The David Kilcullen Collection (merged thread)

[Fabius Maximus]

Here is the "official" citation for ‘Countering Global Insurgency’:

The Journal of Strategic Studies
Vol. 28, No. 4, August 2005, p. 608.
(Subscription only site)

There are articles by him with this title around the web. Not sure if they are identical to the above.

Here is the version I used,from this site (no details as to source or date).

http://smallwarsjournal.com/documents/kilcullen.pdf

Kilcullen has also written some excellent articles in the Australian Army Journal. Easy to find via google (citations available via Google).

[Fabius Maximus]

I agree with many of the points you raise. For example, those observations about the current state of counterinsurgency theory and practice.

I'm still yet to be convinced that 4GW as currently expressed, or indeed any other paradigm including COIN, contains all the answers we seek for the present round of conflicts.

Similar comments from the "Conclusions" of Countering Global Insurgency and Three Pillars of Counterinsurgency expressed this so well I will use them prominently in my next article.

I disagree with you regarding a few points.

I'm fundamentally a practitioner rather than a theorist ...

You are obviously both. Anybody reading all 72 pages of Countering Global Insurgency – esp. Appendix C, CASE STUDY – SYSTEMS ASSESSMENT OF INSURGENCY IN IRAQ -- will mark you as a theoretician of the first water.

Likewise I believe you are too modest regarding the conceptual foundation of “28 articles. My first draft examined the recommendations of 28 articles as expressions of your longer works, which would have been conceptually a stronger paper. Unfortunately the readers of DNI do not, I believe, respond as well to long, complex works as well as that of the professional journals which publish your work. It’s a disadvantage of writing for a wide audience. With 28 articles you appear to have had the best of both worlds, as it brought the thinking from your greater works to a general audience.

This quote goes directly to the heart of the debate:

I have huge confidence in the adaptability and agility of the guys in the field and have been impressed, again and again, as I have served with them in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. But even if the advice is not strictly achievable, I still think it's worth giving since it helps turn the "ship of state" in the right direction.

I agree totally with the first sentence, and disagree absolutely with the second. The article was an attempt to highlight this point, expanding on similar views expressed in my previous articles. Our troops might be doing things right, but are we strategically doing the right thing? As you know, getting this wrong is an easy and oft-traveled road to defeat.

Equally important, I agree with the following:

I would argue that this set of conflicts we are in actually breaks all our existing paradigms so that we need a fundamental re-think.

The conundrum of 21st century warfare is exactly a “paradigm crisis” as described by Thomas Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
History suggests that these complex debates are resolved through exchange of papers. That is, exchange of articles and correspondence, with new ideas often coming from unlikely sources.

---

I'll addition to the last line of this response ... it could come from you, me, someone on the SWC, anyone. We need to have our minds open to recognise solutions when they appear.

[Menning]

This article was published back in December. Until more recently I couldn't find it online. George Packer writes a great article featuring David Kilcullen and the role of social sciences in GWOT. This is even more germane as Kilcullen is a member of Petraeus' "brain trust." I highly recommend looking at this piece.

Here's the link: http://www.newyorker.com/printables/fact/061218fa_fact2

[Tom Odom]

Thanks mate

I have Packer's Assassins Gate. And I actually read it.

I will look at this. I have a fondness for New Yorker because they sent Phil Gourevich to Rwanda

Tom

[SWJED]

From today's Weekly Standard - Kilcullen Blogger Call by Michael Goldfarb.

Dr. David Kilcullen, who currently serves as senior counter-insurgency adviser to Gen. Petraeus and Multi-National Force Iraq, participated in a conference call with bloggers and reporters this morning.

Kilcullen has a distinguished record, having served as chief counter-terrorism strategist for the U.S. State Department, senior analyst in Australia's Office of National Assessments, and special adviser to the Pentagon for counter-terrorism during the 2005 Quadrennial Defense Review. He also blogs at the Small Wars Journal.

The call lasted nearly 45 minutes, so I won't try and cover everything that was discussed, but there will be a complete transcript and audio file posted here sometime today.

So, a few highlights...

Much more at the link...

[SWJED]

From today's Blackfive - COIN: Dr. Kilcullen in Blogger Roundtable.

Dr. David Kilcullen, well known to readers of this page (see especially here), was the guest in the DefendAmerica.mil Blogger's Roundtable this morning. Audio and a transcript will be (but as of this writing are not yet) available here.

I was invited to participate in the Roundtable (which, I found out when I got there, is being run by an old friend of mine -- a military contractor named Tim Killbride, who has recently done some writing of his own on the topic)...

