David Kilcullen

David Kilcullen, a former Australian infantry officer who has become a analyst of insurgency and counterinsurgency, for both the Australian and U.S. governments. At present,he is a strategic advisor to the Multi-National Force-Iraq. He has had field experience in East Timor, Bougainville and the Middle East,and wrote his doctoral dissertation, in 2000, on "The political consequences of military operations in Indonesia 1945-99 : a fieldwork analysis of the political power-diffusion effects of guerilla conflict"

His visual metaphor of the three pillars of insurgency is often cited.

Kilcullen has long distinguished between militant insurgency and the tactic of terrorism: "We must distinguish Al Qa’eda and the broader militant movements it symbolises – entities that use terrorism – from the tactic of terrorism itself." Drawing a distinction between terrorism and those that use it as a means of fighting war does contrast with a simple view of a war on terror.