David Kilcullen
Encyclopedia
David John Kilcullen F.R.G.S
is an Australian author and consultant who is a leading theorist on counterinsurgency and counterterrorism. In 2007 he served as the Senior Counterinsurgency Adviser to the Commander of the Multi-National Force - Iraq responsible for planning and executing the Joint Campaign Plan which drove the Iraq War troop surge of 2007
.
Associates, a Washington D.C. based consultancy firm. He is a former Royal Australian Infantry Corps
Lieutenant Colonel
currently commissioned in the Australian Army Reserve
and is formerly a Senior Analyst with the Australian Office of National Assessments
. Kilcullen was seconded to the United States Department of State
Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism
as Chief Counterterrorism Strategist and then was the Special Advisor for Counterinsurgency to Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice
. In 2007 he served as the Senior Counterinsurgency Adviser to the Commander of the Multi-National Force - Iraq General David Petraeus
as a civilian position on his personal staff responsible for planning and executing the Joint Campaign Plan which drove the Iraq War troop surge of 2007
. Kilcullen has also been an advisor to the British government, the Australian government, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the International Security Assistance Force
and to several private sector
institutions. He is also a former Senior Fellow of the Center for a New American Security
and now a Member of the Center for a New American Security
Advisory Board. He is a member of the Mission Essential Personnel Board of Advisors. Kilcullen is also an Adjunct Professor of Security Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
in Political Science
from the University of New South Wales
at the Australian Defence Force Academy
, focusing on the effects of guerrilla warfare
on non-state political systems in traditional societies. His thesis was titled The political consequences of military operations in Indonesia 1945-99: a fieldwork analysis of the political power-diffusion effects of guerilla conflict. In it he argues that counter-insurgency
operations, whether successful or not, cause the diffusion of political power from central to local leaders. He employed a range of social research methods, including fieldwork, to investigate power diffusion in Indonesia and East Timor
during the Darul Islam era of 1948-62 and Indonesian occupation of East Timor
of 1974-99. Kilcullen also graduated from the Australian Defence Force School of Languages in 1993 with an Advanced Diploma in Applied Linguistics
in Indonesian and is a qualified Translator and Interpreter in Indonesian, Malay, French and general modern Arabic.
, peacekeeping
and peace enforcement
operations and campaigns in Southeast Asia]the Pacific Islands and the Middle East, including tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan. From 1995 to 1997, he was an exchange tactics instructor for platoon commanders at the British Army School of Infantry. He served in East Timor in 1999 as the Officer Commanding of the Support Company of the 2nd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment
as part of the United Nations International Force for East Timor. Kilcullen has also served with the Australian Defence Force in Bougainville with Papua New Guinea peacekeeping operations. Before he was seconded to the United States Department of State
, Kilcullen was Lieutenant Colonel
Staff Officer and Analyst with the Australian Office of National Assessments
and the Australian Defence Force Headquarters
.
, and has worked in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, the Horn of Africa
and Southeast Asia. He has also written several papers on the Iraqi insurgency
after the fall of Saddam Hussein
. He also helped design and implement the Regional Strategic Initiative, the principal doctrine for United States Foreign Policy countertorrism strategy.
He is one of a group of civilian specialists and military officers, including Colonel H. R. McMaster
and others, who were seconded in late 2006 to the personal staff of General Petraeus to oversee the specialized counterinsurgency aspects of the Iraq campaign in 2007. He previously contributed to the new United States Counterinsurgency Field Manual FM 3-24, published in December 2006, of which he authored a chapter entitled "A Guide to Action". His book The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One was published in early 2009.
After leaving the Department of State, Kilcullen founded and currently runs Caerus Associates, a Washington, DC based consultancy firm. According to its website, Caerus aims to pioneer "new ways of understanding and engaging in complex environments." It focuses specifically on community driven development, organizational and community resilience, and field based research to understand and address violent conflict.
and anti-globalisation, and US conventional military
dominance (which forces all potential opponents to adopt unconventional approaches). The paper describes the land conflict environment as being driven by four key factors: complexity, diversity, diffusion and lethality. The paper analyses the environment of contemporary conflict, in order to determine how land forces (the army and those elements of the navy and air force that support land operations) must operate in order to succeed in this environment. As mentioned above, the paper identifies the contemporary conflict environment as complex, diverse, diffuse and highly lethal.
