He's no advocate for US policy or the military mindset. He argues that the United States has conflated local conflicts with the battle against globally focused terrorists; "militarize[d] key aspects of foreign policy"; neglected the economic and social development that is key to defeating militancy; and even bobbled the language of war. Calling our enemies "jihadis" - "holy warriors," the name they use for themselves - concedes the high ground, Kilcullen says. He calls them "takfiris," followers of an Islamic heresy that holds that anyone whose beliefs differ from yours is an infidel who must be killed.
Most of our opponents in Iraq and Afghanistan, the author says, are not takfiris like Osama bin Laden and his followers, but "accidental guerrillas," drawn into the fight for their own reasons: defending their homeland against Western invaders, battling governments they believe are illegitimate, or coerced or co-opted by Al Qaeda or its offshoots. We've treated the opposition as a big conflagration, Kilcullen argues, thus missing opportunities for putting out local brushfires.
And while pursuing an "economy of force" approach in Afghanistan, the United States invaded Iraq - a move that was "deeply misguided and counterproductive," Kilcullen says. The surge's additional troops and more thoughtful tactics are only now helping to settle down a "disaster of our own making" that created more enemies than it eliminated.
The small wars that we've added to our war on terror can't be won by killing bad guys, he says: "Enemy-centric approaches . . . rarely succeed. Population-centric approaches that center on protecting local people and gaining their support succeed more often."
"The population is the prize," Kilcullen says, echoing a timeless military lesson. "You win or lose [a war] a village at a time." After cataloguing our errors, he presents case studies - building a bridge in Afghanistan, street patrolling in Iraq - that illustrate our recent successes in counterinsurgency, and talks to the commanders who've learned how to save villages without destroying them.
"The Accidental Guerrilla" is not without its own missteps. Lapsing into military jargon on occasion, Kilcullen can also be pedantic. And he somewhat undermines his central point in opining that what Afghan insurgents "really love is the fight . . . for its own sake" - conceding that even many "accidental guerrillas" may never be taken out of the conflict.
A dense, generally well-argued book, "The Accidental Guerrilla" may be more for the scholar or military officer than the layman; like counterinsurgency itself, it can be a long slog. But the more readers Kilcullen can bring to his conclusions - among them, that the United States has a disproportionate military approach to foreign policy - the more small wars we may win or stay out of. "Counterinsurgency in general," Kilcullen says, "is a game we need to avoid wherever possible."
Jim Chiavelli was with the NATO-led force in Afghanistan in 2005-2006 and visited the country again in 2007.
