Right now we have what I would call a lot of conflict entrepreneurs. They’re prolonging conflicts not because they want to win some political goal or because they want to change the form of government of a particular area, but just because they make a lot of money, they get a lot of power from conflict and they want to preserve that conflict to keep going. So I think part of it is about shifting people away from being conflict entrepreneurs to being stakeholders in a peaceful environment…
As I’ve looked at all the cities that are growing, one of the inescapable conclusions is you get conflict not where you have just basic income inequality. You get conflict where people are locked out of progress and they look at all these people having a good time and realize I’m never going to be part of that party and they decide to burn the house down. So a lot of it is about getting communities into collaborative approach to solving their own problems. And that’s fundamentally the realm of, you know, social work and international assistance and diplomacy. It’s not really a military function.”
~ David Kilcullen
More from David Kilcullen’s December 27, 2013 interview on NPR
Strategist Kilcullen: Warfare Is Changing In 3 Ways
