The New Rules of War: Victory in the Age of Durable Disorder by Sean McFate (PDF)

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“Stunning. Sean McFate is a new Sun Tzu.” –Admiral James Stavridis (retired), former Supreme Allied Commander at NATOAn Economist Book of the Year 2019Some of the principles of warfare are ancient, others are new, but all described in The New Rules of War will permanently shape war now and in the future. By following them Sean McFate argues, we can prevail. But if we do not, terrorists, rogue states, and others who do not fight conventionally will succeed—and rule the world.War is timeless. Some things change—weapons, tactics, technology, leadership, objectives—but our desire to go into battle does not. We are living in the age of Durable Disorder—a period of unrest created by numerous factors: China’s rise, Russia’s resurgence, America’s retreat, global terrorism, international criminal empires, climate change, dwindling natural resources, and bloody civil wars. Sean McFate has been on the front lines of deep state conflicts and has studied and taught the history and practice of war. He’s seen firsthand the horrors of battle and understands the depth and complexity of the current global military situation. This devastating turmoil has given rise to difficult questions. What is the future of war? How can we survive? If Americans are drawn into major armed conflict, can we win? McFate calls upon the legends of military study Carl von Clausewitz, Sun Tzu, and others, as well as his own experience, and carefully constructs the new rules for the future of military engagement, the ways we can fight and win in an age of entropy: one where corporations, mercenaries, and rogue states have more power and ‘nation states’ have less. With examples from the Roman conquest, World War II, Vietnam, Afghanistan and others, he tackles the differences between conventional and future war, the danger in believing that technology will save us, the genuine leverage of psychological and ‘shadow’ warfare, and much more. McFate’s new rules distill the essence of war today, describing what it is in the real world, not what we believe or wish it to be. The New Rules of War is an urgent, fascinating exploration of war—past, present and future—and what we must do if we want to win today from an 82nd Airborne veteran, former private military contractor, and professor of war studies at the National Defense University.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review “The sharpest account of the dilemmas of war and peace I’ve read in years… A wonderful read.” — Evening Standard (UK)“Why do western powers keep getting beaten when they go to war? This hard-hitting polemicby a former US paratrooper explains why – we are addicted to expensive, big tech that is useless against guerrillas.” — The Times (UK)“[This] iconoclastic book is being hailed by radicals as a wake-up call to governments and armed forces everywhere… Much of what [McFate] says convinces… If we go on fighting our wars the old way, we shall go on losing them.” — Max Hastings, The Sunday Times“An important handbook for a new generation of warriors and a primer for the conduct of contemporary armed conflict. The question posed is how to secure a favorable outcome when the concept of victory is so fluid and shaped by perception as much as any military result.” — Sir Richard Dearlove, former director, MI6“This book isn’t pretty, but it’s necessary reading for the strategically inclined.” — Kirkus Reviews“McFate’s experience… inform(s) this standout work of military science… An authoritative and skillful analysis of the state of war today.” — Publishers Weekly“The future is one of deep uncertainty and few offer a bold or clear exposition of its character. McFate has done just that and the results are both compelling and persuasive. If we heed his advice, we may make the necessary adjustments in time to avert a serious catastrophe.” — Prof. Robert Johnson, Director of the Changing Character of War Program, Oxford University “A fascinating and disturbing book . . . Mr. McFate writes with an insider’s knowledge … the worrying trends he describes make this book a powerful call to arms to those who do not want a world awash with mercenaries.” — The Economist on The Modern Mercenary“Thought-provoking . . . Some of [McFate’s] stories have never been told before, which makes the book particularly valuable.” — Foreign Affairs on The Modern Mercenary“McFate’s persuasive, unsettling, and nonpolemical account describes the way PMSCs are changing the face of war.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review) on The Modern Mercenary“Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand a new component of modern warfare.” — General Stanley A. McChrystal on The Modern Mercenary“A must read for political leaders who are drawn into having to fight today’s wars.” — Sir Richard Dearlove, former head of MI6 on The Modern Mercenary“With well-drawn and fascinating characters and ground level espionage and combat sure to please fans of Brad Thor, Tom Clancy, and Daniel Silva, Shadow War is simply one of the most entertaining and intriguing books I’ve read in quite some time.” — Mark Greaney, #1 NYT Bestselling author of Back Blast“Step aside, faux thriller writers and armchair warrior storytellers. Ex-mercenary Sean McFate has produced a first novel that’s assured, authentic, timely, gritty, and most of all real… I enjoyed the hell out of it.” — C.J. Box, New York Times Best-selling Author of Badlands and Off the Grid“Locke is another strong hero in the growing subgenre of black-ops thrillers, and Deep Black is a maze of treachery and intrigue to the very end.” — Booklist Online“Has an enjoyable, realistic feeling…will appeal to action junkies and armchair diplomats alike.” — Kirkus Reviews“An American James Bond meets the twists and turns of “Homeland.” — Adm James Stavridis, USN (Ret), Supreme Allied Commander at NATO“A full-tilt thriller… Full of tense moments, survival situations, gun fire, explosions, and even a romance (even if it is short lived)…. I’m definitely looking forward to the next installment of the Tom Locke saga.” — BlackDogSpeaks.com on Shadow War“Shadow War has pace like a catapult, sudden and fierce, and it will hit readers straight between the eyes.” — Ted Bell, New York Times bestselling author of Patriot on Shadow War“Stunning. Sean McFate is a new Sun Tzu…. Drawing on history and ancient principles, McFate masterfully explains how armed conflict works today. The New Rules of War is a must read for anyone who wants to know how war will be fought tomorrow and how the winners will win.” — Admiral James Stavridis (retired), former Supreme Allied Commander at NATO From the Back Cover An urgent, fascinating exploration of warfare’past, present, and future’and what we must do if we want to win today from an 82nd Airborne Division veteran, former private military contractor, and professor of war studies at the National Defense University. War is timeless. Some things change’weapons, tactics, technology, leadership, objectives’but our desire to go into battle does not. We are living in the age of ‘durable disorder”a period of unrest created by numerous factors: China’s rise, Russia’s resurgence, America’s retreat, global terrorism, international criminal empires, climate change, dwindling natural resources, and bloody civil wars. Sean McFate has been on the front lines of deep state conflicts and has studied and taught the history and practice of war. He’s seen firsthand the horrors of battle and understands the depth and complexity of the current global military situation. This devastating turmoil has given rise to difficult questions. What is the future of war? How can we survive? If Americans are drawn into major armed conflict, can we win? McFate calls upon the legends of military study’Carl von Clausewitz, Sun Tzu, and others, as well as his own experience’and carefully constructs the new rules for the future of military engagement, the ways we can fight and win in an age of entropy: one where corporations, mercenaries, and rogue states have more power and nation-states have less. With examples from the Roman conquest, World War II, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and others, he tackles the differences between conventional and future war, the danger in believing that technology will save us, the genuine leverage of psychological and ‘shadow’ warfare, and much more. McFate’s new rules distill the essence of war today, describing what it is in the real world, not what we believe or wish it to be. Some of these principles are ancient, others are new, but all will permanently shape war now and in the future. By following them, he argues we can prevail. But if we do not, terrorists, rogue states, and others who do not fight conventionally will succeed’and rule the world. About the Author Sean McFate is a professor of strategy at the National Defense University and Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, a think tank. He served as a paratrooper in the US Army’s 82nd Airborne Division and then worked for a major private military corporation, where he ran operations similar to those in this book. He is the author of The Modern Mercenary: Private Armies and What They Mean for World Order, and holds a BA from Brown University, a MA from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and a PhD in international relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). He lives with his wife in Washington, DC. Read more

