Sean McFate

Sean McFate

Sean McFate has been a mercenary and a member of the US military. He is married to the counterinsurgency anthropologist Montgomery McFate and adviser to the Human Terrain System and his mother Mary McFate was a spy on the gun control lobby in the US".

According to a report in the US magazine Mother Jones:

Sean McFate is the son of Mary Lou Sapone (a.k.a. Mary McFate), who infiltrated the U.S. gun control movement on behalf of the National Rifle Association for 15 years. Sean McFate, a Brown-and Harvard-educated paratrooper, and his wife, Montgomery McFate, a controversial Pentagon adviser, had once both worked for Mary Lou Sapone's business, which specialized, according to an old version of Montgomery's resume, in "domestic and internal opposition research" and "special investigations."

Think tank work

McFate was a program director of the national security initiative at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington think tank boasting an advisory board composed of four former Senate majority leaders: Howard Baker, Bob Dole, George Mitchell, and Tom Daschle. Sean McFate resigned shorty after an article in Mother Jones revealing his connections to his mother's activities. The BPC denied there was a link between the article and the resignation.".

Sean McFate is also affiliated along with his wife Montgomery McFate with the Council for Emerging National Security Affairs (Censa). Censa list him as:

an expert in national security policy, fragile states, and African security issues. He has helped design and led several peacebuilding programs in Africa, particularly in Liberia and Burundi. He was also an advisor for Amnesty International USA, where he counseled staff on issues pertaining to human rights and armed conflict. Before this, Sean served as a Captain in the U.S. Army, primarily as a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division.

Military career

According to a profile of Sean McFate on the website of the US public service radio station NPR:

He has flown with the 82nd Airborne, and helped demobilize African armies as a private military contractor — but his true love is opera. His blog, the 'Musical Mercenary,' has the tagline: "War meets opera. May all our passions be deadly."

On his blog McFate lists himself as being in the consultancy business and his profile on an article he wrote for a U.S. military reads as follows:

an expert in security sector reform, conflict analysis and prevention, and the security-development nexus. He was formerly the principal advisor of peacekeeping and humanitarian affairs at DynCorp International, an NYSE-listed company that provides services to the U.S. government. In that capacity, he advised the U.S. Department of State, U.S. Department of Defense, and various foreign governments on topics ranging from national security strategy to disarmament demobilization and reintegration. He has also served as a U.S. Army officer with the 82d Airborne Division and other units. Following military service, he founded a consulting firm in Washington, D.C., that advised transnational corporations on political risk.

Affiliations

Fora.tv | Bipartisan Policy Centre | Council for Emerging National Security Affairs | Amnesty International | DynCorp International | College of International Security Affairs. | United States Institute of Peace | Military Operations Research Centre | World Affairs Council

Resources

• Sean McFate's blog Musical Mercenary
• Facebook Sean McFate