The Rise of the US Military’s Clandestine Foreign War Apparatus

Seth Harp’s new book, The Fort Bragg Cartel, goes deep into the forming of the Joint Special Operations Command and its origins in the aftermath of 9/11.

The 2020s are shaping up to be one of the most violent decades in modern history, with American-sponsored proxy conflicts and shadow wars smoldering all over the world, from Ukraine to Yemen to Gaza. The United States enables and prolongs these wars not by sending troops to fight in them, but by trafficking arms to the belligerents, providing intelligence to its favored proxies, and using covert operations, especially assassinations, to shape geopolitical conditions. At the forefront of these clandestine US military machinations is the Fort Bragg-based Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC, which despite its relative invisibility to the public is far and away the most powerful organization in the military, and one of the most ...