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Sean McFate was a soldier in the U.S. Army and later a private military contractor (a.k.a. mercenary). He is now a professor of military strategy at Georgetown University. McFate is an iconoclast and his opinions are often provocative and controversial. The book is fun to read and an unlikely page-turner. He explains why America has stopped winning wars.McFate claims that the U.S. has not won a war since WW2 and argues that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were lost. McFate believes the military suffers from “strategic incompetence.” This is an inability to understand its opponents and adapt their strategy accordingly. McFate believes that the Pentagon is geared to fight WW2 style battles, using better technology. That was also a criticism of the generals in Vietnam. They were mostly WW2 vets and struggled to get to grips with the guerilla warfare employed by the Vietnamese. America’s modern enemies refuse to stand and fight as the Germans did in 1944.McFate argues that “conventional war is dead.” Battlefield victory is obsolete, yet America still invests trillions of dollars in aircraft carriers, fighter jets, and killer robots—and ponders why no one is deterred or defeated. McFate does not have much faith in technology. He believes that much of the military budget is wasted on kit that will never be used in combat.McFate complains about the Pentagon’s love of carriers. “The U.S. navy is ordering nine more such ships, even though carrier warfare hit its climax in 1942, at Midway.” They cost $13 billion dollars a pop and have played little part in America’s recent wars. The F-35 fighter is another bugbear. The plane has cost $1.5 trillion to develop and has never been used in combat. Each one costs about $120 million, twice the price of a Boeing 737-600 airliner. An hour in the air costs $42,000. McFate believes that the F-35 is “worthless in future wars.” He maintains that it is not even a good combat aircraft.McFate claims the world is in a state of “durable disorder.” He predicts the ongoing demise of the Westphalian nation-state. He tells us that 70% of countries can be described as fragile and we are returning to an earlier time before the West became all-powerful and could impose its will on the rest of the world. He claims that much of the world is experiencing disorder and instability. This is a trend that cannot be reversed and will only get worse. He argues that we in the West are unprepared for the wars of the future and are facing existential threats. He argues that warfare is changing but we refuse to recognize this new reality. The U.S. buys, trains, deploys and fights according to rules that don’t apply anymore. He argues that we should recognize what is going wrong and adapt.America’s enemies currently include China, Iran, Russia, as well as terrorist organizations, and drug cartels. Our adversaries realize they cannot win WW2 style battles so they avoid them. Durable disorder does not result in war as we like to fight it. ISIS grabbed 81,000 square miles of territory across several countries. In Crimea, Russia used covert means including special forces, proxy militias, and mercenaries—all while waging a disinformation campaign. By the time the West had worked out what was going on Russia had grabbed Crimea. McFate complains that NATO is still training to fight a gigantic tank battle with the Soviets at the Fulda Gap on the Rhine, even though the Cold War has ended. War has moved on, and our enemies have moved on with it.McFate argues that America is at war with China only it doesn’t know it. Beijing goes right up to the edge of war in the South China Sea and then pulls back. It is slowly pushing the U.S. out of the region without firing a shot. It has bought much of Hollywood, making it difficult to cast China as a villain in movies. China is using our soft power against us. McFate argues that we need to develop a better strategy to deal with China. Instead of buying more aircraft carriers we should start reading Sun Tzu and learn to fight in a more devious way. He argues that “The West’s squeamishness about using strategic subversion only helps its enemies.” He suggests that we should consider distracting Beijing by facilitating popular uprisings in China, maybe that is already happening in Hong Kong.McFate believes that future wars will be waged by special forces and mercenary armies, which, are more cost-effective than standing national armies. The U.S. has failed to build and train effective national armies in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. They were taught to fight the American way and struggled to fight on their own. McFate argues for the continued expansion of special forces. The total annual cost of America’s special forces is the price of one aircraft carrier. He argues this represents much better value for money.Mercenaries have made a comeback. More than half of all military personnel in the recent Iraq and Afghan wars were employed by contractors, and such “outsourcing” will grow. It is becoming tougher to recruit soldiers to fight in these places, and contractors are cheaper. The public is also less concerned if they end up in body bags. Mercenaries have traditionally been unpopular because they have no political loyalties and fight for money. Having been a mercenary in Africa, McFate does not see that as a problem: “patriotism is unimportant, and sometimes a liability.” He predicts that more countries, the super-rich, and corporations will hire mercenaries in the future. They are usually well trained and experienced soldiers. Nigeria used mercenaries to fight the Islamist group Boko Harum. The U.N. doesn’t like mercenaries, they would rather hire expensive and poorly trained peacekeepers. McFate does not have much respect for the U.N. or its peacekeeping troops. He mentions that in Syria, 500 soldiers of the Russian owned Wagner Group more than held their own fighting against the cream of the U.S.’s special forces. He speculates what a large army of mercenaries could do.McFate also recommends establishing an “American Foreign Legion.” This would be similar to the French version and would be composed of foreigners recruited globally and led by U.S. officers. It could then be deployed in parts of the world that are falling apart and where we don’t want to send American born troops.Some of what McFate describes sounds familiar to anyone familiar with the British Empire’s military history. Britain ruled a quarter of the world’s population and was often flexible about how it got the job done. The British were usually fighting insurgents in their colonies and rarely fought large scale battles. The British East India Company was the world’s first multinational company and it was once listed on the London Stock Exchange. It had its own army which it used to conquer India. At its peak, it had 150,000 soldiers in its employ and 122 ships. In the 16th century, Sir Francis Drake was called a privateer. He owned his own ships, raided Spanish shipping, and paid a percentage of any loot captured to the Queen. The British hired Germans to fight in the Revolutionary War and they still employ mercenaries. Their Gurkha regiments from Nepal were initially recruited 200 years ago and are still fighting for Britain.McFate believes in a world of increasing instability, victory belongs to the cunning and not the strong. We need to curb our obsession with hi-tech military equipment and start out-thinking our enemies.