. The paper argues that the strategy is best understood as a "global Islamic insurgency" initiated by a diffuse grouping of Islamist movements that seek to re-make Islam
's role in the world order.
Kilcullen's 2006 paper "Counterinsurgency Redux" questions the relevance of classical counterinsurgency theory to modern conflict. It argues from field evidence gathered in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Horn of Africa that:
understanding of the conflict environment, an approach he has called "'conflict ethnography': a deep, situation-specific understanding of the human, social and cultural dimensions of a conflict, understood not by analogy with some other conflict, but in its own terms." In May 2007 on the Small Wars Journal
website he argued:
s and non-commissioned officer
s engaged in counter-insurgency operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, responding to T.E. Lawrence's "Twenty-Seven Articles" of how to begin and sustain an insurgency. The paper's publication history is an illustration of new methods of knowledge propagation in the military-professional community. It first appeared as an e-mail that was widely circulated informally among U.S. Army
and Marine officers in April 2006, and was subsequently published in Military Review in May 2006. Later versions of it were published in IoSphere and the Marine Corps Gazette
, and it was translated into Arabic and Spanish by the editors of Military Review. It was later formalized as Annex A to FM 3-24, the US military's counterinsurgency doctrine, and is in use by the US, Australian, British
, Canadian, Dutch, Iraqi
and Afghan armies as a training document.
of the Washington Independent, Kilcullen called the decision to invade Iraq "stupid" and suggested that if policy-makers apply the manual's lessons, similar wars can be avoided in the future. "The biggest stupid idea," Kilcullen said, "was to invade Iraq in the first place." However, Kilcullen explained his comment the next day this way:
In November 2009, Kilcullen told The Guardian
that President Obama
"risks a Suez
-style debacle in Afghanistan if he fails to deploy enough extra troops and opts instead for a messy compromise."
In the same interview, Kilcullen criticized Obama for taking so long to make a decision: "I do think, though, the policy process of this administration this year has been, shall we say, messy and this, the latest incident [leaked cables from Ambassador Karl Eikenberry
to President Obama], underlines how messy it has been, and I think that is problematic. It sends a message of indecision and uncertainty which has an effect on allies, and has a huge effect on the British political debate and has huge impact on the Afghans."
On 6 March 2009, Kilcullen published a piece on smallwarsjournal.com titled "Accidental Guerrilla: Read Before Burning." The piece responded to Andrew Bacevich
's review of Kilcullen's book, The Accidental Guerilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One, and also addressed his criticisms of American administrations. Kilcullen wrote:
Books
Royal Geographical Society
The Royal Geographical Society is a British learned society founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical sciences...
is an Australian author and consultant who is a leading theorist on counterinsurgency and counterterrorism. In 2007 he served as the Senior Counterinsurgency Adviser to the Commander of the Multi-National Force - Iraq responsible for planning and executing the Joint Campaign Plan which drove the Iraq War troop surge of 2007
Iraq War troop surge of 2007
In the context of the Iraq War, the surge refers to United States President George W. Bush's 2007 increase in the number of American troops in order to provide security to Baghdad and Al Anbar Province....
.
Background
Kilcullen is the founder and CEO of CaerusCaerus
In Greek mythology, Caerus was the personification of opportunity, luck and favorable moments. He was depicted with only one lock of hair. His Roman equivalent was Occasio or Tempus. Caerus is called the youngest child of Zeus....
Associates, a Washington D.C. based consultancy firm. He is a former Royal Australian Infantry Corps
Royal Australian Infantry Corps
The Royal Australian Infantry Corps is the parent corps for all infantry regiments of the Australian Army. It was established on 14 December 1948, with its Royal Corps status being conferred by His Majesty King George VI. At her coronation in 1953, Queen Elizabeth II became Colonel-in-Chief of the...
