Home /Events /Understanding ISIS: A conversation with military strategist Dr David Kilcullen

Understanding ISIS: A conversation with military strategist Dr David Kilcullen

When

6.00pm–8.00pm

23 February 2016

Where

Macquarie Building, Sydney

The United States and Australia, along with nearly 60 other nations, are engaged in a complex multi-pronged campaign to roll back the spreading menace of ISIS, and defeat the group’s ideology and influence across the Middle East and wider world.

Dr David Kilcullen has spent much of the past decade tracking the rise, demise, and resurgence of ISIS and other groups fighting in Iraq and Syria. His best-selling June 2015 Quarterly Essay unravelled the complexities and motivations of ISIS. Now his new book, Blood Year: Islamic State and the Failures of the War on Terror (Black Inc, 2016), takes you into the heart of the struggle for control of the Middle East.

The US Studies Centre hosted the Sydney launch of Dr David Kilcullen’s Blood Year.

Understanding ISIS: A conversation with military strategist Dr David Kilcullen
 
 

Featuring

  • Dr David Kilcullen
    Former Senior Advisor to General David Petraeus

    David Kilcullen visited the US Studies Centre in February 2016. Kilcullen was Senior Advisor to General David Petraeus in 2007 and 2008, helping to design and monitor the Iraq War coalition troop “Surge.” He was then Special Advisor for counterinsurgency to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and, from 2005 and 2006, he was the Chief Strategist in the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism at the US State Department. Kilcullen is a former Australian Army officer and the author of four acclaimed books: The Accidental Guerrilla; Counterinsurgency; Out of the Mountains; and Blood Year: Islamic State and the Failures of the War on Terror.