David Kilcullen: podcast appearances and interviews

David John Kilcullen is an Australian author, strategist, and expert in counterinsurgency. Born in 1967, he is the current president of the Cordillera Applications Group and has held various academic positions, including professorships at Arizona State University and the University of New South Wales, Canberra. Kilcullen previously served as non-executive chairman of Caerus Associates, a strategy and design consulting firm he founded.

His government service includes roles such as chief strategist in the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism at the U.S. State Department from 2005 to 2006 and as a senior counter-insurgency advisor to General David Petraeus in 2007 and 2008. In this capacity, he contributed to the design and monitoring of the Iraq War troop surge. He also served as a special advisor for counter-insurgency to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Kilcullen has been a senior fellow of the Center for a New American Security and an adjunct professor at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

He is known for his critical perspective on the Iraq invasion, asserting that the decision to invade contributed to the rise of ISIS. An author of six books, his works include The Accidental Guerrilla, Counterinsurgency, Out of the Mountains, Blood Year, The Dragons and the Snakes: How the Rest Learned to Fight the West, and The Ledger: Accounting for Failure in Afghanistan.