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Interview with David Kilcullen*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 June 2012

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Abstract

David Kilcullen is a leading expert on counter-insurgency policy. He served twenty-four years as a soldier, diplomat, and policy advisor for the Australian and United States governments. He was Special Advisor to the US Secretary of State in 2007–2009 and Senior Advisor to General David Petraeus in Iraq in 2007. He has provided advice at the highest levels of the Bush and Obama administrations, and has worked in peace and stability operations, humanitarian relief, and counter-insurgency environments in the Asia-Pacific region, Middle East, South Asia, and Africa. He is a well-known author, teacher, and consultant, advising the US and allied governments, international organizations, non-governmental organizations, and the private sector. His best-selling books The Accidental Guerrilla and Counterinsurgency are used worldwide by civilian government officials, policymakers, and military and development professionals working in unstable and insecure environments. Mr Kilcullen holds a PhD from the University of New South Wales. He is the founder and CEO of the consultancy firm Caerus Associates.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Review of the Red Cross , Volume 93 , Issue 883: Engaging armed groups , September 2011 , pp. 587 - 601
Copyright
Copyright © International Committee of the Red Cross 2012

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References

1 Editor's Note: The British counter-insurgency campaign in Malaya (also known as the ‘Malayan emergency’) took place during the period 1948–1960 between the British Commonwealth Forces and the Malayan communist guerrilla forces (the Malayan National Liberation Army), who aimed at putting an end to British colonial administration in Malaya. The British campaign in Malaya is better known for the ‘Briggs’ Plan, according to which the best way to defeat an insurgency was to drive a wedge between the insurgents and their supporters among the population. See e.g. Stubbs, Richard, Hearts and Minds in Guerilla Warfare: The Malayan Emergency, 1948–1960, Oxford University Press, Singapore, 1989.Google Scholar

2 Editor's Note: United Nations Security Council Resolution 1566 of 2004 defines terrorism as ‘criminal acts, including against civilians, committed with the intent to cause death or serious bodily injury, or taking of hostages, with the purpose to provoke a state of terror in the general public or in a group of persons or particular persons, intimidate a population or compel a government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act’. See UN Doc. S/RES/1566, 2004, para. 3.

3 See Kalyvas, Stathis, The Logic of Violence in Civil War, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2006.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 InterAction is a group of 500 humanitarian NGOs, which in 2006–2007 drafted a code of conduct for how humanitarian NGOs should interact with the military in conflict zones. This code has now been agreed to by the US military and by all members of InterAction. See ‘Guidelines for Relations Between US Armed Forces and Non-Governmental Humanitarian Organizations’, available at: http://www.usip.org/publications/guidelines-relations-between-us-armed-forces-and-nghos-hostile-or-potentially-hostile-envi (last visited 28 September 2011).

5 Editor's Note: Here and in the final answer it should be remembered that this interview was conducted before the cessation of hostilities in Libya.