n his latest book, Out of the Mountains: The Coming Age of the Urban Guerrilla, David Kilcullen, the Australian counterinsurgency expert, attempts to formulate a unified theory of irregular warfare. Kilcullen’s study is both timely and relevant. Covering contemporary global trends in counterinsurgency, the Arab Spring, urban planning, militia tactics, transnational criminal networks and other related topics, Kilcullen provides insightful analysis of current and future conflict.
Out of the Mountains is a series of analytical essays, each of which could stand on its own. It attempts to draw U.S. policymakers out of a mode of thinking informed by more than a decade battling counterinsurgency in Afghanistan and towards the trends that Kilcullen sees as shaping future conflict. The United States’ presence in the Middle East and its broader global pursuit of al-Qaeda and affiliated movements has, not surprisingly, dominated its approach to policymaking and diplomatic engagement around the world. But, as Kilcullen notes, Washington will have to move beyond this myopic focus as it withdraws from Afghanistan and faces new challenges.
Kilcullen sees new challenges developing concurrently from four major global trends: population growth, urbanization, littoralization (populations clustering near the sea), and connectedness. While each could be treated discretely, Kilcullen astutely shows that they are interconnected. These trends can be easily neglected when policy focuses on immediate problems in places such as the tribal areas of Pakistan, the deserts of Yemen or North Africa. In essence, the world’s population is rapidly growing, clustering together in burgeoning coastal megacities, and becoming increasingly interconnected both internally and externally.
What does all this mean for the future of threats and conflicts? In exploring this question, Kilcullen studies various recent events, from Mogadishu to the 2008 Mumbai attacks and the assault on Christopher Coke’s Shower Posse fiefdom in Jamaica. He argues that future threats are likely to be similarly irregular–ones that do not involve direct confrontation between state military powers. He does not fully discount the likelihood of state-on-state conflict, but he argues that its probability is much reduced. Threats are more likely to be hybrid in nature, involving both state and non-state assets, such as insurgent groups moving people and equipment over legitimate transport networks.
At the center of Kilcullen’s outlook on future of conflict is his theory of competitive control. This theory posits that the local armed actor is perceived by a population in a conflict area as a normative system of control and may come to support it. Irregular warfare in future will therefore involve contests between states or armed groups for support from a target population. The state or group that is able to provide that normative system will likely dominate. The contested population will, in response, adopt various behaviors, from fleeing to hedging or participation.
Viewed through this lens, the behaviors of contested populations in Iraq and Afghanistan, which greatly frustrated coalition members, are more complex than they might appear. The obstinacy of a tribal elder in Helmand, for example, may not simply be hostility towards coalition forces but the manifestation of a complex survival strategy. While this is unlikely to be new to students of counterinsurgency in Iraq or Afghanistan, Kilcullen’s adept distillation should go some way to better informing critical policymakers of the complexities of the conflicts in which the United States is presently engaged.
Kilcullen gives an especially interesting summary of the Arab Spring within the context of conflict networking: the ways in which activists link with one another and the broader international community to coordinate and gain support. Using examples from Egypt and Libya, where activists and rebels received support, training and advice via Skype and Twitter, Kilcullen offers insight into what will undoubtedly be a future of conflicts that increasingly involve social and media networks.
Kilcullen’s book is long on theory but short on recommendations. This is perhaps inevitable considering the size and scope of the issues, but it tends to raise more questions than answers. How can the United States respond to transnational threats from sources woven into the fabric of local communities in cities such as Lagos or in the favelas of Rio? These are where the lines between war and crime, internal and external, become blurred.
Kilcullen’s ultimate contribution is his emphasis on the need for policymakers to recognize that future conflicts, threats and their sources cannot be taken in isolation. Rather, each must be looked upon as a system within a system.
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Out of the Mountains: The Coming Age of the Urban Guerrilla
November 4, 2013
I
n his latest book, Out of the Mountains: The Coming Age of the Urban Guerrilla, David Kilcullen, the Australian counterinsurgency expert, attempts to formulate a unified theory of irregular warfare. Kilcullen’s study is both timely and relevant. Covering contemporary global trends in counterinsurgency, the Arab Spring, urban planning, militia tactics, transnational criminal networks and other related topics, Kilcullen provides insightful analysis of current and future conflict.
Out of the Mountains is a series of analytical essays, each of which could stand on its own. It attempts to draw U.S. policymakers out of a mode of thinking informed by more than a decade battling counterinsurgency in Afghanistan and towards the trends that Kilcullen sees as shaping future conflict. The United States’ presence in the Middle East and its broader global pursuit of al-Qaeda and affiliated movements has, not surprisingly, dominated its approach to policymaking and diplomatic engagement around the world. But, as Kilcullen notes, Washington will have to move beyond this myopic focus as it withdraws from Afghanistan and faces new challenges.
Kilcullen sees new challenges developing concurrently from four major global trends: population growth, urbanization, littoralization (populations clustering near the sea), and connectedness. While each could be treated discretely, Kilcullen astutely shows that they are interconnected. These trends can be easily neglected when policy focuses on immediate problems in places such as the tribal areas of Pakistan, the deserts of Yemen or North Africa. In essence, the world’s population is rapidly growing, clustering together in burgeoning coastal megacities, and becoming increasingly interconnected both internally and externally.
What does all this mean for the future of threats and conflicts? In exploring this question, Kilcullen studies various recent events, from Mogadishu to the 2008 Mumbai attacks and the assault on Christopher Coke’s Shower Posse fiefdom in Jamaica. He argues that future threats are likely to be similarly irregular–ones that do not involve direct confrontation between state military powers. He does not fully discount the likelihood of state-on-state conflict, but he argues that its probability is much reduced. Threats are more likely to be hybrid in nature, involving both state and non-state assets, such as insurgent groups moving people and equipment over legitimate transport networks.
At the center of Kilcullen’s outlook on future of conflict is his theory of competitive control. This theory posits that the local armed actor is perceived by a population in a conflict area as a normative system of control and may come to support it. Irregular warfare in future will therefore involve contests between states or armed groups for support from a target population. The state or group that is able to provide that normative system will likely dominate. The contested population will, in response, adopt various behaviors, from fleeing to hedging or participation.
Viewed through this lens, the behaviors of contested populations in Iraq and Afghanistan, which greatly frustrated coalition members, are more complex than they might appear. The obstinacy of a tribal elder in Helmand, for example, may not simply be hostility towards coalition forces but the manifestation of a complex survival strategy. While this is unlikely to be new to students of counterinsurgency in Iraq or Afghanistan, Kilcullen’s adept distillation should go some way to better informing critical policymakers of the complexities of the conflicts in which the United States is presently engaged.
Kilcullen gives an especially interesting summary of the Arab Spring within the context of conflict networking: the ways in which activists link with one another and the broader international community to coordinate and gain support. Using examples from Egypt and Libya, where activists and rebels received support, training and advice via Skype and Twitter, Kilcullen offers insight into what will undoubtedly be a future of conflicts that increasingly involve social and media networks.
Kilcullen’s book is long on theory but short on recommendations. This is perhaps inevitable considering the size and scope of the issues, but it tends to raise more questions than answers. How can the United States respond to transnational threats from sources woven into the fabric of local communities in cities such as Lagos or in the favelas of Rio? These are where the lines between war and crime, internal and external, become blurred.
Kilcullen’s ultimate contribution is his emphasis on the need for policymakers to recognize that future conflicts, threats and their sources cannot be taken in isolation. Rather, each must be looked upon as a system within a system.