Lieutenant Colonel
Lieutenant colonel
Lieutenant colonel is a rank of commissioned officer in the armies and most marine forces and some air forces of the world, typically ranking above a major and below a colonel. The rank of lieutenant colonel is often shortened to simply "colonel" in conversation and in unofficial correspondence...
currently commissioned in the Australian Army Reserve
Australian Army Reserve
The Australian Army Reserve is a collective name given to the reserve units of the Australian Army. Since the Federation of Australia in 1901, the reserve military force has been known by many names, including the Citizens Forces, the Citizen Military Forces, the Militia and, unofficially, the...
and is formerly a Senior Analyst with the Australian Office of National Assessments
Office of National Assessments
The Office of National Assessments is an Australian intelligence agency. ONA was established by the Office of National Assessments Act 1977 as an independent body directly accountable to the Prime Minister of Australia...
. Kilcullen was seconded to the United States Department of State
United States Department of State
The United States Department of State , is the United States federal executive department responsible for international relations of the United States, equivalent to the foreign ministries of other countries...
Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism
Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism
The Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism is an office of the United States Department of State. It coordinates all U.S. Government efforts to improve counter-terrorism cooperation with foreign governments and participates in the development, coordination, and implementation of American...
as Chief Counterterrorism Strategist and then was the Special Advisor for Counterinsurgency to Secretary of State
Secretary of State
Secretary of State or State Secretary is a commonly used title for a senior or mid-level post in governments around the world. The role varies between countries, and in some cases there are multiple Secretaries of State in the Government....
Condoleezza Rice
Condoleezza Rice
Condoleezza Rice is an American political scientist and diplomat. She served as the 66th United States Secretary of State, and was the second person to hold that office in the administration of President George W. Bush...
. In 2007 he served as the Senior Counterinsurgency Adviser to the Commander of the Multi-National Force - Iraq General David Petraeus
David Petraeus
David Howell Petraeus is the current Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, sworn in on September 6, 2011. Prior to his assuming the directorship of the CIA, Petraeus was a four-star general serving over 37 years in the United States Army. His last assignments in the Army were as commander...
as a civilian position on his personal staff responsible for planning and executing the Joint Campaign Plan which drove the Iraq War troop surge of 2007
Iraq War troop surge of 2007
In the context of the Iraq War, the surge refers to United States President George W. Bush's 2007 increase in the number of American troops in order to provide security to Baghdad and Al Anbar Province....
. Kilcullen has also been an advisor to the British government, the Australian government, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the International Security Assistance Force
International Security Assistance Force
The International Security Assistance Force is a NATO-led security mission in Afghanistan established by the United Nations Security Council on 20 December 2001 by Resolution 1386 as envisaged by the Bonn Agreement...
and to several private sector
Private sector
In economics, the private sector is that part of the economy, sometimes referred to as the citizen sector, which is run by private individuals or groups, usually as a means of enterprise for profit, and is not controlled by the state...
institutions. He is also a former Senior Fellow of the Center for a New American Security
Center for a New American Security
The Center for a New American Security is a Washington, D.C.-based think tank established in 2007 by co-founders Michèle Flournoy and Kurt M. Campbell which specializes in U.S. national security issues...
and now a Member of the Center for a New American Security
Center for a New American Security
The Center for a New American Security is a Washington, D.C.-based think tank established in 2007 by co-founders Michèle Flournoy and Kurt M. Campbell which specializes in U.S. national security issues...
Advisory Board. He is a member of the Mission Essential Personnel Board of Advisors. Kilcullen is also an Adjunct Professor of Security Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
Education
Kilcullen has a Doctor of PhilosophyDoctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...
in Political Science
Political science
Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...
from the University of New South Wales
University of New South Wales
The University of New South Wales , is a research-focused university based in Kensington, a suburb in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia...
at the Australian Defence Force Academy
Australian Defence Force Academy
The Australian Defence Force Academy is a tri-service military Academy that provides military and tertiary academic education for junior officers of the Australian Defence Force in the Royal Australian Navy , Australian Army and Royal Australian Air Force .Tertiary education is provided by the...
