The Fort Bragg Cartel: Drug Trafficking and Murder in the Special Forces

Seth Harp is an American investigative journalist, attorney, and US Army veteran known for his reporting on the intersection of war, secrecy, and corruption. A contributing editor at Rolling Stone and frequent writer for Harper’s Magazine and The Intercept, Harp has covered conflict and military affairs across Iraq, Afghanistan, Mexico, and Central America. In The Fort Bragg Cartel, he examines how decades of covert warfare bred a domestic culture of impunity and violence among elite soldiers stationed at Fort Bragg. Drawing on thousands of pages of CID files, FBI records, and interviews, Harp reconstructs the rise of a criminal underworld within the US military’s most secretive command. 

During college and law school, Harp served in the United States Army Reserve and completed one tour in Iraq. His military experience in Iraq overlaps in timing with some of the subject matter in The Fort Bragg Cartel, and Harp has acknowledged that this connection helped him empathize with and understand the internal dynamics of soldiers and operators in war zones. The Fort Bragg Cartel, published August 12, 2025, is his first major book-length investigation. In the book’s acknowledgments, Harp notes support from artistic residencies such as MacDowell and Yaddo. He is also a 2025 Future Security Fellow at New America, a think tank and policy organization.