* This transcript has been edited.
NATIONAL PRESS CLUB
“COUNTERINSURGENCY IN MODERN WARFARE”:
A DISCUSSION BY SENIOR MILITARY SCHOLARS*
WELCOME:
ROBERT MURRAY,
PRESIDENT AND CEO,
CNA
MODERATOR:
DAVID KILCULLEN,
SPECIAL ADVISOR FOR COUNTERINSURGY TO THE
SECRETARY OF STATE
SPEAKERS:
JOHN A. NAGL,
SENIOR FELLOW,
CENTER FOR A NEW AMERICAN SECURITY
CARTER MALKASIAN,
DIRECTOR,
CNA STABILITY AND DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM
DANIEL MARSTON,
RESEARCH FELLOW,
STRATEGIC AND DEFENCE STUDIES CENTRE,
AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY
TUESDAY, JULY 22, 2008
THE NATIONAL PRESS CLUB
WASHINGTON, D.C.
ROBERT MURRAY: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to this
discussion today on counterinsurgency and the new book, Counterinsurgency in Modern
Warfare. My name is Robert Murray. I’m the president and CEO of CNA. For those of
you who don’t know CNA, CNA is a non-profit research and analysis organization that
was founded in World War II to bring scientists to the war effort. And those scientists
hung around for quite a while and we’ve continued to this day.
We now work across the government: many government agencies, many issues,
and at all levels of government – federal, state, local. But a major part of our work is in
the national security area. We analyze and help solve public problems of whatever kind
and we try very hard to get close to the people, to the data, and to the problem. One
example of closeness is that we send analysts out to the field to work with operational
commanders in combat areas or other operational areas to try to help them with analysis.
And we’ve been doing that since World War II and we’re doing that recently with – on
counterinsurgency since the Vietnam War period.
Carter Malkasian, who with Daniel Marston edited this splendid book, is an
example of one of our CNA analysts who’s been deployed with the services, particularly
with the Marines in al Anbar, in Iraq, and then with the PRTs in Afghanistan for a
con