readily attributed to the slow spatial decay of the dipolar velocity field, implying a simultaneous coupling between all microswimmers in the system. While this argument is intuitive enough, its implementation as a theoretical framework presents major technical challenges [@Stenhammar2017; @Qian2017; @Nambiar2019a], and only simplified cases were studied until now, notably by Stenhammar *et al.* [@Stenhammar2017], who considered a suspension of “shakers" – particles that apply forces to the fluid but do not self-propel.

In this work we develop a kinetic theory that goes beyond the mean-field assumption for the general model of dilute microswimmer suspensions described above. Our theory explicitly includes particle self-propulsion, and is valid at any density of microswimmers below the onset of collective motion. This constitutes simultaneously a significant methodological development compared to the work by Stenhammar *et al.* [@Stenhammar2017], and a major advance in our understanding of one of the key models defining “wet" active matter. Our theory allows us to make explicit predictions for observables that can be directly set against experiments and numerical simulations.

The paper is organised as follows. In Section \[section:theory\] we formulate a kinetic theory for a model suspension of pusher-like dipolar microswimmers. We explicitly find the dynamics of fluctuations around 