Product Description
The Art of War and Peace
Authors: David Kilcullen, Greg Mills
Format: Paperback
Understanding Our Choices in a World at War
How have the character and technology of war changed in recent times?
Why does battlefield victory often fail to result in a sustainable peace?
What is the best way to prevent, fight and resolve future conflict?
The world is becoming a more dangerous place. Since the fall of Kabul and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the US-led liberal international order is giving way to a more chaotic, contested and multipolar world system. Western credibility and deterrence are diminishing in the face of wars in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, tensions across the Taiwan Strait, and rising populism and terrorism around the world. Can peace, mutual respect and democracy survive, or are we destined to a new permanent chaos in which authoritarians and populists thrive?
Based on their decades of experience as policy advisors in conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Colombia and across Africa, and on recent fieldwork in Israel, Ukraine, Ethiopia, and Taiwan, the authors analyse the nature of modern war, considering both large-scale, high-intensity state-on-state conflicts as well as limited-objective, irregular, low-intensity conflicts that often include both inter- and intra-state dimensions.
The book investigates how technology can be a leveller for small powers against larger aggressors; how one can shape and sustain a viable narrative to ensure public and international support; the balance between self-reliance and alliance commitment; and the role of leadership, intelligence, diplomacy, economic assistance.
Weighing up past lessons, present observations and predictions about the future, The Art of War and Peace explores how wars can be won on the battlefield and how that success can be translated into a stable and enduring peace.
About the Author
David Kilcullen has professorships in Australia and the US, and is a leading theorist and practitioner of guerrilla and unconventional warfare, counterinsurgency and counterterrorism, with operational experience over a 25-year career with the Australian and US governments as a light infantry officer, intelligence officer, policy advisor and diplomat. He served in Iraq as senior counterinsurgency advisor to US general David Petraeus, then as a senior counterterrorism advisor to US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, and has served in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Libya and Colombia.
Greg Mills is a visiting fellow at the University of Navarra in Spain and the strategic advisor to several African leaders. He served for twenty years as the founding director of the Johannesburg-based Brenthurst Foundation, established in 2005 to strengthen African economic performance. He has directed numerous reform projects with African heads of government and served four deployments to the International Security Force in Afghanistan as the advisor to the commander. He is a regular contributor to international journals and newspapers and the author of numerous books including Why Africa Is Poor, Rich State, Poor State and The Art of War and Peace.
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