⭐If I had to describe this book in one word: “hyperbole.”The purpose of McFate is to criticize some popular approaches to war, and specifically the way that the US does grand strategy. Specifically, his target is Clausewitz, who is the source of all our problems. Clausewitz is evil, and conventional war is dead.But wait, doesn’t conventional war still happen? Sure, but its still “dead” whatever that means. Hyperbole #1 has been found. Conventional war happens, is still relevant, it just isn’t the only thing. Is McFate correct that we sometimes treat it as the only thing, and doing so is fatal? Absolutely. However, to simply describe it as “dead” and relegate it to the dustbin is inaccurate and unhelpful, and comes across as simply a way to provoke and gather attention, rather than to make a serious point.Let’s see why Clausewitz is evil. McFate: “the nature of war remains the same, but the means change.” Apparently Clausewitz disagrees. However, Clausewitz himself is the one who said that very thing, so one wonders if McFate got Clausewitz secondhand, misread him, or simply hasn’t read him. In fact, if one reads Clausewitz’ “On War,” one will find that Clausewitz fully acknowledges that “conventional war” is simply one small part of international politics and strategy. He then focuses on it, but only after situating it in the larger context. Specifically, he focuses for much of his book on infantry tactics. Now here’s McFate’s problem: if Clausewitz had argued that his book was the sum of international politics and grand strategy, Clausewitz would be wrong. However, Clausewitz says the exact opposite, and instead says the same thing that McFate tries to advocate!What are the new rules of war then? Mostly old rules, from a pre-Clausewitz time, and war outside of 19th century European context. Sun Tzu is referenced approvingly.Very good points: McFate at one point refers to AI and the F-35 as “tech porn.” This seems accurate. Reality is not hollywood. AI is literally just statistics. The concept that a commander needs a way to synthesize and understand “all” the available information 1) apparently denies any quality commanders throughout history, and 2) is directly opposed to the concept of “decentralized” command, and proper roles. McFate also brings up the point that when war is perceived only as “on / off” and military force is unable to be used in the “off” setting, this opens us to vulnerabilities. Military force can, and should, be used during peacetime, as military forces (one could argue that this is already the case, since the US is actively conducting operations without any declaration of war, but I digress). So McFate is extremely helpful in correcting a narrowsighted view of international politics and war. I think this can also be found in Clausewitz already.Interesting: McFate highlights some problems inherent in democracy as pursuant to grand strategy. I think there’s fruitful discussion here. Is the purpose of a democracy’s grand strategy anything externally directed, or mostly to achieve internal ends (such as affirming the legitimacy / respectability of the gov to the people)? In a society where the people are rulers instead of the ruled, the shape and ends of strategy are necessarily going to be different. Does McFate want us to return to a society where the people are ruled instead of rulers, specifically so that we can “win wars” that are not conventional?Ironic: McFate criticizes (rightly) the view that says that a few, tech-equipped, special-forces types doing their own thing will basically win wars through one action – like we see in movies / TV. I find it amusing that he has written fiction books about this very thing.

