Fire Starters
How America Can Defeat Autocrats Without Starting World War III
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Fire Starters
Pre-order Now for €17.99
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Narrated by:
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Jonathan Todd Ross
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By:
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Sean McFate
The West is losing a war it refuses to admit it’s fighting.
For decades, the United States has relied on a military built for a world that no longer exists. While we focus on aircraft carriers and stealth jets, our adversaries have moved the battlefield into shadows and our minds. From the troll farms of St. Petersburg to the paramilitary outposts of the South China Sea, autocracies are using subversion, deception, and "sneaky war" to hollow out democracy from within—all while staying just below the threshold of nuclear conflict.
Victory in the twenty-first century belongs to the fire starters.
Sean McFate, a former paratrooper and private military contractor, argues that to save democracy, we must master the "dark arts" of conflict. This isn't about traditional invasion; it’s about constructive chaos. McFate opens with the chilling account of the Battle of Khasham, where a small group of U.S. forces obliterated hundreds of Russian mercenaries in the Syrian desert without sparking World War III. It was a masterclass in plausible deniability—and a blueprint for the future.
We cannot defend the rules-based order by following the old rules.
Drawing on high-stakes covert operations and hushed global crises, Fire Starters provides a provocative roadmap for dismantling autocracies without firing a shot that starts a mushroom cloud. This is a manual for shadow war, showing how America can weaponize information, leverage networks, and flip the script on dictators who think they’ve already won.
The choice is simple: learn to fight in the gray zone, or watch the light of democracy go out.
Reviews
"Powerfully and thoughtfully provocative. Former paratrooper, strategist, and shadow warrior, Sean McFate, argues convincingly that our nation must leverage a broader spectrum of tactics, unconventional forces, and mental models of conflict in order to compete in today’s environment. His solution is rife with potential pitfalls, but may offer the only realistic approach to modern conflict." --General Stanley McChrystal (Ret.), former Commander of Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) and #1 New York Times bestselling author of Team of Teams
"Superb analysis of the West’s strategic conundrum – how to defeat aggressive, autocratic adversaries, without triggering nuclear devastation or bankrupting our treasuries. Sean provides a persuasive and engaging argument that we must recognize that the conflict has already begun; in order to win, the West must aggressively incorporate the ‘dark arts’ of unconventional statecraft into its strategic approach." --Lieutenant General Ken Tovo (Ret.), former Commander of U.S. Army Special Operations, including the Green Berets and Army Rangers
"Sean McFate understands that cold wars between nuclear superpowers must be won asymmetrically, indirectly, and in the shadows, below the threshold of direct, all-out conflict. And they should be won, not simply managed." -- Mike Vickers, chief architect of the CIA's covert war in Afghanistan, former top Pentagon intelligence official, and author of By All Means Available
"Our adversaries stopped waiting for a declared war long ago. They compete every day through commerce, technology, and influence, while we keep preparing for a fight they never intend to give us. Sean McFate understands that the decisive ground lies beneath the threshold of conflict, and that America's greatest strengths, its commercial technology and its free people, are advantages we have barely begun to use. Fire Starters is the strategy we need, and we need it now." --Brigadier General Rob Spalding (Ret.), former White House China strategist and bestselling author of Stealth War
"Sean McFate has seen war from angles few of us ever will, as a paratrooper, as a private military contractor working in the shadows, and as a scholar who teaches today’s soldiers. Fire Starters is the book Washington least wants to read, but most needs to. His case for beating autocrats before the war ever starts is provocative, unsettling, and urgent. War never stands still, and a nation that stops challenging its own thinking is already losing the next conflict. Wrestle with his thesis, argue with his approach, but read this in full to take the measure of the war we are already in." --Christopher Fussell, former Navy SEAL officer and New York Times bestselling co-author of Team of Teams