Are Private Military Contractors Good for National Security?

Half the U.S. presence in Afghanistan and Iraq is made up not of soldiers, marines, and airmen but of private contractors. And although contractors are not combat troops, almost 1,800 of them have been killed since 9/11. Allison Stanger says this is a dangerous and unprecedented outsourcing of foreign policy that bodes ill for the future of the nation. Her latest book, One Nation Under Contract, takes a look at contracting and how it has militarized international affairs. Stanger, a professor of international politics at Middlebury College in Vermont, chatted recently with U.S. News. Read excerpts from the Washington Book Club interview in our digital weekly and weigh in below. Is the use of private military contractors dangerous?