The dragons and the snakes : how the rest learned to fight the West / David Kilcullen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kilcullen, David, author.

Series:

Oxford scholarship online.

Oxford scholarship online

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

United States--Military policy.

United States.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (325 pages): illustrations, maps.

Place of Publication:

New York, New York : Oxford University Press, [2020]

Summary:

This book applies concepts from evolutionary science and military innovation to explore how state and nonstate adversaries of the Western powers have learned to defeat (or render irrelevant) the model of high-tech, expensive, precision warfare pioneered by the United States in 1991 and globally dominant since. The book begins with a historical overview of the period since the Cold War, framed by CIA Director James Woolsey’s 1993 comment that “we have slain a large dragon” (the Soviet Union) “but now we find ourselves in a jungle filled with a bewildering variety of poisonous snakes, and in many ways the dragon was easier to keep track of.” The book describes the selective pressures acting on adversaries as a result of the evolutionary fitness landscape created by western military dominance. It then explores ideas from social and evolutionary science - including social learning, natural selection, artificial selection, predator effects, and the distinction between concept-led peacetime innovation and wartime coevolution - to explain how adversaries adapt. It presents a series of case studies on nonstate actors (including Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and Islamic State), Russia, and China, as well as sections on North Korea and Iran. The book concludes by considering how western powers can respond to the increasing ineffectiveness of their military model and examines likely strategic futures.

Contents:

1. dragon and the snakes

2. Adaptive enemies

3. Woolsey's snakes

4. Liminal warfare

5. Conceptual envelopment

6. Ebb tide of the West

Epilogue: A better peace?

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

0-19-093278-3

0-19-026569-8