The Rise of ISIS and Its Threat: David Kilcullen in conversation with Robert Manne

In this La Trobe University Ideas and Society session at the Wheeler Centre, David Kilcullen, author of the Quarterly Essay ‘Blood Year: Terror and the Islamic State’, and La Trobe University emeritus professor Robert Manne discuss the rise of ISIS and the threat it poses. David Kilcullen was a senior adviser to General David Petraeus in 2007 and 2008, when he helped to design and monitor the Iraq War troop “surge”. He was then a special adviser for counterinsurgency to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. From 2005 to 2006, he was chief strategist in the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism at the US State Department. He has also been an adviser to the British government, the Australian government, NATO and the International Security Assistance Force. He is a former Australian Army officer and the author of The Accidental Guerrilla, Counterinsurgency and Out of the Mountains.