In his latest book, 'The Dragons and the Snakes: How the Rest Learned to Fight the West', modern warfare expert, David Kilcullen has put forward a theory of how state threats, (like Russia and China) and non-state threats (like terrorist organisations) now overlap and intersect. What's more, they've learnt from each other, enabling them to out manoeuvre conventional military tactics, with new methods like political manipulation and cyber militias.
David Kilcullen, was a senior counterinsurgency adviser to General David Petraeus during 2007 'surge' in Iraq and counterinsurgency adviser to the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. He was previously an infantry officer in the Australian army for 22 years.