Future Conflict: Battle After Afghanistan
Future Conflict: Battle After Afghanistan by Nicholas Stuart, The Age.
In April this year the Times Literary Supplement carried an extraordinary review of a book written by Emile Simpson, a young British officer recently returned from Afghanistan. Historian Michael Howard compared his book, War from the Ground Up to the seminal military bible On War by Carl von Clausewitz. As Howard had translated that classic, this created an enormous buzz.
Perhaps there is only room for one such sensation each year because David Kilcullen's book should have caused a similar stir. This is the mature work of someone who's thought long and hard about conflict. Out on the Mountains deserves to be read (and argued about) by anyone who is interested in the war or the shape of the modern world…
