Episode 0 -
Leadership Lessons with General Petraeus:
The Ukraine and Afghanistan Connection

00:00:00:03 - 00:00:34:18

Sam Cook

Hello. My name is Sam Cook, and I'm the founder and executive director of the Borderlands Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to telling the story of Ukraine's struggle for freedom in its war against Russia. And I'm excited to launch our first Ukraine history podcast with General retired David Petraeus and the former CIA director. Sir, you commanded the 101st Airborne Division during the invasion of Iraq, then went on to command the Multinational Security Training Command in Iraq.

00:00:34:22 - 00:00:35:11

David Petraeus

Transition.

00:00:35:11 - 00:00:37:17

Sam Cook

Committee sorry, transition command Minsk.

00:00:37:18 - 00:00:38:07

David Petraeus

In short.

00:00:38:12 - 00:01:09:03

Sam Cook

I never really knew a hitman sticky commander. That's actually when I first met you. When I was working for Colonel McMaster. Then you went on to come back and command forces, coalition forces in Iraq and after that commanded Central Command, which was in charge of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Then finally you got asked to take over Afghanistan as the commander there when General McChrystal left early.

00:01:09:21 - 00:01:25:17

Sam Cook

And then finally you went on to become the director of the CIA. So your book wanted to give you a chance to tell us why you wrote it. Conflict, The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine. Why did you write it and why now? And thanks.

00:01:25:17 - 00:01:59:16

David Petraeus

Well, I enjoyed it. Sure. No, it's great to be with you. And I admire the colleagues that you're supporting and obviously the cause of Ukraine in the face of a brutal and unprovoked invasion, a truly seismic action in Europe, unprecedented since World War Two. So I wrote the book because my coauthor, Andrew Roberts, a brilliant British historian and biographer with whom I've done a number of events over the years of interviewed him multiple times at the Newark Historical Society and his book on Churchill and then King George.

00:02:00:09 - 00:02:21:10

David Petraeus

He's interviewed me a bunch of times at the Clinton Literary Festival, even though I had written the book yet twice there. And then I'm in various other stages in London. One of those as particularly enjoyable was the question before the audience for me was Could the British have won the American Revolution? And the answer, of course, was yes.

00:02:21:10 - 00:02:45:04

David Petraeus

If they'd had a better counterinsurgency campaign. So he and I have had a wonderful friendship over the years and a lot of activities and events together. And he came up with the idea of writing this book, and it seemed to be very intellectually stimulating to me. Several of the chapters were ones that I obviously had a degree of involvement in, particularly the Iraq and Afghanistan chapters.

00:02:45:04 - 00:03:05:19

David Petraeus

And in fact, we wrote those. I wrote those in the first person. I also narrated them for the audiobook, which is another interesting experience. I also led one on the Vietnam chapter, which was the subject of my dissertation at Princeton when I did my Ph.D. there. And then we collaborated on that and the rest did take the lead on some.

00:03:05:19 - 00:03:33:21

David Petraeus

But there's a chapter in there, of course, on Ukraine and then a chapter in the future of warfare. But again, it just struck me that this would be a very intellectually stimulating endeavor of often sort what might be termed action forcing mechanisms in my life, where you commit to do something that forces you to to do it and it's worthy and or whether it's, you know, to run a marathon or I'm going to do a Ph.D. at Princeton, even though they just give me two years or whatever it is.

00:03:33:21 - 00:03:46:08

David Petraeus

So in this case, that's the way it struck me. We knocked it out fairly quickly and it comes out now in early October in the UK, in mid-October in the United States.

00:03:47:12 - 00:03:57:15

Sam Cook

And this is I read the book, I got an advance copy and I must say is from a former West Point history professor to a social professor.

00:03:58:18 - 00:04:00:03

David Petraeus

Not bad for associate professor.

00:04:00:03 - 00:04:23:00

Sam Cook

So that was it was actually I actually really appreciate history written by people who studied in the social sciences because there's a certain rigor to your analysis that sometimes historians lack, and then sometimes there's a certain storytelling that a social scientist might lack that you manage to keep in the book. And maybe that was.

00:04:23:04 - 00:04:46:11

David Petraeus

Roberts But it's interesting you mention that, because I have never embraced the idea of a political science department. I mean, there's some degree of science, if you will, but it's a bit of a stretch. In fact, I was always happy that the department at Princeton is just a department of politics. They don't have pretensions about being scientists or social scientists or what have you.

00:04:46:12 - 00:05:07:08

David Petraeus

In fact, I studied in the then the Woodrow Wilson School of Public in International Affairs, which because again, it forced you to do not just international relations and politics and government, if you will, but also economics, which was a bit of a heavy lift for somebody who had never even taken a basic econ course in his undergraduate years.

00:05:07:08 - 00:05:10:05

Sam Cook

And that is called what is it, the dismal or dreadful science, but.

00:05:10:05 - 00:05:15:24

David Petraeus

Then something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I taught it at West Point, which was great fun. I do also don't international relations.

00:05:16:06 - 00:05:31:20

Sam Cook

I'm going to let you talk about the big idea and the intellectual framework that you use throughout the book. But what I really appreciated was the the framework for thinking about how to win wars at a strategic level and talk about that that framework before we die.

