Just a few years ago, people spoke of the US as a hyperpower-a titan
stalking the world stage with more relative power than any empire in
history. Yet as early as 1993, newly-appointed CIA director James
Woolsey pointed out that although Western powers had "slain a large
dragon" by defeating
the Soviet Union in the Cold War, they now faced a "bewildering variety of poisonous snakes."
In The Dragons and the Snakes,
the eminent soldier-scholar David Kilcullen asks how, and what,
opponents of the West have learned during the last quarter-century of
conflict. Applying a combination of evolutionary theory and detailed
field observation, he explains what happened to the
"snakes"-non-state
threats including terrorists and guerrillas-and the
"dragons"-state-based competitors such as Russia and China. He explores
how enemies learn under conditions of conflict, and examines how Western
dominance over a very particular, narrowly-defined form of warfare
since the Cold
War has created a fitness landscape that forces
adversaries to adapt in ways that present serious new challenges to
America and its allies. Within the world's contemporary conflict zones,
Kilcullen argues, state and non-state threats have increasingly come to
resemble each other, with states
adopting non-state techniques and
non-state actors now able to access levels of precision and lethal
weapon systems once only available to governments.
A counterintuitive look at this new, vastly more complex environment, The Dragons and the Snakes
will not only reshape our understanding of the West's enemies'
capabilities, but will also show how we can respond given the increasing
limits on US power.
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