Difference between revisions of "David Kilcullen"

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==Other roles==
 
==Other roles==
Kilcullen is a Senior Fellow at the [[East West Institute]]. <ref>East West Institute, [http://www.ewi.info/aboutewi/staff/index.cfm?title=Staff&l1=About%20EWI&l2=Staff&view=detail&eid=634 Staff: Dr David Kilcullen], accessed 26 May 2009</ref> He is also a partner at the Crumpton Group, a strategic advisory firm based in Washington, D.C. <ref>East West Institute, [http://www.ewi.info/aboutewi/staff/index.cfm?title=Staff&l1=About%20EWI&l2=Staff&view=detail&eid=634 Staff: Dr David Kilcullen], accessed 26 May 2009</ref>
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Kilcullen is a Senior Fellow at the [[East West Institute]]. <ref>East West Institute, [http://www.ewi.info/aboutewi/staff/index.cfm?title=Staff&l1=About%20EWI&l2=Staff&view=detail&eid=634 Staff: Dr David Kilcullen], accessed 26 May 2009</ref> He is also a partner at the [[Crumpton Group]], <ref>East West Institute, [http://www.ewi.info/aboutewi/staff/index.cfm?title=Staff&l1=About%20EWI&l2=Staff&view=detail&eid=634 Staff: Dr David Kilcullen], accessed 26 May 2009</ref> a strategic advisory firm based in Washington, D.C. by...
  
 
==Views==
 
==Views==

Revision as of 16:51, 26 May 2009

Kilcullen on the Charlie Rose show in 2007

David J. Kilcullen is an adviser to the US government and a counterinsurgency writer.

Background

Kilcullen grew up on Sydney's north shore, the son of academics. He studied counterinsurgency as a cadet at Duntroon, served for more than 20 years in the Australian Army. He has been a military adviser to the Indonesian Special Forces in counterinsurgency, taught counterinsurgency tactics at the British School of Infantry, and served in peacekeeping operations in Cyprus and Bougainville. Kilcullen also commanded an Australian infantry company in counterinsurgency operations in East Timor and trained and led East Timorese forces after the independence vote in 1999. [1]

During this time Kilcullen studied a PhD at the University of South Wales. His thesis was presented in 2000 and titled Political Consequences of Military Operations in Indonesia 1945 – 99. [2] The thesis explored the history of counterinsurgency in Indonesia and drew on Kilcullen's personal experences. [3]

Kilcullen has served in Australia’s Office of National Assessments and on the writing team for Australia’s 2004 Terrorism White Paper. [4]

US Advisor

In 2004, according to The New Yorker, Kilcullen’s writings and lectures brought him to the attention of an official working for Paul Wolfowitz, then the Deputy Secretary of Defense. [5] Kilcullen then took leave from Australia's Defence Department in 2004 to help the Pentagon with the drafting of the 2005 Quadrennial Defence Review, which determines the US's global defence strategy. Working inside the Pentagon in 2004, Kilcullen founded and led the US Government's inter-agency Irregular Warfare Working Group. [6]

In July 2005, Kilcullen, as a result of his work on the Pentagon document, received an invitation to attend a conference on defense policy, in Vermont. There he met Henry Crumpton, who had supervised the C.I.A.’s covert activities in Afghanistan during the 2001 invasion. The two men spent much of the conference talking privately. Soon afterward, Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State, hired Crumpton as the department’s co-ordinator for counterterrorism, and Crumpton, in turn, offered Kilcullen a job. [7] Kilcullen left the Australian Army as a lieutenant-colonel, and returned to Washington to work as the chief strategist for Crumpton. [8]

Kilcullen subsequently became a senior counter-insurgency advisor to David Petraeus, and was part of the small team that designed “the surge”. He was awarded the US Army Superior Civilian Service Medal “for exceptionally meritorious service to the United States as Senior Counterinsurgency Advisor, Multi-National Force-Iraq, during Operation Iraqi Freedom.” [9]

Other roles

Kilcullen is a Senior Fellow at the East West Institute. [10] He is also a partner at the Crumpton Group, [11] a strategic advisory firm based in Washington, D.C. by...

Views

Because he is seen as presenting a more nuanced and subtle view, Kilcullen, like other counterinsurgency theorists is often praised by the media. However, whilst he has criticised the use of brute military force, Kilcullen does not object to conquest and occupation. His objections and criticisms are purely tactical. The New Yorker explains that:

In his view, winning hearts and minds is not a matter of making local people like you—as some American initiates to counterinsurgency whom I met in Iraq seemed to believe—but of getting them to accept that supporting your side is in their interest, which requires an element of coercion...a willingness to show local people that supporting the enemy risks harm and hardship...[B]ecause he talks about war with an analyst’s rationalism and a practitioner’s matter-of-factness, Kilcullen can appear deceptively detached from its consequences. [12]

Influence

According to briefings given in the US by the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown has 'been impressed by the work of' Kilcullen. [13]

He has worked with the US commander in Iraq, David Petraeus, on a handbook for the military on the ground to use as their guide. It has become "the equivalent of the Lonely Planet guide for an infantry fighting asymmetrical battles: a pragmatic, blunt and at times blackly humorous tract that has revolutionised the way the so-called war on terror is being fought." [14] His recipe for success in the Iraq morass seems to owe a debt to Lawrence of Arabia: "building local allies and forging partnerships and trusted networks with at-risk communities seems to be one of the keys to success – perhaps this is what T.E. Lawrence had in mind when he wrote that the art of guerrilla warfare with Arab tribes rests on 'building a ladder of tribes to the objective'." [15]

References

Resources

Notes

  1. Rebecca Weisser, 'Strategist behind war gains', The Australian, 18 August 2007
  2. KILCULLEN David J. Political Consequences of Military Operations in Indonesia 1945 – 99. A fieldwork analysis of the political power-diffusion effects of guerilla conflict. PhD dissertation. School of Politics, University Collage, The University of New South Wales 2000.
  3. Karina Marczuk, 'A Visionary and a Practitioner: the Bernard Kouchner vs. David Kilcullen', Defence and Strategy, Volume 2/2007
  4. East West Institute, Staff: Dr David Kilcullen, accessed 26 May 2009
  5. George Packer, 'Knowing the Enemy', The New Yorker, 18 December 2006
  6. Patrick Walters, 'Exceptional strategist is our man in Washington', The Australian, 14 December 2006
  7. George Packer, 'Knowing the Enemy', The New Yorker, 18 December 2006
  8. Patrick Walters, 'Exceptional strategist is our man in Washington', The Australian, 14 December 2006
  9. East West Institute, Staff: Dr David Kilcullen, accessed 26 May 2009
  10. East West Institute, Staff: Dr David Kilcullen, accessed 26 May 2009
  11. East West Institute, Staff: Dr David Kilcullen, accessed 26 May 2009
  12. George Packer, 'Knowing the Enemy', The New Yorker, 18 December 2006
  13. Matthew d'Ancona, 'Brown is leading the way in counter-terrorist thinking', Guardian, 2 August 2007
  14. Rebecca Weisser, 'Strategist behind war gains', The Australian, 18 August 2007
  15. D. Kilcullen, Small Wars Journal blog, 29 August 2007