Much more at the link...

[SWJED]

9 July issue of the Weekly Standard - Richard Lugar, Meet David Kilcullen by William Kristol.

... Contrast Lugar's speech with an assessment of the situation in Iraq posted the very next day on the Small Wars Journal website. David Kilcullen, a former Australian military officer, is one of the world's leading experts on counterinsurgency warfare. A sharp critic of the previous U.S. strategy in Iraq, he was asked by General Petraeus to serve as an adviser during the development and early execution of the new strategy. Now finishing up his tour of duty, Kilcullen offered "personal views" of "what's happening, right now." It's worth reproducing much of Kilcullen's report, "Understanding Current Operations in Iraq"...

[Rob Thornton]

As a soldier how do you react to the different positions taken by politicians (in general)? You prefer to believe (at least I do) that these elected officials are trying to represent the interests of the United States, their constituents at home, and the soldier abroad, but it sometimes contrasts with your own emotions and perspective.

There seems to be a self defeating air of mistrust and self deception we must overcome in D.C, in the U.S. and abroad. People often compare (wrong for many reasons I think) the Iraq War and the Vietnam War. What people fail to do well is place Iraq in the context of the stated AQ (and their spawn) strategy. I'm not sure we can afford to fail in Iraq. We've hear the various withdrawal with _____________ options, but I think they miss the point.

You cannot reason with someone that is anathema to your core beliefs, one of you must cease to believe or exist.

We mirror image our process of rationalization into AQ and Iran to try and understand them and their motivations, but when we do so we deceive ourselves. Some of us have seen some of these hard core types up close - not the ones who look deflated on capture, but the ones who through their eyes look like serial killers, the ones with contempt for life regardless of age, sex, or anything else human beings might raise moral issues with. These animals are not confined to Islam or the Middle East, but they do seem to be attracted to the fringes of religious movements where extremism coincides with their cruelty.

While many of the people we encounter in Iraq are just trying to put food on the table, or regain honor and dignity, the hard core of the bunch murder because it feeds them - they are every bit as evil as Jack the Ripper. While many insurgents in Iraq can be brought back into their society (and in fact are being), these few Irhabs will not be - the idea of society is totally, 180 deg. at odds to the self interests of these few. These animals will murder until they die, even if locked up they will murder in their hearts until given the chance to do so again.

I believe that if we remove ourselves from Iraq before there is a functioning government that can provide security and work towards stability, the Irhab will gain empowerment. In an environment where we chose to leave a vacuum, the Irhab will prosecute Hirabah against any of those Iraqis and foreigners who they can justify exterminating. It will devolve into a Taliban like state where destroying anything and anyone (Christian, Yizidi, even Muslims) not acquiescing to this severely perverted form is encouraged. They will re-write the history of Mesopotamia through annihilation and erasure.

If left unchecked it will spread. It will be exported at first, infecting areas through information and money - like tiny tumors throughout the body. It will be impossible through our political paralysis to know if they are benign or malignant until after they gain enough strength to resist less intrusive treatments - this is part of a published AQ strategy. They will seek to challenge us in our homes in our own countries, because they cannot stand even the slightest challenge to their views. For them our continued existence is intolerable.

For these animals pluralism anywhere cannot be tolerated - for them its just a question of having the resources to destroy it. They are clever and will cultivate the outward appearance of confining their goals in the name of their right to exist, after all who are we to export freedom, or Christianity or anything regardless of the level of oppression others face? In the Irhab view they have no moral obligation to be honest to the apostates of the world (meaning anyone that disagrees with them), lying is justified and encouraged. If America can be duped into believing they will stop, then they should be encouraged to do so. However, eventually they see themselves as gaining the resources – it is written plainly in the AQ strategy - they see it as prophesized and communicate it as future, present and past tense.

What happens in Iraq right now matters to our future survival. We must succeed there, or we will go back in a much shorter period of time then we think. The next time all the moderates, and anyone who befriended us there will be dead, murdered along with their families and any hint they ever existed as anything but apostates. Iraq is not Afghanistan either, and anyone who thinks OBL & AQ did not learn from the last 5 years is at the pinnacle of ignorance – they are already making plans on how to consolidate and protect the gains they see as inevitable. Failure and withdrawal under any terms less then those that leave a secure and stable Iraq that tolerates the pluralism of its inhabitants (yea - that would equate to a representative system of some flavor) only sets us up for eventually going back. You can say it will never happen, but it will. The AQs of the world don't see it like we do, for them history is already written and they won, all they have to do is wage the global jihad.