⭐The freelancer seems to be king in this book, they are but one facet of how future war might be conducted. the development of new weapons lead to the flooding of older model and obsolete weapons. Mercenaries can get these as can others, all out-moded by the most advanced military in the battlefield.Its intriguing definitely, especially for the new comer but for people in the field or research, there seem to be more angles that could have been explored further.A good book but could be so much better,

⭐Ottimo libro, mi è piaciuto molto. Sean McFate scrive molto bene, ha le idee chiare e sa come comunicarle. Unico punto debole, a mio avviso, è la tesi dell’autore secondo cui gli Stati Uniti e l’Occidente sarebbero strategicamente svantaggiati nel mondo attuale, caratterizzato da “disordine durevole”, aziende militari private, gruppi armati non statali e un campo di azione caratterizzato da operazioni nell’ombra – perché troppo ancorato a un assetto strategico convenzionale, di grande guerra fra stati nazione. Si e no direi – per decine di anni dopo la fine della seconda guerra mondiale, gli Stati Uniti e i suoi alleati si sono dedicati con passione a operazioni nell’ombra, incluso fomentare rivoluzioni popolari, cambi di regime, crescita e soppressione di insurrezioni armate – ed altro. Il punto dolente, credo, è che altre potenze hanno imparato le stesse arti e dimostrano di sapere giocare nello stesso campo – vedi il crescente peso dell’Iran in Medio Oriente, l’estensione egemonica della Russia nei territori confinanti (sempre negabile ufficialmente), e la cosiddetta influenza russa nelle elezioni americane o nel referendum Brexit. Una gran bella lettura comunque.Great read. The book brings some very insightful points of view about how war has changed since WWII.

⭐Only just started reading this but already surprised that it is not written in academic speak. Refreshing and easy to take on board.

⭐Written with contemporary geopolitical examples for better comprehension & understanding the current situation. The book is must read for all scholars interested in peace & prosperity of world

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