“Out of the Mountains: Urban Guerrilla” by David Kilcullen

Kilcullen was a former Australian special forces officer, who cut his bones in East Timor and went on to advise General Petraeus in Iraq and Af/Pak. The thesis of this book is that the COIN operations of the early part of this century will turn out to be aberrations with most future conflicts happening in mega-cities. He identifies four major trends that 1) the world population is growing exponentially 2) it is become more and more urban 3) these urban spaces tend to be littoral (near water), and 4) that cities and peri-urban areas are becoming more greatly connected to each other and their peripheries. The peri-urban areas are often actually transitional hubs with airports, highways, or ports located nearby and often are poorly serviced by urban core infrastructure- lacking electricity and sanitation, ripe for insurgencies to blossom. The book is focused on the challenges of military engagements, but is a great read for anyone interested in the future of sociology and urban planning.