[Old Eagle]

The job of newspapers (media) is to sell newspapers.

The job of politicians is to get elected.

If you accept those two reality points, you won't get so worked up about otherwise intelligent ? politicians doing/saying idiotic things, or newspapers/media consumed by such things as Paris Hilton (she's out of jail) and Anna Nicole Smith (she's still dead).

All politics is local.

That said, I am amazed at the resiliency of Joe Liebermann in the face of true adversity. Whoda thunkit?

[Rob Thornton]

Hey OE,

The job of politicians is to get elected.

Is it? Or is that just job #1?

I don't have much of a problem with all politics being local if that means they are represenative of those who elected them. It starts to get fuzzy when talking the T-TH in D.C. and the F-M at home raising $$$ for the next campaign.

I can't help getting worked up, in fact I'd say more people should. Of course its my opinnion, but I believe there is more at stake here then just Iraq. Liebermann has done what few others have, he's demonstrated leadership and candor.

Regards, Rob

[Granite_State]

The job of newspapers (media) is to sell newspapers.

The job of politicians is to get elected.

Not really the issue with Lugar though. Don't necessarily agree with him, but he was just reelected, and I would think his seat is very safe. Wouldn't cite his own reelection as an issue here.

[T. Jefferson]

Rob:

The AQ strategy sure seems reminiscent of Marx and his "historical inevitability.”

If we bail, I would expect to see a massive growth in Shia militias and a return to out and out Sunni vs. Shia civil war.

[carl]

Rob:

Very well said. I get worked up too when I think of maybe two wars lost and two peoples betrayed in my lifetime; both because of the fecklessness and lack of moral character of our high leaders.

I just wish I could state it as well as you.

[Dominique R. Poirier]

Rob:

Very well said. I get worked up too when I think of maybe two wars lost and two peoples betrayed in my lifetime; both because of the fecklessness and lack of moral character of our high leaders.

I just wish I could state it as well as you.

Rob,
About politicians, it all matter about sociology and the making of the ruling elite, in my own opinion and from personal knowledge acquired on the field.

Further readings of authors such as Gaetano Mosca (The Rulling Class), Vilfredo Pareto (The Mind of Society), George Sorel (varied works), James Burnham (The Machiavellians), Frederick the Great, and Nicolo Machiavelli, of course, provide further enlightenments.

About the courage, reliability and trustworthiness of politicians the dominant and basic parameter I personally consider is whether the personality of a given politician seem fit this of the “lion model,” or the “fox model.”

The way the making of the ruling elite is done from country to country is a variable of tremendous importance. In some instances corruption or past events in life likely to give hand to blackmail is a prerequisite since a highly empowered person who is not corruptible or has no such record is hard to get rid of if ever he crosses the political line on the basis of which he has been selected (yes, I didn’t say elected). Things are different in more democratic countries such as the United States, of course.

Sometimes ago I did write something more explicit and nearly exhaustive under the form of a comment, about this question. It is entirely based upon the reading of the above mentioned author. Just in case, you can access it at the following link and in looking for my name:

http://neveryetmelted.com/?p=1807

[Abu Buckwheat]

What happens in Iraq right now matters to our future survival. The AQs of the world don't see it like we do, for them history is already written and they won, all they have to do is wage the global jihad.

There is no arguing that an unstable and failed state of Iraq will give refuge to some future terrorists but we have to face some simple facts before we can stipulate your argument. I have been working there for four years, lost dozens of friends and eeked out a book on how and why they fight. The facts on the ground are this ... Al Qaeda in iraq and all of its associated foreign fighter personnel make up less than 2-5% of the insurgency. We have managed to incorrectly place the initials "AQI" next to everyone fighting us -particularly Iraqis fighting us. This is wrong and our group think-prone mindset is to belive our own political propaganda. In this instance this is what is blinding us to how AQI could be everywhere at all times and so effective day and night in Iraq. In fact, they aren't.

We are fighting 4 entirely different resistance organizations in Iraq ... three of them are Sunni. However everywhere I go I keep hearing the boots on the ground carrying out operations against AQI or AQI supporters ... I will say this once again. No one seems to fight the Iraqi resistance ... just AQI. All Iraqiscaptured are AQI. All supporters aare AQI. This is flat out wrong.

We are fighting an 98,000 man force made up mainly of former intelligence officers, police, soldiers, commandos and their children above the age of 16. The Former Regime Loyalists (FRLs) are the heart of the insurgency and their goals are entirely different from those of AQI. AQI is just a convient foil that allows the FRLs to operate with impunity while AQI gets almost all of our resources and missions. It is in the interest of the FRLs and the Iraqi religious extremists as well as the Mahdi militia to keep us bug hunting for the AQI SVBIED cells while the day to day grind of IEDs and Ambushes kills two to five of our men and women everyday ... these attacks come from the 98% of the insurgency we seem to take pleasure in ignoring.

