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Dr. Sean McFate is a scholar, novelist, former paratrooper, and ex-global private military contractor. He is an expert on mercenaries, irregular warfare, and foreign policy. In addition to his scholarly work, he wrote three novels based on his military experiences. He holds three professorships: Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service, Syracuse University’s Maxwell School, and National Defense University’s College of International Security Affairs.
Sean McFate | |
|---|---|
 Dr. Sean McFate speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, DC in 2013. | |
| Born | 1969 |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | London School of Economics and Political Science (PhD)
Harvard Kennedy School (MPP) Brown University (BA) |
| Notable work | The Modern Mercenary (non-fiction 2014)
Shadow War (novel 2016) Deep Black (novel 2017) The New Rules of War (non-fiction 2019) Goliath (UK Version of The New Rules of War 2020) High Treason (novel 2020) |
| Website | https://www.seanmcfate.com |
Career
editMcFate received his PhD in international relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science in 2011, a MPP from the Harvard Kennedy School in 2006, and a BA from Brown University in 1992.
After college, McFate served eight years in the U.S. Army as an officer in the 82nd Airborne Division and across Germany. Then he became a global private military contractor, initially for DynCorp International and then as an independent actor.[1] Much of his work was in Africa where he dealt with warlords, raised military forces, rode with armed groups in the Sahara, conducted strategic reconnaissance for multinational corporations, transacted arms deals in Eastern Europe, and helped prevent a genocidal massacre in the Rwanda region.[2]
McFate returned to Washington DC and was a Vice President at TDI.[2] According to TDI's website, it is a strategic intelligence firm that provides actionable intelligence and insight for critical business decisions.[3]
McFate left the private military and intelligence industries to work in Washington think tanks on issues related to private warfare. He was a Bernard L. Schwartz Fellow at New America, a political scientist at the RAND Corporation, and a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council.[4][5]
As a scholar, his research focuses on the privatization of war, future warfare, and international security. He is on faculty at three universities: Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service, Syracuse University’s Maxwell School, and National Defense University’s College of International Security Affairs.[6][7][8] In 2017, he was a Visiting Fellow at Oxford University's Changing Character of War Centre (CCW).[9] He has posted some of his lectures to his YouTube channel "The Art of War."
McFate served on the Advisory Board to Oxford University’s Centre for Technology and Global Affairs from 2018 to 2019. He serves on the Advisory Group to the International Code of Conduct Association (ICoCA), a Geneva based non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring private security services respect human rights and humanitarian law.[10] He also served on the Alumnae Board of Saint Thomas Choir School in New York City, where he was a boy chorister and violinist.
Publications
edit
McFate has published widely on why warfare has changed, the future of war, and how the U.S. is not prepared. Many of his ideas are unorthodox. For example, he claims conventional war is "dead," and superior military technology no longer wins wars.[11][12] His article "The F-35 tells everything that's broken in the Pentagon" was one of The Hill newspaper's most read articles in 2021. Likewise, his satirical "How to Take Over a Small Country in 10 Easy Steps" was one of the most read articles for War on the Rocks, an online journal.
McFate authored the non-fiction The New Rules of War (HarperCollins). In the United Kingdom, it is titled Goliath: Why the West Doesn't Win Wars. And What We Need to Do About It (Penguin). Admiral James Stavridis (retired), the former Supreme Allied Commander at NATO, called it: "Stunning. Sean McFate is a new Sun Tzu." It was named a “Book of the Year” by The Economist, The Times [UK], and The Evening Standard.[13][14][15] It is also on West Point's "Commandant's Reading List."[16]
He also authored The Modern Mercenary: Private Armies and What They Mean for World Order (Oxford University Press). It introduced the concept of "neomedievalism" and "durable disorder" to explain how contract warfare will affect international relations, and predicted the rise of mercenaries like the Wagner Group. Foreign Affairs ran a six page review essay and called the book “essential reading.”[17]
McFate is also a novelist, publishing the Tom Locke Series (HarperCollins) based on his own private military experiences. The first book Shadow War takes place in Ukraine 2014. Deep Black happens during the ISIS conquest of Syria and Iraq. High Treason occurs in Washington DC and features the Wagner Group. New York Times bestselling author James Patterson said: “Sean McFate just might be the next Tom Clancy, only I think he’s even better.”[18]
Additionally, he has published approximately 25 scholarly articles or book chapters on international security, and two U.S. Department of Defense unclassified monographs.[19][20][21]
His non-fiction writing has also appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal,The Atlantic, Newsweek, Time, Foreign Policy, The Hill, The New Republic, and War on the Rocks. He has been interviewed on CNN, Fox, MSNBC, BBC, NPR, Sky News, Al Jazeera, Die Welt, France24, Voice of America, and The Discovery Channel.
References
edit- ^ McFate, Sean (2008). "Outsourcing the Making of Militaries: Dyncorp International as Sovereign Agent". Review of African Political Economy. 35 (118): 645–654. doi:10.1080/03056240802574037. ISSN 0305-6244. JSTOR 20406562. S2CID 154336978.
- ^ a b "Sean McFate: The New Rules of War | Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs". www.belfercenter.org. 23 February 2022. Retrieved 2024-03-09.
- ^ "TDI Home". TDI. Retrieved 2024-03-10.
- ^ "Sean McFate". New America. Retrieved 2024-03-09.
- ^ "Sean McFate". Atlantic Council. Retrieved 2024-03-09.
- ^ "Georgetown University Faculty Directory". gufaculty360.georgetown.edu. Retrieved 2024-03-10.
- ^ "Sean McFate, Adjunct Professor". Maxwell School. Retrieved 2024-03-10.
- ^ "Dr. Sean McFate". College of International Security Affairs. Retrieved 2024-03-10.
- ^ "Visiting Fellows". The Changing Character of War Centre. Retrieved 2024-03-10.
- ^ "Advisory Group". ICoCA - International Code of Conduct Association. Retrieved 2024-03-10.
- ^ Bonadonna, Reed (December 2019). "The New Rules of War: Victory in the Age of Durable Disorder, Sean McFate (New York: William Morrow, 2019), 336 pp., $12.99 eBook". Ethics & International Affairs. 33 (4): 513–515. doi:10.1017/S0892679419000510. ISSN 0892-6794.
- ^ "Technology doesn't win wars. Why the US pretends it does". Big Think. Retrieved 2024-03-10.
- ^ "Our books of the year". The Economist. ISSN 0013-0613. Retrieved 2024-03-11.
- ^ "The Times 100 best books for summer 2019". The Times. 2024-03-11. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 2024-03-11.
- ^ "The ES guide to the best summer holiday reads". Evening Standard. 2019-06-20. Retrieved 2024-03-11.
- ^ John (2023-04-30). "West Point's Reading List". DODReads. Retrieved 2024-03-11.
- ^ Stanger, Allison (2015-06-16). "Hired Guns". Foreign Affairs. Vol. 94, no. 4. ISSN 0015-7120. Retrieved 2024-03-11.
- ^ "HarperCollins Publishing". Retrieved 11 March 2024.
- ^ "Sean McFate". scholar.google.com. Retrieved 2024-03-10.
- ^ McFate, Sean (2013-11-01). "Building Better Armies: An Insider's Account of Liberia". Monographs, Collaborative Studies, & IRPs.
- ^ "Mercenaries and War: Understanding Private Armies Today". National Defense University Press. Retrieved 2024-03-11.