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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.
This book applies concepts from evolutionary science and military innovation to explore how state and nonstate adversaries of the Western powers have learned to defeat (or render irrelevant) the model of high-tech, expensive, precision warfare pioneered by the United States in 1991 and globally dominant since. The book begins with a historical overview of the period since the Cold War, framed by CIA Director James Woolsey's 1993 comment that "we have slain a large dragon" (the Soviet Union) "but now we find ourselves in a jungle filled with a bewildering variety of poisonous snakes, and in many ways the dragon was easier to keep track of." The book describes the selective pressures acting on adversaries as a result of the evolutionary fitness landscape created by western military dominance. It then explores ideas from social and evolutionary science - including social learning, natural selection, artificial selection, predator effects, and the distinction between concept-led peacetime innovation and wartime coevolution - to explain how adversaries adapt. It presents a series of case studies on nonstate actors (including Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and Islamic State), Russia, and China, as well as sections on North Korea and Iran. The book concludes by considering how western powers can respond to the increasing ineffectiveness of their military model and examines likely strategic futures.
First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
In 2014, a resurgent and bellicose Russia took over Crimea and fueled a civil war in Eastern Ukraine; post-Saddam Iraq lost a third of its territory to an army of hyper-violent millennialists; and the peace process in Israel seemed to completely collapse. In short, the post-Cold War security order that the US had constructed after 1991 seemed to be coming apart at the seams. David Kilcullen was one of the architects of America's strategy in the late phases of the second Gulf War, and he has also spent time in Afghanistan and other hotspots. In Blood Year, he provides a wide-angle view of the current situation in the Middle East and analyzes how America and the West ended up in such dire circumstances. Kilcullen lays much of the blame on Bush's initial decision to invade Iraq (which had negative secondary effects in Afghanistan), but also takes Obama to task for simply withdrawing and adopting a "leading from behind" strategy. As events have proven, Kilcullen contends, withdrawal was a fundamentally misguided plan. The U.S. had uncorked the genie, and it had a responsibility to at least attempt to keep it under control. Instead, the U.S. is at a point where administration officials state that the losses of Ramadi and Palmyra are manageable setbacks. Kilcullen argues that the U.S. needs to re-engage in the region, whether it wants to or not, because it is largely responsible for the situation that is now unfolding. Blood Year is an essential read for anyone interested in understanding not only why the region that the U.S. invaded a dozen years ago has collapsed into utter chaos, but also what the U.S. can do to alleviate the grim situation.
This volume explores the dragon or the supernatural serpent in Graeco-Roman myth and religion. It incorporates analyses, with comprehensive accounts of the rich literary and iconographic sources, for the principal dragons of myth, and discusses matters of cult and the paradoxical association of dragons and serpents with the most benign of deities.
Over 40 species. Add your colors to the king cobra, black mamba, boa constrictor, puff adder, Indian python, milk snake, garter snake, and many more. Captions.
Little Mikey is scared of everything. He s certain there are creepy crawlies hidden under the rug. He sleeps with his light on to keep the monsters at bay. He s scared of sharks and snakes even ladders and slides and it all makes him incredibly sad. But, when he stumbles upon an old book that tells the tale of a young boy prince that volunteers to protect his king-less kingdom from hordes of dragons, there s a chance Mikey might discover that his fears are not quite as big as they seem
“A history of the human brain from the big bang, fifteen billion years ago, to the day before yesterday . . . It's a delight.”—The New York Times Dr. Carl Sagan takes us on a great reading adventure, offering his vivid and startling insight into the brain of man and beast, the origin of human intelligence, the function of our most haunting legends—and their amazing links to recent discoveries. “How can I persuade every intelligent person to read this important and elegant book? . . . He talks about all kinds of things: the why of the pain of human childbirth . . . the reason for sleeping and dreaming . . . chimpanzees taught to communicate in deaf and dumb language . . . the definition of death . . . cloning . . . computers . . . intelligent life on other planets. . . . Fascinating . . . delightful.”—The Boston Globe “In some lost Eden where dragons ruled, the foundations of our intelligence were laid. . . . Carl Sagan takes us on a guided tour of that lost land. . . . Fascinating . . . entertaining . . . masterful.”—St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Learn all you need to know (and more) about these stunningly slithery reptiles Ever wondered how to charm a cobra? Everything You Need to Know About Snakes contains amazing facts and staggering statistics that will tell you all you could hope to know about the slithery snake. Find out how far a cobra can spit, meet some seriously slippery characters in the most camouflaged stakes, have a look at a gallery of fangs and read all about a whopping 15m long prehistoric snake. Perfect for school projects, Everything You Need to Know About Snakes also contains facts about lizards, crocodiles, tortoises and turtles. It's everything you need to know and everything you want to find out.
"Fascinating images accompany information about the komodo dragon. The combination of high-interest subject matter and narrative text is intended for students in grades 3 through 7"--Provided by publisher.