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EVERYTHING YOU THINK YOU KNOW ABOUT WAR IS WRONG. We are living in
an age of conflict: Russia's resurgence and China's rise, global
terrorism, international criminal empires, climate change and
dwindling natural resources. But while the West has been playing
the same old war games, the enemy has a new strategy. The rules
have changed, and we are dangerously unprepared. Former paratrooper
Sean McFate has been on the front lines of conflict, and seen
first-hand the horrors of battle. As a Professor of Strategy, he
understands the complexity of the current military situation. In
this new age of war: * Plausible deniability is more potent than
firepower * Russia has become a disinformation superpower, twisting
the West's perception of reality * Sanctions are blunt instruments
that starve only the masses, not the elite * Victory will belong to
the cunning, not the strong * New types of world powers will rule
Learn how to triumph in the coming age of conflict in ten new
rules. Adapt and we can prevail. Fail, and size and strength won't
protect us. This is The Art of War for the 21st century. __________
'Some of what he says makes more sense than much of what comes out
of the Pentagon and the Ministry of Defence' Max Hastings, Sunday
Times 'Thought-provoking' Johnathon Evans, Former Head of MI5
'Fascinating and disturbing' Economist
The way war is waged is evolving quickly—igniting the rise of
private military contractors that offer military-style services as
part of their core business model. Arduino unpacks the tradeoffs
involved when conflict is increasingly waged not by national
armies, but by professional outfits that thrive on chaos. This book
charts the rise of private military actors from Russia, China, and
the Middle East using primary source data, in-person interviews,
and field research amongst operations in conflict zones around the
world. Individual stories narrated by mercenaries, military
trainers, security businessmen, hackers, and drone pilots will be
used to introduce the beginning of each chapter. The book ends by
considering today’s trajectories in the deployment of mercenaries
by state, corporations, or even terrorist organizations and what it
will mean for the future of conflict. The book follows private
security contractors that take on missions in different countries
with a variety of challenges. These include a former Singaporean
commando working with a Chinese company in Kabul, a former British
Royal Marine leading a Kurdish private military company in Erbil
protecting BP’s oil, and a former Russian Spetsnaz defending
commercial vessels from the Somali coast to the Gulf of Guinea.
Aside from the human component, the book closely follows the trends
in the adoption of unmanned lethal weapons and it peeks into the
future of weapons that can decide autonomously to kill humans. One
chapter is dedicated to loitering munitions, better known as
suicide drones, used by Israel and the Iranian Islamic
Revolutionary Guard for remote-controlled assassination. ISIS’s
reengineered Chinese DJI commercial drones that are used for
propaganda operations or as advanced artillery spotters complete
the picture of the range of threats the world will routinely face
in less than a decade. First-hand data and intimate knowledge of
the actors involved in the market for force allow a fully grounded
narrative with personal input. Through this prism, the reader gains
an understanding of the human, security, and political risks that
are part of this industry. The book specifically reveals the risk
that unaccountable mercenaries pose in increasing the threshold for
conflict, the threat to traditional military forces, the corruption
in political circles, and the rising threat of proxy conflicts in
the US rivalry with China and Russia. In a nutshell, the book gazes
into the crystal ball to forecast what the future might look like
in a world ruled by private armies.
THE TIMES 100 BEST BOOKS FOR SUMMER AN ECONOMIST BOOK OF THE YEAR
'AN IMPORTANT BOOK' Sir Richard Dearlove, Former Director of MI6
'The Freakonomics of modern warfare' Conn Iggulden Everything you
think you know about war is wrong. The rules have changed, and we
are dangerously unprepared. In Goliath, former paratrooper and
Professor of Strategy Sean McFate teaches us the ten new rules of
war for today. __________ War is timeless. Some things change -
weapons, tactics, leadership - but our desire to go into battle
does not. We are living in an age of conflict: global terrorism,
Russia's resurgence and China's rise, international criminal
empires, climate change and dwindling natural resources. But while
the West has been playing the same old war games, the enemy has
changed the rules. Sean McFate has been on the front lines of
conflict. He has seen first-hand the horrors of battle, and as a
strategist, he understands the complexity of the current military
situation. In this new age of war: - Technology will not save us -
Victory will belong to the cunning, not the strong - Plausible
deniability is more potent than firepower - New types of world
powers will rule Learn how to triumph in the coming age of conflict
in ten new rules. Adapt and we can prevail. Fail, and size and
strength won't protect us. This is The Art of War for the 21st
century. __________ 'Some of what he says makes more sense than
much of what comes out of the Pentagon and the Ministry of Defence'
Max Hastings, Sunday Times 'Thought-provoking' Johnathon Evans,
Former Head of MI5 'Fascinating and disturbing' Economist
Recent events in Mali, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, and
elsewhere demonstrate that building professional indigenous forces
is imperative to regional stability, yet few success stories exist.
