Patriots for Profit: Contractors and the Military in U.S. National Security

This book became possible only because the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS), awarded me six months of sabbatical leave in late 2008 and early 2009. My thanks to the Chairman of the National Security Affairs Department, Professor Harold Trinkunas, and to the leadership of NPS for their confidence and support. The Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University generously granted me visiting scholar status, with the use of an office and their extensive facilities, for nine months. I am especially grateful to Professor Lynn Eden, acting codirector, for her support. CISAC was a propitious and stimulating environment in which to research and write this book.

The topic of the book, which combines an analysis of U.S. civil–military relations with the contracting out of security, required considerable study and self-education on my part. My deepest thanks for the extremely capable and responsive support of Ms. Greta Marlatt, the Dudley Knox Library’s Outreach and Collection Development Manager. Greta routinely provided me with the latest research on specific themes as I developed my knowledge and dug deeper into the topic. I also was delighted, and relieved, to discover a tremendous resource at the Graduate School of Business and Public Policy at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) where many faculty and students are or were contracting officers. My particular thanks to Associate Professors Nicholas Dew and Rene Rendon, and Senior Lecturer Cory Yoder for their interest in my work and to the students for their generosity in allowing me to take up their class time with my questions. Their real-world experiences were invaluable to this study.

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