Soldier-scholar David Kilcullen is Australia’s most influential contemporary military strategist. A former adviser to General Petraeus and former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, his new book, The Dragons and the Snakes: How the Rest Learned to Fight the West, examines the complex new world of modern warfare, featuring the state competitor “dragons” and the non-state guerrilla and terrorist players, the “snakes.” A remarkable synthesis of three decades of military and political history, this expert analysis of the new nature of conflict is as illuminating as it is disturbing.

Chaired by Rick Sarre