INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS. It was 2004, and Sean McFate had a mission in Burundi: to keep the president alive and prevent the country from spiraling into genocide without anyone knowing that the United States was involved. The United States was, of course, involved, but only through McFate's employer, the military contractor DynCorp International. Throughout Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East, similar scenarios are playing out daily. The United States can no longer go to war or carry out covert operations without contractors. In 2010, the Pentagon's budget for private contractors was seven times the entire U.K. defense budget. How did this state of affairs come to be? How does the shadowy world of military contracting actually operate? And what do trends suggest about the future of war and international relations? We simply don't know much about the structure of the industry, how private military companies operate, and where this industry is heading.