Dangerous Liaisons is a book about intersections. It is a product of two year's worth of discussion among a group of ethnographers from four different countries studying war, violence, the military, and the state. Throughout the first decade of the twenty-first century, anthropologists have watched with both interest and concern as government agencies - particularly those with military and intelligence functions - have sought their professional assistance in understanding terrorists' motivations, stabilising nascent wartime governments, and countering insurgencies.