This book offers a comprehensive moral theory of privatization in war.

It examines the kind of wars that private actors might wage separate from the state and the kind of wars that private actors might wage as functionaries of the state. The first type of war serves to probe the "ad bellum" question of whether private actors can justifiably authorize war, while the second type of war serves to probe the "in bello" question of whether private actors can justifiably participate in war. The cases that drive the analysis are drawn from the rich and complicated history of private military...