David Kilcullen

David Kilcullen [r]: A former Australian infantry officer with a doctorate in the study of insurgency and history, he is an advisor on counterinsurgency to the Australian and U.S. governments. His models draw a sharp distinction between the tactic of terror, and the conduct of wars that make use of that tactic. Board of Advisors, Center for a New American Security ^[e]

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David Kilcullen, a former Australian infantry officer who has become a analyst of insurgency and counterinsurgency, for both the Australian and U.S. governments. After the George W. Bush Administration left office, he joined former Ambassador Hank Crumpton in forming a consultancy, the Crumpton Group, and also is a member of the Center for a New American Strategy.

He was a strategic advisor to the Multi-National Force-Iraq. He has had field experience in East Timor, Bougainville and the Middle East,and wrote his doctoral dissertation, in 2000, on "The political consequences of military operations in Indonesia 1945-99: a fieldwork analysis of the political power-diffusion effects of guerilla conflict"

While he was Special Advisor on Counterinsurgency to the United States Department of State, and has often been part of the "brain trust" United States Central Command chief GEN David Petraeus, he has made his position clear between the wisdom of national policies, and the responsibilities to conduct them. In a July 2008 interview about the Iraq War, he said,

The biggest stupid idea was to invade Iraq in the first place.

His 2009 book, The Accidental Guerilla, according to Andrew Bacevich, presents three Kilcullens:

• Kilcullen the scholar
• Kilcullen the practitioner
• Kilcullen the apostate

By apostate, Bacevich says

With the administration whose policies he sought to implement now gone from office, Kilcullen uses Accidental Guerrilla to skewer those he served for gross strategic ineptitude. His chief finding—that through its actions the Bush administration has managed to exacerbate the Islamist threat while wasting resources on a prodigious scale—is not exactly novel. Yet given Kilcullen’s status as both witness and participant, his indictment carries considerable weight.

Models

Ecosystem of Insurgency

Some of his visual metaphors for the environment, and the dynamics, of insurgency is often cited. Another recent presentation, "Dinosaurs versus Mammals: Insurgent and Counterinsurgent Adaptation in Iraq", used evolutionary biology to describe the competition between insurgents and counterinsurgents.

Kilcullen's Three Pillars

Military doctrine

As in the classic military doctrine distinctions among the different levels, from grand strategy to various levels of tactics, Kilcullen has long distinguished between militant insurgency and the tactic of terrorism: "We must distinguish Al Qa’eda and the broader militant movements it symbolises – entities that use terrorism – from the tactic of terrorism itself." Drawing a distinction between terrorism and those that use it as a means of fighting war does contrast with a simple view of a war on terror.

He relates the experience in Iraq to other counterinsurgency efforts in "Counterinsurgency in Iraq: Theory and Practice, 2007".

Tactical level

According to Kilcullen, both concepts and execution matter at the tactical level of company command.

Accidental Guerilla

There are, indeed, worldwide or large regional insurgencies such as international insurgencies such as Jemaah Islamiya and Lashkar e-Tayyiba, which he distinguishes from global terrorist movements including al-Qaeda and Hizballah, as well as local gangs that may have the capabilities of the larger groups. He also points to "micro-actors with massive impact," or "franchise" terrorists, such as those that carried out the 2004 Madrid bombings, are largely autonomous. The return of pirates mixes old and new. There are also local issues that, when mishandled, may grow, or even merge with a broader movement. His book, The Accidental Guerilla, deals with recognizing and preventing situations that may escalate.

In the twenty-first century threat context, new actors, new technologies, and new ways of war add to the old rather than substitute. He stresses there is no single moel, but offers four frameworks that, singly or jointly, deal with real-world situations:

1. A Backlash against Globalization
2. A Globalized Insurgency
3. A Civil War within Islam
4. Asymmetric warfare

Anti-globalization

Broadly, these include decolonization of the past, but also situations where local people are concerned with a cultural colonization, a fairly benign example being the Slow Food Movement that protested the establishment of a McDonald's store in Rome in 1986.

Views on drone attacks

Along with David Exum, Kilcullen believes the missile strikes by armed Unmanned Aerial Vehicles is counterproductive to U.S. efforts in Pakistan. While there is value to killing senior insurgent leaders, they ask whether it is worse the resources and collateral damage. Citing that killing, not by a drone, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq brought only about 18 days of decreased violence, they question if the resources would be better spent guarding the population.

They cite the use of drones in Somalia against the Islamic Courts Union, where the show of force led to popular anger against what was seen as an American show of force. The exact collateral damage in Pakistan is unclear; some press reports, which the authors do not appear to trust completely, suggest 50 civilians are killed for every guerilla.

Kilcullen and Exum have not yet commented on new reports that the accuracy is increasing. Exum did blog that even though drone strikes are not a strategy, the killing Baitullah Mehsud, which seems likely, is a "good thing."