Zolang westerse troepen in landen als Irak en Afghanistan in hun kampen blijven zitten, zullen ze de strijd daar nooit winnen. Ze moeten zich onder de mensen mengen en niet meer de bestrijding van de vijand, maar de bescherming van de bevolking centraal stellen. Maar nog beter is het dat westerse landen uit deze landen wegblijven.
Dat is de stelling van de Australische militair en counter-insurgencydeskundige David Kilcullen, die nauw betrokken was bij de recente nieuwe aanpak van de Amerikanen in Irak en ook op een aantal andere slagvelden rondkeek. Hij heeft in dit boek veel bijeengebracht over de wereldwijde strijd tegen het islamistisch extremisme, die op verschillende fronten heel eigen vormen kan aannnemen. Lees de volledige bespreking op www.boekenstrijd.nl ( )

War today is far different from what we expected it to be. Counter-insurgency and protracted guerrilla warfare, not shock and awe, are the order of the day. The Australian David Kilcullen is the world’s foremost expert on this way of war, and in The Accidental Guerrilla, the Senior Counterinsurgency Advisor to the Pentagon and architect of ‘the Surge’, surveys war as it is actually fought in the contemporary world. Colouring his account with gripping battlefield experiences that range from the highlands of Southeast Asia to the mountains of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border to the dusty towns of the Middle East and the Horn of Africa, The Accidental Guerrilla will, quite simply, change the way we think about war. While conventional warfare has obvious limits, Kilcullen stresses that neither counterterrorism nor traditional counterinsurgency is the appropriate framework to fight the enemy we now face. Traditional counterinsurgency is more effective than counterterrorism when it comes to entities like Al Qaeda, but, as Kilcullen contends, our current focus is far too narrow, for it tends to emphasize one geographical region and one state. The current war presents a much different situation: stateless insurgents and terrorists operating across large number of countries and only loosely affiliated with each other. Just as importantly, Western armies have done a poor job of applying different tactics to different situations, continually misidentifying insurgents with limited aims and legitimate grievances as part of a coordinated worldwide network. Given the incremental—yet remarkable—success of Kilcullen’s strategy in Iraq, what Kilcullen has to say will be widely anticipated. His vision of war has changed Western policy in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, and this eagerly awaited comprehensive account will help shape policy for years to come. ( )

The Anatomy of an Insurgency

This book will change the way you think about war, terrorism, and guerrilla warfare. David Kilcullen, an Australian with extensive experience in many operating theaters around the world strikes at the heart of why these situations arise, he analyzes the followers and not just the leaders.

The reason why most analysts and pundits get the "war on terrorism" wrong, is because they don't grasp the fundamental basis of why insurgencies exist. As Kilcullen argues, "insurgency is a mass social phenomenon." In other words, it is a populist social movement formed in response to real or perceived oppressions. The masses who have been manipulated into such movements are what Kilcullen calls, the "accidental guerrilla," people who aren't really hardened terrorists but have joined these social movements because of the lack of alternatives.

Kilcullen uses a medical viral analogy to theorize the accidental guerrilla syndrome which I wouldn't personally use, but nevertheless helps to explain why and how insurgencies work. The phases include: Infection; Contagion; Intervention; and Rejection.

The core of Kilcullen's approach to counter-insurgency is simple: population-centric. Everything must be done to protect the population, build up governance and security infrastructure, and foster the creation of a civil society.

Throughout the book, Kilcullen analyzes a number of case studies including Iraq, Afghanistan, East Timor, Thailand, and Europe. Kilcullen praises the strategy of the surge in Iraq, especially the cooption of the Sunni Awakening, but is cautiously optimistic for the future by noting that it could go either way in the future.

Overall, this is one of the best books on counter-insurgency that I've read in a long time. Kilcullen is clearly an expert with decades of field experience, and his writing is pretty good to boot. Definitely recommended for anyone wanting to learn more about the "war on terrorism." ( )

Killcullen presents a viewpoint on the current world conflicts which demonstrates the depth of the issue. It also reveals how much we have to learn before a sustainable solution can be either presented or set up. A truly thought provoking book. ( )

Professor Mary Kaldor of LSE has chosen to discuss David Kilcullen’s The Accidental Guerrilla on FiveBooks as one of the top five on her subject - War , saying that:



“… Kilcullen was really the thinking behind the “surges” in Iraq and now in Afghanistan. He thinks we face a global insurgency of Takfir terrorists, basically Al-Qaida, who are trying to attack the West. They infiltrate areas like Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Indonesia, marry locals and both intimidate and bribe people in order to mobilise them to fight on their side. These are the accidental guerrillas of the book’s title. …”



The full interview is available here: http://five-books.com/interviews/mary-kaldor ( )