Book Review – The Fort Bragg Cartel: Drug Trafficking and Murder in the Special Forces
Seth Harp, The Fort Bragg Cartel: Drug Trafficking and Murder in the Special Forces. New York: Viking, 2025. 357 pp. Hardcover. $30.00. ISBN 9780593655085.
To most Americans lacking a military background, the mythologization of the Special Operation Forces (SOF) has been predominantly shaped by popular culture narratives and mainstream media depictions in TV shows, movies, and even AAA videogames. SOF operators are among America’s most potent smart power tools, a default choice to precisely and effectively achieve U.S. interests with a minimal footprint, lower risk of casualties, and less public or Congressional scrutiny. As the scope and use of SOF units has grown after 9/11, it would be meaningful to pause and consider the morality of their actions and evaluate the costs inflicted on innocents—or even on the operators themselves. In The Fort Bragg Cartel, Seth Harp provides an eye-opening glimpse into the starkly human consequences of the United States’ Global War on Terror (GWOT).
Seth Harp is an investigative reporter, foreign correspondent, and veteran who served in Iraq from 2004 to 2005. His reporting regarding the intersection of armed conflict, the military, and organized crime has appeared in The New Yorkerand The New York Times. Prior to journalism, Harp practiced as a lawyer for five years and served as an assistant attorney general for Texas. His legal and writing experience informs the meticulous, prosecutorial approach taken for the book.
Drawing on declassified documents, trial transcripts, policy records, and interviews, Harp provides a scathing exposé into the corrosive effects of decades-long wars combined with the often unchecked, unaccountable power of SOF operators. To maintain a grueling operational tempo featuring continuous nighttime raids, operators are prescribed addictive stimulants which, when combined with alcohol and combat trauma, too often result in criminality and violence after returning stateside.
In Harp’s narrative, Delta Force commanders and complicit law enforcement shield operators from accountability for criminality ranging from drug trafficking to murder. Even as a reader who is inclined to believe that excesses of power and corruption naturally accompany powerful, opaque organizations, the often chilling and saddening illustration of repeated, largely uninhibited criminality and violence was eye-opening and surprising.
The first part of the book details the shooting of Green Beret Sergeant First Class Mark Leshikar by Delta Force Master Sergeant William “Billy” Lavigne II. In the first of many examples, no charges are pressed. Lavigne remains active on Delta Force, shielded from consequences by the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division (CID) and deferential civilian law enforcement. The second part recounts the Cold War inception and post-9/11 growth of Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) as the GWOT expanded from Afghanistan to sub-Saharan Africa. Harp recounts the embedded relationship between opium cultivation, tribal warlords, and the U.S.-backed government in Kabul. On the topic of drug trafficking, readers meet Chief Warrant Officer Timothy James Dumas Sr., an SOF quartermaster. Dumas is involved in stealing military equipment for the black market, trafficking drugs, and allegedly pens a blackmail letter threatening to expose a drug cartel involving SOF operators centered in Fort Bragg.
The third part of the book shifts focus to Delta Force HQ and the internal hierarchy through the experiences of female intelligence support workers. Harp paints a picture of a hostile, toxic work environment where the practice of reporting unprofessional conduct is met with stonewalling or retaliation. The fourth part then returns to Lavigne and Dumas as their mental states deteriorate, fueled by a combination of drugs, alcohol, and PTSD. Harp introduces Freddie Wayne Huff II, a former Lexington police officer turned drug trafficker for the Los Zetas cartel. Part IV concludes with the discovery of Lavigne and Dumas shot dead near Fort Bragg.
The final part is a meandering journey in which Harp paints a picture of Fort Bragg as a persistent hotbed of criminality and fatalities due to suicide, overdoses, and steroid abuse. The issues defy any effort by leadership to mitigate them, and soldiers continue evading consequences, receiving only relatively light sentences.
The book’s greatest strength is its gripping narrative style, akin to true crime or murder mysteries. It shines best when Harp leans into the lived experiences of Lavigne, Dumas, and others to understand how their personalities and lives evolved. Harp’s ability to draw on and incorporate a blend of source material spanning publications from The New York Times to specific quotes from interviews keeps the narrative engaging.
Yet the book undoubtedly has limitations.
At times, the narrative devolves into a steady staccato of mini stories, particularly in the fifth part, which features example after example of soldiers becoming victims of overdose, suicide, or homicide. Additionally, Harp occasionally conflates broader institutional data or examples with SOF-specific metrics, unfairly extrapolating systemic issues affecting non-SOF units at Fort Bragg onto JSOC without the necessary analytical granularity.
There is also a disappointing lack of policy prescriptions or at least a path forward for addressing the numerous uncovered issues. Occasionally, Harp touches on attempted remedies such as Fort Bragg officials expand background checks for visitors or Congress passes a law to mandate overdose reporting by the Department of Defense. Nevertheless, he only briefly mentions these efforts, scarcely analyzes their impact, and offers no clear suggestions on what else can or should be done to address issues within SOF. Given the breadth and severity of the topics discussed, readers may be left with an unsatisfying and frustrating sense of disillusionment.
Beyond issues with focus and scope, Harp’s clear anti-imperialist sentiment and conspiratorial leanings may reduce his credibility among some readers. The most egregious examples include criticizing the Biden administration for “provoking and then losing a proxy war with Russia over Ukraine that was as pointless as it was bloody” to stating that COVID-19 originated from a “U.S.-funded biological lab in Wuhan.” These unfounded claims create openings for critics to discount his broader, more nuanced arguments regarding criminality, accountability, and transparency in SOF.
At a superficial level, this book is for fans of true crime, investigative journalism, and military non-fiction. On a deeper level, it is for anyone who wants to learn about the consequences of the GWOT on shaping core institutions within the U.S. military, as well as the physical and mental costs on the lives of operators and civilians alike. In any resilient democracy, there will always be tension and debate over the proper balance between operational security and oversight and accountability, made more difficult with clandestine organizations, like JSOC. While a degree of secrecy is the price America likely must pay for effective SOF units, The Fort Bragg Cartel demonstrates the consequences of excessive opacity whereby in refusing to hold operators accountable, commanders enable a culture of wanton recklessness and serial criminality to the detriment of operators and civilians alike.
Despite its deficiencies, if even a portion of Harp’s allegations and claims in the book are true, then there are undoubtedly pressing issues at the core of a unit that U.S. presidents will continue to rely on to play a significant role in implementing U.S. foreign and security policy.
