The book under review was conceived at a conference in March 2022 in Zambia that focused on conflict in Africa and was planned before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2025. While Kilcullen and Mills draw on conceptual ideas generated by the discussions in Zambia, their book expands the geographical ambit of study to the changing character of contemporary war—and peace—across the world.
Taken together, Kilcullen (American-Australian) and Mills (South African) have extensive field experience, and hold senior military advisory roles and professorships teaching war strategy. They also have a successful history of collaboration, with The Art of War and Peace being their fourth book together. They reflect an interesting mix of authoritative voices from the ‘Global North’ and ‘Global South’, establishing the authors’ intention to present a globally comprehensive analysis. The book features two forewords—by President Haikainde Hichilema of Zambia and Sir Nick Carter, former Chief of the UK Defence Staff—and two afterwords—by the former Colombian Minister of Defence, Juan Carlos Pinzon, and Valerii Zaluzhnyi, former Commander in Chief of the Ukrainian Army.
The title—The Art of War and Peace—is a portmanteau of two separate canonical, genre-defining works: The Art of War by Sun Tzu and War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. This makes for an interesting contrast and sets up the book’s analytical frame for the reader. The Art of War is a treatise on military strategy, with the highest victory reserved for those who can defeat the enemy without having to fight at all (p. 121). War and Peace, on the other hand, is a work of fiction, which, while set against the Napoleonic Wars, is concerned with the human and moral aspects of war. The Art of War and Peace encompasses both sets of themes by exploring the evolving characteristics of modern warfare while focusing on the increasing remoteness of sustainable peace. Similarly, It also reflects a combination of the narrative structures used in the books it borrows its title from: a mix of structured, scholarly discourse and autobiographical writing.
The central premise offered by Kilcullen and Mills is that the fundamental nature of warfare is changing. They attribute this to technological innovation, which has transformed the interpretation of battlefield successes. War plans must account for ‘total defence’, which means composite preparations that go far beyond battlefield strategy and tactics—from public mobilization to information management and narrative campaigns (p. 70). They further argue that unlike the past, wars are further away from transitioning to a just and durable peace following their termination. In fact conflict is now unending. The book’s jacket design by Ryan Africa symbolically captures this premise in its depiction of a tank pointing its artillery in one direction, and a flock of birds, presumably doves, flying away from it in the opposite direction.
The book engages with a number of conflict theatres across the world, from Taiwan to Latin America, providing especially compelling empirical analysis of three conflicts—Afghanistan, Ukraine, and Ethiopia (Tigray)—which serves as a useful blueprint to understand the complexities of contemporary wars in general. The authors deploy a ‘levels of analysis’ lens on their case studies, structuring it around their interpretations of ‘grand-strategic, military-strategic, operational and tactical…’ (p. 18). In the authors’ own words, the book approaches its investigations through three fundamental questions: ‘1) What do recent wars, and the direction of technological developments, tell us about the changing character of war and its tactics, equipment and strategy? 2) Why do we so often fail to turn battlefield victory into sustainable peace? 3) What is the best way to prevent, fight and resolve future conflict?’ (p. 71). A fourth theme that emerges from a reading of the book is the role of western intervention/engagement in external conflicts. By discerning patterns from the past and present, and making future projections, the book offers broader takeaways for military strategy and the study of warfare at large. For example, a study of the 2025 India-Pakistan post-Pahalgam crisis would correspond with the authors’ findings even though the crisis itself is beyond the book’s purview.
Despite past analytical predictions to the contrary, the authors note that the risk of inter-state wars is on the rise, with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s war in Gaza being the most recent examples. Technology and relatedly, the information age, are continuously transforming how wars are waged. Battlefield victory can no longer be automatically assumed as a precursor to a just and sustainable peace. There is in fact no transition to peace in any of the three conflicts being interrogated in the book—from Afghanistan to Ethiopia. The authors additionally observe that certain conflicts and their devastation may be far more brutal than those that occupy mainstream attention but are nevertheless invisibilized by Western narrative domination. This is one of the motifs they use to comment on the decay and failure of Western approaches to the business of war-fighting and peace making. The book also finds that 21st century wars take place in already unstable geopolitical conditions. The backdrop of global disorder, evolving multipolarity, Western decline, and diminishing reliability of alliances have several negative—and some potentially advantageous—ramifications. One of these is intensifying pressure on middle and smaller powers who have to build greater resilience internally, diversify their partnerships, and strengthen military capability for credible deterrence against adversaries.
The bottom line is that most states can no longer rely on great or major power support coming through during crisis situations. This is seen most explicitly in the case of Ukraine, where Kyiv’s allies have either offered lacklustre support (the European Union) or nearly withdrawn altogether (the US under President Trump). Heavy costs can thus be exacted on national security if less powerful states are unable to meet these challenges at a time when it is very much each state for itself. Should states be equal to the challenge, however, successful strategizing would involve taking advantage of a world order that is witnessing a renegotiation of power. In this context, states can seek to maximize their positioning, particularly against more powerful actors, by exploiting the ‘levelling’ benefits that multipolarity opens up, as well as technology, such as drones or information warfare, to level the military playfield.
Technological evolution has always had a decisive impact on wars. The introduction of tank warfare—which the book’s jacket also references—is one example. Another is nuclear weapons, which have facilitated states with limited power and material resources to play an outsized role and effectively challenge far larger adversaries, such as North Korea. Ultimately, and despite the book’s overwhelming emphasis on the role of technology, Kilcullen and Mills acknowledge that in the final analysis, war is a human enterprise. The human element is central to how wars are planned, waged, and concluded. Technology may offer advantages—by levelling the playing field—and disadvantages—by causing even greater devastation than before—but leadership and decision-making are crucial factors in determining the direction of war and peace.
Ruhee Neog is Director of the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies (IPCS), New Delhi.