, focusing on the effects of guerrilla warfare
Guerrilla warfare
Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare and refers to conflicts in which a small group of combatants including, but not limited to, armed civilians use military tactics, such as ambushes, sabotage, raids, the element of surprise, and extraordinary mobility to harass a larger and...
on non-state political systems in traditional societies. His thesis was titled The political consequences of military operations in Indonesia 1945-99: a fieldwork analysis of the political power-diffusion effects of guerilla conflict. In it he argues that counter-insurgency
Counter-insurgency
A counter-insurgency or counterinsurgency involves actions taken by the recognized government of a nation to contain or quell an insurgency taken up against it...
operations, whether successful or not, cause the diffusion of political power from central to local leaders. He employed a range of social research methods, including fieldwork, to investigate power diffusion in Indonesia and East Timor
East Timor
The Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, commonly known as East Timor , is a state in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the nearby islands of Atauro and Jaco, and Oecusse, an exclave on the northwestern side of the island, within Indonesian West Timor...
during the Darul Islam era of 1948-62 and Indonesian occupation of East Timor
Indonesian occupation of East Timor
Indonesia occupied East Timor from December 1975 to October 1999. After centuries of Portuguese colonial rule in East Timor, a 1974 coup in Portugal led to decolonization among its former colonies, creating instability in East Timor and leaving its future uncertain...
of 1974-99. Kilcullen also graduated from the Australian Defence Force School of Languages in 1993 with an Advanced Diploma in Applied Linguistics
Applied linguistics
Applied linguistics is an interdisciplinary field of study that identifies, investigates, and offers solutions to language-related real-life problems...
in Indonesian and is a qualified Translator and Interpreter in Indonesian, Malay, French and general modern Arabic.
Military career
Kilcullen has served in several counter-insurgency guerrilla warfareGuerrilla warfare
Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare and refers to conflicts in which a small group of combatants including, but not limited to, armed civilians use military tactics, such as ambushes, sabotage, raids, the element of surprise, and extraordinary mobility to harass a larger and...
, peacekeeping
Peacekeeping
Peacekeeping is an activity that aims to create the conditions for lasting peace. It is distinguished from both peacebuilding and peacemaking....
and peace enforcement
Peace enforcement
Peace enforcement is a practice of ensuring peace in an area or region. Part of a three part scale between peacekeeping and peacemaking, it is sometimes considered to be the midpoint. Peace enforcement is different from peacemaking where options, possibly including force, are used to bring...
operations and campaigns in Southeast Asia]the Pacific Islands and the Middle East, including tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan. From 1995 to 1997, he was an exchange tactics instructor for platoon commanders at the British Army School of Infantry. He served in East Timor in 1999 as the Officer Commanding of the Support Company of the 2nd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment
2nd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment
2nd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment is a regular light infantry battalion of the Australian Army. 2 RAR was first formed as the Australian 66th Battalion in 1945 and since then it has seen active service during the Korean War, Malayan Emergency and Vietnam War...
as part of the United Nations International Force for East Timor. Kilcullen has also served with the Australian Defence Force in Bougainville with Papua New Guinea peacekeeping operations. Before he was seconded to the United States Department of State
United States Department of State
The United States Department of State , is the United States federal executive department responsible for international relations of the United States, equivalent to the foreign ministries of other countries...
, Kilcullen was Lieutenant Colonel
Lieutenant colonel
Lieutenant colonel is a rank of commissioned officer in the armies and most marine forces and some air forces of the world, typically ranking above a major and below a colonel. The rank of lieutenant colonel is often shortened to simply "colonel" in conversation and in unofficial correspondence...
Staff Officer and Analyst with the Australian Office of National Assessments
Office of National Assessments
The Office of National Assessments is an Australian intelligence agency. ONA was established by the Office of National Assessments Act 1977 as an independent body directly accountable to the Prime Minister of Australia...
and the Australian Defence Force Headquarters
Australian Defence Force
The Australian Defence Force is the military organisation responsible for the defence of Australia. It consists of the Royal Australian Navy , Australian Army, Royal Australian Air Force and a number of 'tri-service' units...
.
