From “Contract Killers,” which appeared in the June 2004 issue of Harper’s Magazine. The complete article—along with the magazine’s entire 173-year archive—is available online at harpers.org/archive.

A small group of businessmen now controls the American war machine. The bombers cannot take off, the missiles cannot fly, the warships cannot get under way, the robots cannot do their deadly duty until these men assent. They are the CEOs of a small cluster of private corporations, and they share the power once vested exclusively in the president and Congress—the power to make war or peace. They head companies…