I have worked the AQ mission since 1993 and a few other facts need to be said. AQI didn't exist until we set the ground and battlefield for them. OK, its done; a phenomenal screw-up of ungodly but biblical proportions. Now lets move on and unscrew it. AQI operates separately as a covert entity within Iraqi society simply to carry out SVBIED/SPBIED missions (and some armed attacks for training purposes). They are a one trick pony, however it is an effective trick. Yet they cannot even start to operate in Iraq without the people who brought them there a few weeks before the invasion ... the former regime forces -specifically, the Saddam Fedayeen. The FRLs and Neo-Baathists dominate AQ ops areas areas and supply many of the AQI operations with logistical support - from Damascus to the SVBIED crashing through the gate AQI has to kiss the ring of the FRLs. AQI may be just 1,300-1,500 men operating in a country of 25 million but we still keep referring to the insurgency as AQI driven, planned and operated. Its fundamentally wrong and has bitten us in the rear several times already.

Now about AQ terrorists - You may be right Rob, but in my experience (26 years of operations in the Middle East and Africa) the men who chooses the jihadist path comes from all cross sections of Moslem (and even American) life. However I have seen men one would never suspect of hurting a kitten become hard core fighters and believe me when they find in their hearts some facet of hope that makes them truely belive they are carrying out God's mission then they do it with courage, convition and steeliness we could all admire. Few of these men are crazy murderers or serial killers just as the Marines are not typified but the few mass murders we KNOW have been carried out by men in prison now. Jihadis and the nationalist resistance are just committed and motivated soldiers in their own way. We have many of the same type who, once bloodied, will fight and kill in a league of their own. We call them warriors, or Soldier of the Month ... they call them "Mujihad Brothers" "Princes of Battle," "Lions of Allah," or liken them to any number of Islamic and pre-Islamic heros (Antar, Sindbd, et al.). In Fallujah they were the hardest of the hard but they can be made, just as we make Marines, SF and others. Its a calling, they call it a "calling" and to lessen them into murderers is a cast that may work in Information Operations but not in assessing our enemy honestly. Thats our biggest problem... we make them into cartoon characters and they suprise the hell out of us by standing up and fighting us as men with a mission. The mischaraterization and the effectivness of their operations sows confusion in our assessments of who we are fighting ... we assume its a blip and do it again. Its been going on wrong for four years.

I agree we must stay until there is a functioning government with a security force capable of handling this mission that we can barely do but how long can we hold on when America is not committed to this war. The American people are speaking so we'd better come up with a Plan B, C, D-Z and pretty damn quick.

the Irhab will prosecute Hirabah against any of those Iraqis and foreigners who they can justify exterminating ... They will re-write the history of Mesopotamia through annihilation and erasure.

... and here is where I think you are mistaken. The goal of the Sunni Moslem community is simple ... get hope for their children. When the appropriate time and the right amount of money and resources comes into their community (from their own efforts or enterprise) comes they will obliterate the AQI because they will have served their purpose. There is no future for AQI in Western Iraq ... few to none are Iraqis and Bin Laden's Global Jihad has nothing to do with their present fight or their quest for 24 hour a day air conditioning ... its going to end up about what cut of the profits of future oil revenue gets routed to them and gives their children a future. Right now its 0% so they support AQI damaging/destablizing/deligitimizing the Shiite government and us as much as possible... they give them VBIEDs/PBIEDs, targets and logistical support ... they create the plan and path to hit us and we immediately comply and hunt just the Jihadis ... not the Sunni insurgents. This former government played the Iraqi people for decades and neither UBL or Zarqawi or anyone else can defeat them politically or militarily on their own home turf. They prepared for this resistance and they are using all the tools at their disposal. AQI is one of those tools.

I like to think we can buy the FRL insurgency with the right political and military concessions and maybe we can, but first we have to recalibrate who we are really fighting day to day and who is really causing the most casualties... here's a hint, it isn't AQI.

[T. Jefferson]

But too many of our politicians are not serious. As retired General Jack Keane told the New York Sun last week, "The tragedy of these efforts is we are on the cusp of potentially being successful in the next year in a way that we have failed in the three-plus preceding years, but because of this political pressure, it looks like we intend to pull out the rug from underneath that potential success." I would only qualify Keane's statement in this way: Such a frivolous and thoughtless betrayal of our fighting men would be too contemptible to be called tragedy.

