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David J. Kilcullen, New Paradigms for 21st Century Conflict eJournal USA, May 2007

May issue of the State Department's electronic magazine. Lifted courtesy of the guys at smallwarsjournal.com. I didn't see it yet posted so I thought that I'd toss it up.

Kilcullen very succinctly summarizes a strategic framework for our response to the threat of global terror. As expected, his approach is very inter-disciplinary, with an emphasis on information operations, anthropology (not surprising given his discipline of choice), and a decidedly long view. He makes no claim to originality and, indeed, most of these ideas have been kicked about in various forums.

He does posit that our institutional vulnerabilites have been exposed for all to see. Kilcullen suggests that state-actors will take heed of these weaknesses when contemplating if and how to confront the United States (and to a less extent, the western world). The process of adaptation has begun for America, but we appear to evolve institutional-based responses arithmetically as our opponent evolves exponentially, particularly in the critical arena of information warfare. We're losing the key battle.

A good and quick read that effectively calls for the dramatic retooling of our institutions to meet this amorphous but quite real threat.

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"This aggression will not stand, man!" Jeff Lebowski