In an interview on War

What about the Kilcullen book?

He is an Australian counter-insurgency expert and a key adviser to General Petraeus, Commander of US Central Command, previously Commanding General, Multi-National Force – Iraq. Kilcullen was really the thinking behind the “surges” in Iraq and now in Afghanistan. He thinks we face a global insurgency of Takfir terrorists, basically Al-Qaida, who are trying to attack the West. They infiltrate areas like Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Indonesia, marry locals and both intimidate and bribe people in order to mobilise them to fight on their side. These are the accidental guerrillas of the book’s title. Counter-insurgency, according to Kilcullen, is about protecting people and about separating the accidental guerrillas from the real Al-Qaida people. You hear Petraeus talking about separating the reconcilables from the irreconcilables. They say they are shifting from counter-terror (killing enemies) to counter-insurgency (protecting people).

It has worked really well in Iraq. There was the Petraeus injunction to “live amongst the people” – by stopping shooting they did create the space for local deals to be made. Instead of shooting from afar they set up joint security stations with the Iraqis and found that actually the Sunnis were sick of Al-Qaida and their brutality anyway and had been keen to make a deal with the Americans for some time, but the Americans hadn’t noticed. What was important was that the Americans stopped shooting from afar and started to provide basic services including law and order. It’s a huge improvement. The Americans are learning that the traditional ways of fighting and shooting don’t work.

So, everything that has happened more recently in Iraq was Kilcullen’s idea?

Well, Petraeus surrounded himself with a lot of bright military people, people with PhDs, and Kilcullen was just one of them, but I think this book is the best example of the kind of thing a lot of people were saying at the time.

It sounds very idealistic somehow. That you just have to stop shooting and be nice. Are people really going to do this?

It would be great if they did! It does involve a huge shift in the way armies think. But, for example, the war in Congo has taken four million lives and nobody knows what to do. Nobody was sent to Darfur, nobody is trained for this. What is true is that new concepts of security are beginning to be learned and applied.

So, it’s very upbeat. Really, the Americans are leading the way to peace on earth?

Well, everyone likes to quote Churchill who said: “The Americans always do the right thing in the end – after they’ve tried everything else.” I think they realised that what they’d been doing in Iraq was a disaster. For those of us who are on the left and against war it is awful to have to admit that America is changing things in a positive way! But they are trying this new approach in Afghanistan and I don’t know if it will work. It will be much more difficult.

How?

Afghanistan is more spread out, bigger, their forces are untrained, the police is full of criminals and there is a terrible mess being made in Pakistan which I think will become a recruiting ground for Al-Qaida. But it is amazing to hear General McCrystal, Nato’s Commander in Afghanistan, say: “We are protecting people rather than trying to defeat Al-Qaida.”