Consultancy career
While at the Department of State in 2005-2006 he served as Chief Strategist in the Office of the Coordinator for CounterterrorismOffice of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism
The Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism is an office of the United States Department of State. It coordinates all U.S. Government efforts to improve counter-terrorism cooperation with foreign governments and participates in the development, coordination, and implementation of American...
, and has worked in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, the Horn of Africa
Horn of Africa
The Horn of Africa is a peninsula in East Africa that juts hundreds of kilometers into the Arabian Sea and lies along the southern side of the Gulf of Aden. It is the easternmost projection of the African continent...
and Southeast Asia. He has also written several papers on the Iraqi insurgency
Iraqi insurgency
The Iraqi Resistance is composed of a diverse mix of militias, foreign fighters, all-Iraqi units or mixtures opposing the United States-led multinational force in Iraq and the post-2003 Iraqi government...
after the fall of Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
. He also helped design and implement the Regional Strategic Initiative, the principal doctrine for United States Foreign Policy countertorrism strategy.
He is one of a group of civilian specialists and military officers, including Colonel H. R. McMaster
H. R. McMaster
Herbert Raymond McMaster is an American soldier, and a career officer in the U.S. Army. McMaster is currently the Director of CJIATF-Shafafiyat at ISAF Headquarters in Kabul, Afghanistan. He is known for his role in the Gulf War, the Iraq War, and his reputation for questioning U.S...
and others, who were seconded in late 2006 to the personal staff of General Petraeus to oversee the specialized counterinsurgency aspects of the Iraq campaign in 2007. He previously contributed to the new United States Counterinsurgency Field Manual FM 3-24, published in December 2006, of which he authored a chapter entitled "A Guide to Action". His book The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One was published in early 2009.
After leaving the Department of State, Kilcullen founded and currently runs Caerus Associates, a Washington, DC based consultancy firm. According to its website, Caerus aims to pioneer "new ways of understanding and engaging in complex environments." It focuses specifically on community driven development, organizational and community resilience, and field based research to understand and address violent conflict.
Complex warfighting
Kilcullen's 2003 paper "Complex Warfighting" formed the basis for the Australian Army's future land operational concept, officially approved in 2005. It identifies the key drivers of modern conflict as globalizationGlobalization
Globalization refers to the increasingly global relationships of culture, people and economic activity. Most often, it refers to economics: the global distribution of the production of goods and services, through reduction of barriers to international trade such as tariffs, export fees, and import...
and anti-globalisation, and US conventional military
Conventional warfare
Conventional warfare is a form of warfare conducted byusing conventional military weapons and battlefield tactics between two or more states in open confrontation. The forces on each side are well-defined, and fight using weapons that primarily target the opposing army...
dominance (which forces all potential opponents to adopt unconventional approaches). The paper describes the land conflict environment as being driven by four key factors: complexity, diversity, diffusion and lethality. The paper analyses the environment of contemporary conflict, in order to determine how land forces (the army and those elements of the navy and air force that support land operations) must operate in order to succeed in this environment. As mentioned above, the paper identifies the contemporary conflict environment as complex, diverse, diffuse and highly lethal.
Countering "global insurgency"
His 2004 paper "Countering Global Insurgency" proposed a new strategic approach to the global War on TerrorismWar on Terrorism
The War on Terror is a term commonly applied to an international military campaign led by the United States and the United Kingdom with the support of other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation as well as non-NATO countries...
. The paper argues that the strategy is best understood as a "global Islamic insurgency" initiated by a diffuse grouping of Islamist movements that seek to re-make Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
's role in the world order.
