the 1970s, then struggled to repay when interest rates rose sharply in the early 1980s. Repayments swallowed money that could have gone to schools and clinics.
• Loans came with conditions. IMF and World Bank programmes often required "structural adjustment": cutting public spending, privatising state companies and opening markets. Supporters say this restored stability; critics say it raised the cost of basic services for the poor.
• Debt relief followed. In 1996 the IMF and World Bank launched the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative after campaigning by charities and churches. It was expanded in 1999, and by around 2020, 37 countries had completed the programme. The IMF estimated the total cost of relief at about 71 billion dollars.
• Corruption is part of the story. Some borrowed money was stolen or wasted by local rulers. Campaigners use the term "odious debt" for loans taken by regimes that did not benefit their people.

What remains contested is intent. Perkins describes a deliberate scheme; most economists see a mix of bad lending, bad borrowing, Cold War politics and commercial self-interest, without a single coordinated plan behind it.

Does debt really lead to terrorism?

The film's final step, from foreign interference to terrorism, is the hardest to test. Researchers who study political violence generally find that poverty alone is a weak predictor of terrorism. Grievances such as foreign military occupation, repression, humiliation and the absence of peaceful ways to change government appear to matter more. Foreign-backed coups and wars can certainly create those grievances, so Perkins's link is plausible in some cases, but it is not a universal law.

How to watch films like this critically

Short explainer videos are a great way to start thinking about a subject, and this one is clear and memorable. A few questions help get more out of it:

• Which real cases support each step? Look for named countries, years and documents rather than general statements.
• Who else has studied the same events? Historians, economists and investigative journalists can confirm or complicate a single narrator's account.
• What is left out? Local politics, corruption and global market shocks all shape a country's debt, not only foreign pressure.

Perkins expands on his argument in a full interview of about an hour, which you can watch on YouTube. The original write-up of this film was by Sophie McAdam for True Activist, shared via The Mind Unleashed.

Sources: Wikipedia: John Perkins (author); Wikipedia: Confessions of an Economic Hit Man; Wikipedia: Heavily indebted poor countries; animation by Wesley PP Hall (Projecting Reality), narration by John Perkins.