i09 reviews Africa Center Senior Fellow Sean McFate’s book The Modern Mercenary: Private Armies and What They Mean for World Order:
Since the start of combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States and other nations have begun to use Private Military Companies (PMCs) to supplement or augment their forces. This shift in acceptance, argues Sean McFate of the Atlantic Council, marks a radical change in how modern wars are fought, and foretell a shift in the balance of power in the world. In The Modern Mercenary, he examines the long history of soldiers for hire and how their presence on the battlefield are an indication of a new political trend: neomedievalism, in which power traditionally reserved exclusively for a central government is spread out among numerous other non-state players.