Kilcullen's 2006 paper "Counterinsurgency Redux" questions the relevance of classical counterinsurgency theory to modern conflict. It argues from field evidence gathered in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Horn of Africa that:
Conflict ethnography
Kilcullen has argued in most of his works for a deeper cultural and linguisticNatural language
In the philosophy of language, a natural language is any language which arises in an unpremeditated fashion as the result of the innate facility for language possessed by the human intellect. A natural language is typically used for communication, and may be spoken, signed, or written...
understanding of the conflict environment, an approach he has called "'conflict ethnography': a deep, situation-specific understanding of the human, social and cultural dimensions of a conflict, understood not by analogy with some other conflict, but in its own terms." In May 2007 on the Small Wars Journal
Small Wars Journal
The Small Wars Journal facilitates and supports the exchange of information among practitioners, thought leaders, and students of Small Wars, in order to advance knowledge and capabilities in the field...
website he argued:
"Twenty-Eight Articles"
Kilcullen's paper "Twenty-Eight Articles" is a practical guide for junior officerOfficer (armed forces)
An officer is a member of an armed force or uniformed service who holds a position of authority. Commissioned officers derive authority directly from a sovereign power and, as such, hold a commission charging them with the duties and responsibilities of a specific office or position...
s and non-commissioned officer
Non-commissioned officer
A non-commissioned officer , called a sub-officer in some countries, is a military officer who has not been given a commission...
s engaged in counter-insurgency operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, responding to T.E. Lawrence's "Twenty-Seven Articles" of how to begin and sustain an insurgency. The paper's publication history is an illustration of new methods of knowledge propagation in the military-professional community. It first appeared as an e-mail that was widely circulated informally among U.S. Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
and Marine officers in April 2006, and was subsequently published in Military Review in May 2006. Later versions of it were published in IoSphere and the Marine Corps Gazette
Marine Corps Gazette
Marine Corps Gazette is a professional journal for U.S. Marines founded in 1916 at Marine Corps Base Quantico for members of the United States Marine Corps. Begun by then Col John A. Lejeune as the vehicle to launch the Marine Corps Association , the journal is known as "The Professional Journal...
, and it was translated into Arabic and Spanish by the editors of Military Review. It was later formalized as Annex A to FM 3-24, the US military's counterinsurgency doctrine, and is in use by the US, Australian, British
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
, Canadian, Dutch, Iraqi
Iraqi Army
The Iraqi Army is the land component of the Iraqi military, active in various forms since being formed by the British during their mandate over the country after World War I....
and Afghan armies as a training document.
Counterinsurgency
In 2010 he brought together salient writings in Counterinsurgency and developed his understanding of the counterinsurgency to address what he calls the globalised threat of radical Islam. He argues that successful counterinsurgency is about out-governing the enemy and winning the adaptation battle to provide integrated measures to defeat insurgent tactics through political, administrative, military, economic, psychological and informational means. He sees the need for local people to act as the agents for post-conflict futures.Controversies
According to Spencer AckermanSpencer Ackerman
Spencer Ackerman is an American national security reporter and blogger. He began his career at The New Republic and currently writes for Wired magazine's national security blog, ....
of the Washington Independent, Kilcullen called the decision to invade Iraq "stupid" and suggested that if policy-makers apply the manual's lessons, similar wars can be avoided in the future. "The biggest stupid idea," Kilcullen said, "was to invade Iraq in the first place." However, Kilcullen explained his comment the next day this way:
In November 2009, Kilcullen told The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
that President Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
"risks a Suez
Suez Crisis
The Suez Crisis, also referred to as the Tripartite Aggression, Suez War was an offensive war fought by France, the United Kingdom, and Israel against Egypt beginning on 29 October 1956. Less than a day after Israel invaded Egypt, Britain and France issued a joint ultimatum to Egypt and Israel,...
-style debacle in Afghanistan if he fails to deploy enough extra troops and opts instead for a messy compromise."
In the same interview, Kilcullen criticized Obama for taking so long to make a decision: "I do think, though, the policy process of this administration this year has been, shall we say, messy and this, the latest incident [leaked cables from Ambassador Karl Eikenberry
Karl Eikenberry
Karl Winfrid Eikenberry is a retired United States Army Lieutenant General and former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan.-Education:Eikenberry graduated from Goldsboro High School in Goldsboro, North Carolina in 1969 and then attended West Point, where he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant upon...
to President Obama], underlines how messy it has been, and I think that is problematic. It sends a message of indecision and uncertainty which has an effect on allies, and has a huge effect on the British political debate and has huge impact on the Afghans."
