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 Battlefield victory is obsolete, yet America still invests trillions of dollars in aircraft carriers, fighter jets, and killer robots—and ponders why no one is deterred or defeated....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 claims the world is in a state of “durable disorder.”...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...

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...

McFate believes that future wars will be waged by special forces and mercenary armies, which, are more cost-effective than standing national armies...

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...