Biography
Dr. David Kilcullen serves on the Board of Advisors at the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He is Professor of Practice in the School of Politics and Global Studies at Arizona State University, and is CEO and President of Cordillera Applications Group, a research and operations firm providing geopolitical analysis, remote observation, fieldwork and related support to government, industry and NGOs. Dr. Kilcullen is a theorist and practitioner of guerrilla and unconventional warfare and counterterrorism, with extensive operational experience over a 25-year career with the Australian and U.S. governments as an Army officer, analyst, policy adviser and diplomat. He served in Iraq as senior counterinsurgency advisor to U.S. General David Petraeus, was senior advisor to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and has served in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Libya and Colombia. He is the author of four prize-winning books on terrorism, insurgency and future warfare as well as numerous scholarly papers on urbanization, conflict and future warfare. He has led several concept design projects for the U.S. and allied governments, and currently works with national and city-level governments in the United States, Australia, Latin America and Europe on urban public safety and counterterrorism. He worked for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in Afghanistan, and continues to work with advanced research agencies focused on future conflict. He is a lead researcher for NATO’s ongoing Urbanization Program, and is conducting fieldwork on urban and economic development in Africa on behalf of the Brenthurst Foundation in Johannesburg.