On 6 March 2009, Kilcullen published a piece on smallwarsjournal.com titled "Accidental Guerrilla: Read Before Burning." The piece responded to Andrew Bacevich
Andrew Bacevich
Andrew J. Bacevich, Sr. is a professor of international relations at Boston University and a retired career officer in the United States Army...
's review of Kilcullen's book, The Accidental Guerilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One, and also addressed his criticisms of American administrations. Kilcullen wrote:
Publications
- Rethinking the Basis of Infantry Close Combat, Australian Army Journal, Vol. 1, Issue 1, June 2003, pp.29-40.
- Future Land Operational Concept, Complex Warfighting, Department of Defence, Canberra. 7 April 2004, 30 Pp.
- "Countering Global Insurgency", October 2004, the long internet version of a paper subsequently published in the Journal of Strategic Studies, which re-defines the war on terrorism as an extremely large-scale counterinsurgency problem.
- "Countering Global Insurgency", published version (August 2005) (requires subscription)
- "Twenty-Eight Articles", a how-to guide for junior commanders engaged in counterinsurgency] from the Air University website; available elsewhere in Arabic
- "Counterinsurgency Redux", an article from Survival, the journal of the International Institute of Strategic Studies, contrasting current insurgencies with the "classical" period of the 1950s-1960s.
- "New Paradigms for 21st Century Conflict", an article from e-Journal USA, the State Department's in-house electronic journal
- Blog entries by Kilcullen on Small Wars Journal
Books
- The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One New York: Oxford University Press, March 2009. ISBN 978-0-19-536834-5
- Counter Insurgency. Melbourne: Scribe, 2010. ISBN 978-1-921640-34-6
- Out of the Mountains. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011 (forthcoming)
External links
- Australian Government Department of Defence profile of Dr Kilcullen
- Profile of Kilcullen at the Center for a New American SecurityCenter for a New American SecurityThe Center for a New American Security is a Washington, D.C.-based think tank established in 2007 by co-founders Michèle Flournoy and Kurt M. Campbell which specializes in U.S. national security issues...
's website - New Yorker profile on Colonel Kilcullen, by George Packer
- Kilcullen's Long War by Tom Hayden, The NationThe NationThe Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
, 14 October 2009 - Appointment of Colonel Kilcullen to advisor of commander of Multinational Force Iraq David Howell Petraeus from The Sydney Morning HeraldThe Sydney Morning HeraldThe Sydney Morning Herald is a daily broadsheet newspaper published by Fairfax Media in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1831 as the Sydney Herald, the SMH is the oldest continuously published newspaper in Australia. The newspaper is published six days a week. The newspaper's Sunday counterpart, The...
- "Towards mercenary anthropology? The new US Army counterinsurgency manual FM 3-24 and the military-anthropology complex", Roberto J. González, Anthropology Today Vol 23, No 3 (June 2007) — critical of Kilcullen
- "Ethics, politics and non-state warfare: A response to González", David Kilcullen, Anthropology Today Vol 23, No 3 (June 2007) — Kilcullen's response
- "Strategist behind war gains", Rebecca Weisser, The AustralianThe AustralianThe Australian is a broadsheet newspaper published in Australia from Monday to Saturday each week since 14 July 1964. The editor in chief is Chris Mitchell, the editor is Clive Mathieson and the 'editor-at-large' is Paul Kelly....
, 18 August 2007 - "A Visionary and a Practitioner: the Bernard Kouchner vs. David Kilcullen", Karina Paulina Marczuk, "Defence and Strategy", vol. 2/2007.
- Lecture by Kilcullen on The Accidental Guerilla at the Pritzker Military Library, June 2009.
- "The Accidental Guerrilla and the Deliberate Interventionist" by Michael ScheuerMichael ScheuerMichael F. Scheuer is a former CIA intelligence officer, American blogger, historian, foreign policy critic, and political analyst. He is currently an adjunct professor at Georgetown University's Center for Peace and Security Studies...
, 2009-04-15 - VIDEO David Kilcullen and Julian Burnside at the 2009 Melbourne Writers Festival on ABC FORA
- VIDEO Then-Major Kilcullen (holding handset) during contact with pro Indonesian forces on East Timor - Indonesia border, 10 October 1999.