"Stunning. Sean McFate is a new Sun Tzu." -Admiral James Stavridis (retired), former Supreme Allied Commander at NATO
An Economist Book of the Year 2019
Some 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.
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.
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.
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.
Table of Contents
Foreword Gen. Stanley McChrystal (Ret.) xi
Author's Note. xv
Strategic Atrophy 1
Why Do We Get War Wrong? 11
Rule 1 Conventional War Is Dead 25
Rule 2 Technology Will Not Save Us 43
Rule 3 There Is No Such Thing as War or Peace-Both Coexist, Always 59
Ruie 4 Hearts and Minds Do Not Matter 83
Rule 5 The Best Weapons Do Not Fire Bullets 103
Rule 6 Mercenaries Will Return 115
Rule 7 New Types of World Powers Will Rule 143
Rule 8 There Will Be Wars without States 171
Rule 9 Shadow Wars Will Dominate 195
Rule 10 Victory Is Fungible 219
Winning the Future 241
Annex: The Thirty-Six Ancient Chinese Stratagems for War 253
