THE ACCIDENTAL GUERILLA

The Accidental Guerrilla by David Kilcullen

[Writer's University]

The Accidental Guerrilla by David Kilcullen

Introduction

David Kilcullen's, “the Accidental Guerrilla”, is an intellectual account of the author's field research. It is a very valuable contribution to the academic curriculum on counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism. It also serves as a very effective guide for a prescription for the Western establishment to successfully deal with many smaller conflicts including in the war on terror. The book portrays a soldier with a doctorate in political anthropology. It is a guide for understanding and confrontation of terrorism. Kilcullen combines his on the ground experience in conflicts from Cyprus to Lebanon to East Timor with his in the field analysis on the impact of revolution on conventional societies.

Analysis and Review

The Accidental Guerrilla is Kilcullen's account of wars along with his personal experience. His academic reflection and analysis verifies his participation in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Indonesia. This piece of writing guides the reader in understanding of these wars beyond a naive view of perceiving all as terrorists. According to Kilcullen's ideology, the al Qaeda extremists and their beliefs are proving to be very detrimental for global Islamic community. Al Qaeda's ways of organizing, aggregating, and exploiting the local and long term injustices of diverse Muslim social and ethnic groups, is the role of the accidental guerrilla.

The Accidental Guerrilla plummets deep into present conflicts to sketch a lucid picture of conflicts to come. Kilcullen entails successes and failures of the public, whilst providing answers to the numerous unasked questions. His assessment of the nature of conflict establishes a new prototype that successfully confines the temperament of hybrid threats within the age of intricate uprisings. The writer has shared his personal research of ethnic culture to expert interpretations of continuing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. This has enabled him to demonstrate understanding of roots of conflict. It also describes as to how self-actions are increasing momentum to a universal insurgency that is already on the brink of disturbing the balance of the international system (Leonard, 2011).

Kilcullen is one of the generation's extraordinary experts on counter-insurgency and guerrilla warfare. He is a retired Australian Army officer with a wide war experience in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. Since the tragedy of world trade center in 9/11, he has offered his services in every active theater as senior counter-insurgency advisor to General David Petraeus in Iraq, advisor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and chief counter-terrorism strategist for the Department of State.

The book contains historical information, including maps of Rwanda and a chronology of its history since 1921. It was the time when Belgium got League of Nations consent to manage Rwanda. The descriptions of the people attesting the authentication create a clear sense of place and a circumstance for their narratives. The photos of the survivors preceding each testimony personalize the narratives, and express the compassion of the survivors.

Kilcullen, adviser on counter-insurgency to General Petraeus, define "accidental guerrillas" as local gentry fighting mainly because foreigners, Westerners in most of the cases, are ...