David Kil­cullen is a house­hold name in the America-Middle East pol­i­tics. He is an expert in war­fare and counter-insurgency and this is a bite size inter­view reflect­ing on recent events from a bril­liant series quaintly named Tea with The Econ­o­mist.

If you are as inspired as I by his elo­quent responses, then immerse your­self into his recent pub­li­ca­tion, The Acci­den­tal Guer­rilla, and this con­ver­sa­tion from The Wash­ing­ton Post

The dis­tinc­tion between com­bat and non-combat forces in a counter-insurgency envi­ron­ment is largely the­o­ret­i­cal. Any­one who is still in Iraq will actu­ally or poten­tially be engaged in combat.

Our knowl­edge of these mat­ters have become more sophis­ti­cated the longer we are exposed. These ini­tial rad­i­cal con­cepts are now part of our daily vocab­u­lary. Live and learn, in hope the next gen­er­a­tion will not for­get — and the impor­tance of the printed medium and art are vital through this process. They val­i­date and remind us of these hor­ren­dous events that they are real and not of fiction.

Source: The Econ­o­mist
Image: Call Of Duty 4