THOMAS A. MARKS is Professor of Insurgency, Terrorism, and Counterterrorism at the School for National Security Executive Education (SNSEE) of National Defense University (NDU) in Washington, DC and the author of Maoist Insurgency Since Vietnam (London, 1996), considered the current standard on the subject of "people's war." A former US government officer who is a member of the editorial board of Small Wars and Insurgencies (London), he previously served as the Oppenheimer Chair of Warfighting Strategy at the Marine Corps University (Quantico), where he taught “Insurgency and Operational Art.” He is an Adjunct Professor at the US Joint Special Operations University (JSOU, Hurlburt Field, FL) and a consultant for several firms specializing in political risk, personal security, and counter-terrorism, to include RAND, where he is a member of the Insurgency Board. He graduated from the United States Military Academy and in his Ph.D. work at the University of Hawaii focused on the relationship between popular upheaval and revolutionary crisis (published as Making Revolution: The Insurgency of the Communist Party of Thailand in Structural Perspective, Bangkok: White Lotus). In recent years, Dr. Marks has, in a variety of publications, for a variety of clients, analyzed conflicts as far-flung as those in Nepal, Sri Lanka, Colombia, Peru, Papua New Guinea, Laos, the Philippines, and Northern Ireland. His most recent operational endeavor was service, in a contract capacity, as the operations consultant for a newly raised Saudi Arabian commando unit. His scholarly and journalistic works number in the hundreds. His latest book is Counter-Revolution in China: Wang Sheng and the Kuomintang (London: Frank Cass, 1997); his latest monographs, all published by the U.S. Army War College (Carlisle), are: Colombian Army Adaptation to FARC Insurgency (2002), Insurgency in Nepal (2003), and Sustainability of Colombian Military/Strategic Support for "Democratic Security" (2005).