In conversation with David Kilcullen by Experience ANU

Professor David Kilcullen is in conversation with Professor John Blaxland on David's new book, The Dragons and the Snakes. How the Rest learned to fight the West, a compelling, counterintuitive look at the new, vastly complex global arena.

In 1993, a newly appointed CIA director warned that Western powers might have 'slain a large dragon' with the fall of the USSR, but now faced a 'bewildering variety of poisonous snakes.' Since then, the dragons (state enemies such as Russia and China) and snakes (terrorist and guerrilla organisations) have watched the US struggle in Iraq and Afghanistan, and have mastered new methods in response: hybrid and urban warfare, political manipulation, and harnessing digital technology. Kilcullen reshapes our understanding of the West's foes, and shows how it can respond.

7 April 2020