Out of the Mountains: The Coming Age of the Urban Guerrilla - Brossura

Kilcullen, David

Brossura

ISBN 10: 1849045119 ISBN 13: 9781849045117

Casa editrice: C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd, 2015

Riassunto

In his third book, David Kilcullen takes us out of the mountains: away from the remote, rural guerrilla warfare of Afghanistan, and into the marginalised slums and complex security threats of the world's coastal cities, where almost 75 per cent of us will be living by mid-century. Scrutinising major environmental trends - population growth, coastal urbanisation - and increasing digital connectivity he projects a future of feral cities, urban systems under stress, and increasing overlaps between crime and war, internal and external threats, and the real and virtual worlds. Informed by Kilcullen's own fieldwork in the Caribbean, Somalia, the Middle East and Afghanistan, and that of his field research teams in cities in Central America and Africa, Out of the Mountains presents detailed, on-the-ground accounts of the new faces of modern conflict - - from the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks, to transnational drug networks, local street gangs, and the uprisings of the Arab Spring.

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Recensione:

'This is a brilliant book by the most unfettered and analytically acute mind in the military intelligentsia. Kilcullen unflinchingly confronts the nightmare of endless warfare in the slums of the world.' --Mike Davis, author of Planet of Slums

'The foundation of Out of the Mountains is Mr. Kilcullen's theory of competitive control, which zooms in on the insurgent networks that other theories glance at from a bird's-eye perspective. The theory suggests that populations respond to a predictable, ordered, normative system, which tells them exactly what they need to do, and not do, in order to be safe. Remove that normative system, and chaos could easily ensue... The answers to the questions Mr. Kilcullen poses will evolve over time. But his insistence that it is time to drag ourselves body and mind out of the mountains serves as a reminder that complacency remains one of the most serious threats to U.S. national security.' --Wall Street Journal

'Kilcullen is a natural storyteller with a sharp and sympathetic mind. His first-hand experiences in Somalia, Afghanistan and elsewhere carry added credibility given his track record as a senior adviser to David Petraeus, the star US general in Iraq, and later to Nato in Afghanistan. Thankfully, he does not limit himself to dire warnings. He broaches solutions. It would be a start, he contends, if policymakers and security strategists approached the world's mega-cities as living entities to be analysed in their own right, not fixed locations, or part of a nation state. We have to keep up with the pace of their transformation.' --The Daily Telegraph

L'autore:

David Kilcullen is one of the world s foremost thinkers on counterinsurgency and military strategy. He is the author of The Accidental Guerilla, a Washington Post bestseller, and Counterinsurgency. He was formerly Senior Counterinsurgency Advisor to General David Petraeus in Iraq and to the NATO Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. He is currently Chief Executive Officer of Caerus Associates, a Washington-based strategy and design firm.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd
• Data di pubblicazione: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1849045119
• ISBN 13: 9781849045117
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 288