The New Rules of War: A Speaker Series Discussion

The genesis for this entire project was born out of the 2019 Cognitive Raider Symposium almost a year ago. The symposium had several presentations and guest speakers, one of which was Sean McFate. McFate, a foreign policy expert, author and novelist had just written his latest book, The New Rules of War: Victory in the Age of Durable Disorder and presented his thoughts on the topic. The book is described on Amazon as:

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.

From everything that I heard (I could not go) the presentation was very good and inspired a book discussion between several of my coworkers. While compiling one of my Bullets Posts, I came across McFate’s presentation on the Modern War Institute’s website. Since this presentation was one of the founding concepts for The Cognitive Warrior Project, I thought we should discuss it. You can watch the entire presentation here and I could not more highly recommend giving a listen. Here is a portion of McFate’s biography:

Dr. Sean McFate is a foreign policy expert, author and novelist. He is a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, a Washington DC think tank, and a professor of strategy at the National Defense University and Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. Additionally, he serves as an Advisor to Oxford University’s Centre for Technology and Global Affairs. 

 McFate’s career began as a paratrooper and officer in the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division. He served under Stan McChrystal and David Petraeus, and graduated from elite training programs, such as Jungle Warfare School in Panama. He was also a Jump Master.

 McFate then became a private military contractor and paramilitary. Among his many experiences, he dealt with African warlords, raised armies for U.S. interest, rode with armed groups in the Sahara, conducted strategic reconnaissance for the extractive industry, transacted arms deals in Eastern Europe, and helped prevent an impending genocide in the Rwanda region.

 In the world of international business, McFate was a Vice President at TD International, a boutique political risk consulting firm with offices in Washington, Houston, Singapore and Zurich. Additionally, he was a program manager at DynCorp International, a consultant at BearingPoint (now Deloitte Consulting), and an associate at Booz Allen Hamilton.

McFate holds a BA from Brown University, MPP from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and a Ph.D. in international relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). He was also a Fellow at Oxford. McFate lives in Washington, DC.

Again, you can watch / listen to the presentation here. The following are my annotated notes and thoughts on the presentation:

• McFate states the he wrote this book because he was angry because he lost good friends in Iraq and Afghanistan and it sickens him to have spent so much for little gains and our international reputation has been hurt.
• We have a great military and we spend enough but what is the problem?
• BLUF: Warfare has moved on but we have not moved on with it.
• Why haven’t we moved on…Generals always fight the last ‘successful’ war. They are fighting WWII with better equipment. War has simply moved on and we are looking back.
• McFate discuss’ the case of Billy Mitchel who was a war prophet, predicted Pearl Harbor but no one listened to him and they even court martialed He proved that he could sink a battleship with an airplane. He got out of the military and would speak to everyone about the future of warfare.
• Cassandra’s curse, victorious nations are reluctant to chance the way they fight.
• Book asks the question, are we facing a Billy Mitchel question today and building a Maginot line to face the threats today?
• Durable Disorder – The world order that is replacing the Westphalian system (which we discussed here) of nation-states. World will not collapse in anarchy but simmer in persistent conflict and entropy, contains rather than solves problems, Durable disorder is a systemic threat that is not new. The type of world order the Machiavelli wrote about.
• The Italian Wars (1494-1559) Prior to Westphalian Model – war was privatized.
• Signs of Durable Disorder – 50% of peace agreements fail in 5 years, half of worlds countries are experiencing some form of conflict, majority of countries are fragile, return of non-state actors to rival states, return of mercenaries, armed conflicts today rarely end.
• Those who understand durable disorder can exploit it. Those who do not get exploited. US foreign policy in like putting Humpty Dumpty back together. The US needs a grand strategy for the world we are going into.
• New kind of world order generates a new kind of warfare. (We discussed Non-Kinetic war here, here, here and are currently discussing it here)
• We are facing increased global disorder…inter-state strategic competition, not terrorism, is now the primary concern (2018 National Defense Strategy)…being misinterpreted to mean Russia and China.
• DoD budget almost entirely conventional war weapons. Why does everyone assume a war with China or Russia will be conventional. McFate – conventional war is dead.
• Rule 1 – Nothing is more unconventional than “conventional war” – nobody fights that way. Conflict vs. Criminality?
• Are we already at war with Russia and China? (In regards to China, we have discussed this here)
• What does war look like in Durable Disorder – sneakier.
• Examples – Crimea – used fake proxies, special forces, propaganda, deception, fog of war exploited for victory. Plausible deniability is more powerful than firepower. Strategic deception
• South China Sea – how is China winning? – Building islands, China gets in-between war and peace and exploits it for victory. Goes right to brink of war then stops, incrementalism. War and Peace not or
• Mercenaries are coming back. Organized professional soldiers are changing warfare – Military Strategy meets Market Strategy
• Victory will belong to the cunning and the strong
• Durable disorder is the new environment for war, we’re not set up to fight ins this environment, our habits and system refuse to recognize / adapt to this reality, we buy, train, deploy and fight according to rules that don’t apply anymore and then are frustrated by the outcome
• Strategic Atrophy – War as we imagine it. Things we are investing in…machines fetishize technology
• Rule 2 – Technology will not save us. Aircraft Carrier cost 13Billion. SOCOMs budget 10Billion. F35 costs 1.5Trillion – Do we need more fighter jets? When was the last time used Korea? Spending more on one airplane than Russia’s GDP. Costs $45,000/hr. to fly.
• War in reality – influencing elections, strategic logic – who cares about the sword if you can control the hand that wields it. – Weaponize refugees – China as the villain in a movie (they bought most of Hollywood)
• What does victory look like in durable disorder? – not a peace treaty. Victory will be an infinite game similar to business community ups and downs. – Cold War
• The Good News – We can win in an age of durable disorder
• New Rules for War
  1. Conventional War is Dead
  2. Technology will not save us
  3. There is no such thin as War and Peace – both co-exist, always
  4. Hearts and minds don’t matter
  5. The best weapons do not fire bullets
  6. Mercenaries will return
  7. New types of world powers will rule
  8. There will be wars without states
  9. Shadow wars will dominate
  10. Victory is fungible
• They then move into a discussion phase for almost 30 minutes.
• Why Hearts and Minds Don’t Matter? – Current strategy based on how to defeat Mao – trying to reestablish a colony – Strategic bribery – populations are not bribable; some people don’t want to live like Americans.
• How do you do COIN? – Lots of Blood, Import Model (minority in own homeland), Export – spread them out, how we settled the West.

I did not take many notes from the discussion phase of the presentation but that does not mean that you shouldn’t listen to it, you really should. But, even better would be reading the book.

We have discussed a lot of these issues here on this blog but this lecture is excellent and really is one of the founding inspirations for this entire project and I cannot more highly recommend it.

It has been almost a year since I read this book, really enjoyed it and considered it not transformational but more of a cap stone on my formal education. I was fortunate that this presentation coincided with my graduation from Penn State because I had spent the previous eighteen months thinking about and discussing all of these issues. This book and presentation are truly relevant to the challenges that we are facing in the world today and if you want a slight glimpse of what I think the future will hold in warfare you really should watch it.