The David Kilcullen Collection (merged thread)

[Fabius Maximus]

(a quickly written note, apologize for typos)

From the perspective of company commanders, this is just another set of advice, to be skimmed for a few insights. "#1 Know your turf ... tell me something I don't already know."

It's banal in the sense of commonplace, almost trivial.

(side note: For every members of Al Qaeda there must be hundred+ manuals on how to fight him, many of which are hundreds of pages long ... Perhaps we should conduct counterinsurgency by smothering our enemies with manuals.)

From a larger perspective this -- boiling his work down to commonplaces -- misses the key to Kilcullen's views. He's a brilliant PhD anthropologist - Lt Col in the Aussie Army.

I'll bet that he means this stuff, in its full glory as I described above. As do the senior DoD and State folks -- uniformed and not -- who promote his work.

The "excesses" (my word, not yours) that you throw away ("be the world expert on your district") are his key insights. Delusional as they might be.

This illustrates some key larger points as to why we lose these wars. Hence deserves attention!

[Fabius Maximus]

Bill, how can you say I am too harsh on Kilcullen before reading my analysis? Perhaps I am too gentle. (I vote for option B, too nice too often to too many).

Since I quoted from this New Yorker article, I probably read it!

These "genius new CI experts" and "innovative new Army commander" articles in the general media are a staple of 4G wars. They appear all the way from the confident entry to the defeat and withdrawal at the end.

They deserve close attention, as they illustrate why we lose.