I for one, really do not want to see another liberation of Saigon. Politicians as a group never seem to learn from history, especially military history.

[jlechelt]

Kristol calling for reasoned debate is like President Clinton calling for faithfulness in marriage, or President Bush calling for honesty in war leadership. Bill Kristol should have been demanding - and offering - reasoned debate BEFORE the Iraq War began. Instead, he sounded the trumpets and challenged the integrity of anyone who questioned the wisdom of going into Iraq. Shame on him. Kilcullen's explanation of the current US effort in Iraq is fantastic. Why hasn't the President of the United States been so direct and honest with us?

[120mm]

I know it isn't popular to say so, but perhaps the President IS being as honest as he is capable of being. Perhaps it is more an issue of capability, not intent. If nothing else, this Presidency has been marked with an inability to communicate clearly, whether that be because Bush cannot speak well, or that there is no central theme to speak to, or that media filters are on "full".

For sure, the assertion that "Bush Lied" has reached "Big Lie" status for those among his opposition. I mean, it's been said so often, it must be true, right? On a related issue, the Presidency has been under continuous investigation since Reagan. Investigating the President has become a tactic, now. And, except for in former President Clinton's case, the investigations have turned up nothing of substance.

[Abu Buckwheat]

For sure, the assertion that "Bush Lied" has reached "Big Lie" status for those among his opposition. I mean, it's been said so often, it must be true, right? On a related issue, the Presidency has been under continuous investigation since Reagan. Investigating the President has become a tactic, now. And, except for in former President Clinton's case, the investigations have turned up nothing of substance.

Well lets check the books since WWII.

Truman (D) - No crimes to speak of.
Ike (R)- Same ... warned against the military industrial complex.
Kennedy (D)- Sex with Marilyn Monroe in White house.
Johnson (D) - Got us into Vietnam and quit when he went below 50% popularity.
Nixon (R)- Investigated by his own DOJ and found numerous acts of criminal conduct in office. Ordered burglaries, wiretapping and thefts. His own party turned on him and impeachment was a sure thing. Additionally he secretly (to the American public) and illegally bombed two other nations not at war with us ... this ultimately led to Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge winning Cambodia and murdering a million people. Numerous members of his cabinet went to prison until pardoned by President Ford or until sentences were completed.

Carter (D)- Not the best president but did nothing illegal or improper. Later won Nobel Peace prize for bringing Israel and Egypt together.

Reagan (R)- Sold US stocks of I-HAWK and I-TOW Missiles and spare parts to Iran (via Israel and the CIA). Since it was a secret sale the conspirators decided to secretly funnel the HUGE profits of those missile sales to a secret slush fund to arm the Nicaraguan Contras - all against the laws passed by Congress to NOT give them any US money (see it was Iranian and terrorist money so it was OK!). Oh yes, Iran was under a US arms ban and the weapons were direct bribes to Iran so they could tell their terrorist arm, Hezbollah in Lebanon, to free US hostages (that they ordered kidnapped) in direct exchange for specified numbers of I-HAWKs/I-TOWs. Numerous members went to prison for lying and obstruction of justice until pardoned by G.H.W. Bush. Several work in the present White House.

Clinton (D) - Dozens of investigations reveal he had oral sex and bad taste in bimbos but was not convicted of it. No one convicted or pardoned in his cabinet of anything despite dozens of investigations (look it up, its all true, except Henry Cisneros's misdemeanor count of obstruction about how much money he gave his girlfriend).

GW Bush (R) - He's getting off very light so far. Only two big investigations really underway - Firing of US Attorneys and Warrantless Wiretapping ... I can't tell you were others will begin or end but I personally believe there is allot of smoke and its not from Cigars and interns. I do know this ... even Bush admitted on TV he ordered wiretaps of US citizens without a warrant contrary to the fourth amendment of the Constitution. This is illegal. Incompetence pre-9/11? Incompetence in Iraq? Incompetence in Hurricane Katrina? Take a number ... its going to be a long summer and quite frankly I am of the belief they deserve some checks and balances. Let the chips fall where they may because my beloved Consitution is more important to me than a few politcal hacks.

[Mark O'Neill]

Well lets check the books since WWII.

Kennedy (D)- Sex with Marilyn Monroe in White house.
Johnson (D) - Got us into Vietnam and quit when he went below 50% popularity.
.

Sorry, who got you into Vietnam???

Hint: it is one of those two presidents , and not the one you nominated.