The Top 100 Rules of the
New American Way of War
By Dr. Thomas P. M. Barnett and Dr. Henry H. Gaffney Jr.
THE PATHS TO WAR
The United States Stands Ready for Any Type of War
1. The U.S. military stays ready because it understands that while the world is full of
ongoing situations in which it remains involved, it must be prepared for any acts of war
against the United States that come "out of the blue."
2. U.S. forces believe in constant training, both to facilitate their command of their
complex war-making system and to deal with a wide variety of circumstances.
3. Because the United States must move forces long distances to fight, it does extensive
contingency planning to conquer the time and distance factors.
Whom the United States Fights in Wars
4. The United States wages war on states or nonstate actors that attack or threaten to
attack the U.S. homeland.
5. The United States wages war on states or nonstate actors that attack U.S. military
forces or other instruments of the government; because the United States is the de facto
global cop, any such attack is perceived as an attack on global stability itself.
6. If all other measures fail, the United States reserves the right to bring war preemptively
to states or nonstate actors that actively seek to acquire weapons of mass destruction for
use against the United States or any of its allies.
7. The United States wages war on states that harbor or actively support terrorist groups
with transnational objectives and reach, and this war encompasses all elements of U.S.
national power.
8. Maintaining a commitment to global stability, the United States wages war on states or
nonstate actors that threaten or launch wars against our key allies, including other North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states,
Israel, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Australia, and others.