Liberia is a qualified "success," and this study explores how it
was achieved by the program's chief architect. Liberia suffered a
14-year civil war replete with human rights atrocities that killed
250,000 people and displaced a third of its population. Following
President Charles Taylor's exile in 2003, the U.S. contracted
DynCorp International to demobilize and rebuild the Armed Forces of
Liberia and its Ministry of Defense; the first time in 150 years
that one sovereign nation hired a private company to raise another
sovereign nation's military. This monograph explores the theory and
practice behind the successful disarmament, demobilization, and
reintegration (DDR) of the legacy military and security sector
reform (SSR) that built the new one.
It was 2004, and Sean McFate had a mission in Burundi: to keep the
president alive and prevent the country from spiraling into
genocide without anyone knowing that the United States was
involved. The United States was, of course, involved, but only
through McFate's employer, the military contractor DynCorp
International. Throughout Africa, Latin America, and the Middle
East, similar scenarios are playing out daily. The United States
can no longer go to war or carry out covert operations without
contractors. In 2010, the Pentagon's budget for private contractors
was seven times the entire U.K. defense budget. How did this state
of affairs come to be? How does the shadowy world of military
contracting actually operate? And what do trends suggest about the
future of war and international relations? We simply don't know
much about the structure of the industry, how private military
companies operate, and where this industry is heading. Typically
led by ex-military men, such firms are by their very nature
secretive. Even the US government-the entity that actually pays
them-knows relatively little. In The Modern Mercenary, former
industry insider Sean McFate lays bare the opaque world of private
military contractors, explaining the economic structure of the
industry and showing in detail how firms operate on the ground. As
a former paratrooper and private military contractor, McFate
provides an unparalleled perspective into the nuts and bolts of the
industry, as well as a sobering prognosis for the future of war.
While at present the U.S. government and U.S. firms dominate the
market, private military companies are emerging from other
countries, and warlords and militias have restyled themselves as
private security companies in places like Afghanistan and Somalia.
To understand how the proliferation of private forces may influence
international relations, McFate looks back to the European Middle
Ages, when mercenaries were common and contract warfare the norm.
He concludes that international relations in the twenty-first
century may have more in common with the twelfth century than the
twentieth. This "back to the future" situation, which he calls
neomedievalism, is not necessarily a negative condition, but it
will produce a global system that contains rather than solves
problems. A decidedly non-polemical account (a rarity in this
field), The Modern Mercenary is the first work that combines a
broad-ranging theory of the phenomenon with an insider's
understanding of what the world of the private military industry is
actually like.
An electrifying thriller – the first in a blistering series for
readers of Brad Thor, Tom Clancy and Daniel Silva.Tom Locke is an
elite warrior working for Apollo Outcomes, one of the world’s
most successful private contracting firms. Pulled out of a mission
in Libya, he is tapped for an unusual and risky assignment: a top
secret black op in Ukraine. Given one week to rescue an
oligarch’s family and pull off a spectacular assault, he soon
realises his mission has repercussions for this imperiled Eastern
European nation and the world. What Locke doesn’t know is that
the operation comes with a dangerous complication: his enigmatic
and ambitious boss, Brad Winters. One misstep could cost Locke –
and the region – everything. Written by an army veteran with deep
military expertise, Shadow War is an explosive and unputdownable
thriller. Praise for Shadow War ‘I was blown away’ Mark
Greaney, #1 New York Times bestselling author ‘Ex-mercenary Sean
McFate has produced a first novel that's assured, authentic,
timely, gritty, and most of all real’ C.J. Box, New York Times
Best-selling Author of Badlands and Off the Grid ‘Shadow War has
pace like a catapult, sudden and fierce, and it will hit readers
straight between the eyes’ Ted Bell, author of Patriot
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