David Kilcullen has a new book. Fareed Zakaria calls it "required reading."
David Kilcullen, one of the world's most influential experts on counterinsurgency and modern warfare, dramatically influenced America's decision to rethink its strategy in Iraq and implement "the surge."
Kilcullen sees today's conflicts as a complex pairing of contrasting trends: local social networks and worldwide movements; traditional and postmodern culture; local insurgencies seeking autonomy and a broader pan-Islamic campaign. He warns that America's actions in the war on terrorism have tended to conflate these trends, blurring the distinction between local and global struggles and thus enormously complicating our challenges.
Indeed, the US had done a poor job of applying different tactics to these very different situations, continually misidentifying insurgents with limited aims and legitimate grievances (whom he calls "accidental guerrillas") as part of a coordinated worldwide terror network. We must learn how to disentangle these strands, develop strategies that deal with global threats, avoid local conflicts where possible, and win them where necessary.
The Accidental Guerrilla will, quite simply, change the way we think about war.
On sale March 13.