00:05:31:20 - 00:05:56:11

David Petraeus

Well, it you know, I don't know that when we went into it that we had as explicitly in mind employing this intellectual construct that we developed for strategic leadership. While I was a fellow, it I've had a number of academic endeavors, you know, I mean, obviously a partner at KKR or the world's biggest investment firm, about $520 million under management or 120 companies, minority investments, another 100.

00:05:57:00 - 00:06:26:16

David Petraeus

And I chair of the Global Institute there, which is assessing geopolitical and other risks to potential investments and determining if you can sufficiently mitigate them to make the investment. And then obviously helping the companies once we buy them and also helping our investors understand the world in which we're all investing together. But along the way, I've had these academic appointments always nonresident, but I was a nonresident senior fellow at Harvard for six years at the Belfer Center.

00:06:26:17 - 00:06:45:23

David Petraeus

I actually did teach once a week at the City University New York Honors College, a course called the North American Decades that looked at North America as an economic unit and the prospects for the future. And a chair at the University of Southern California was a one week, a semester concentrated one week in Denver. I'm teaching up at Yale now.

00:06:45:23 - 00:07:08:22

David Petraeus

I'm the Kissinger fellow there this year. And I coached Teach a course on great power competition at Harvard. We developed this intellectual framework for strategic leadership in the students and the graduate programs there. Most of them who were involved in this had worked for me in Iraq or Afghanistan, and they wanted to help me distill this and to capture it.

00:07:08:22 - 00:07:42:15

David Petraeus

And there is a Web site at Belfer Center dot org. If you search for Petraeus in strategic leadership, it lays this out and essentially it is that a strategic leader. And again, in war, strategic leadership is absolutely critical. And it's crucial that strategic leaders perform the four tasks of a strategic leader properly, ideally, brilliantly, the first task being the most important and if you don't get that right, it doesn't matter how good you are at the other tasks, you're building on a shaky foundation.

00:07:42:15 - 00:08:07:11

David Petraeus

And that first task is to get the big ideas right. So you have to understand in the strategic context, the various dynamics, all the elements that are present in a particular conflict and then craft the right strategic approach. Of course, this has to be done really by the civilian leadership. It has to be done crucially by the military leadership of that overall theater of war.

00:08:07:11 - 00:08:23:16

David Petraeus

So this strategic leader has to get the big ideas right. You have to communicate them effectively through the breadth and depth of the organization, the military organization, the country, the world, all the stakeholders. But the communication task is crucial.

00:08:23:16 - 00:08:25:09

Sam Cook

So step two is communication.

00:08:25:12 - 00:08:56:14

David Petraeus

Step two is communicate the big ideas. Get the big ideas right is number one. Number two is communicate the big ideas effectively. Number three is oversee the implementation of the big ideas, which is really what we normally think of as leadership. We sort of skip over these others and we jump to the, you know, the the the example, the energy, the inspiration, the getting great people and keeping them, developing them, allowing those that are measuring up to move on how you spend your time.

00:08:56:14 - 00:09:34:10

David Petraeus

Literally, there's a hole. And by the way, each of these tasks has subtasks. In this website, we go into this in considerable detail about how do you get the big ideas right? How do you communicate effectively, how do you oversee the implementation? And and again, the battle rhythm is crucial. You know, how do you spend your time? This is a you know, as a commander in Iraq or Afghanistan or these other senior positions, we had a huge butcher block piece of paper that laid out what we did every single day of the week because, as you know, combat's a seven day where you can never and there are certain things we did every single day

00:09:35:10 - 00:09:54:15

David Petraeus

and we then it's what do you do after those things that you start the day with which, by the way, include just, you know, a cup of coffee at 530, quick, secure email it, you know, for 15 minutes. Take your stuff and as you get it well, that we did do that we had that on the battery. We only had three days a week for that actually in Iraq during the surge.

00:09:54:15 - 00:10:10:20

David Petraeus

That was hard to carve that out. But we let you start. We yeah, we did. And we you know, it was a six mile run, by the way. There's a 10-K and we would import officers that could that were young enough to keep up. And I had to specifically, you know, at a in a couple of others that can hang.

00:10:11:10 - 00:10:28:18

David Petraeus

And but so you're multitasking even during the run. You know, I'm getting to workout. We actually took a couple of journalists once or twice or very few. They made it past that. Yep. Because what we do is we'd talk for the first two miles or three miles and then we start to pick up the pace and then he'd see who was still around.

00:10:29:00 - 00:10:45:06

David Petraeus

But the point is, you have this rhythm. And again, I remember one of them, in fact, a classmate of mine who at per place me in that three star job in Iraq. When he came in, I asked, what kind, what do I need to do to help you be successful? And he said, I need to see you on a regular basis.

00:10:45:06 - 00:11:01:07

David Petraeus

And so we sent up, he got one hour a week and we had a rhythm. Within that one week would be the Army, another week would be the other services. Another way you can be the police and other would be the others within the Ministry of Interior. And you just rotate and we built, you know, the interest, rigorous analysis in that.

00:11:01:07 - 00:11:24:13

David Petraeus

So again, how do you do that or is it literally everything from what you do every single day of the week to what you do a few times a week? We would go out on patrol with soldiers at least twice a week and then meet with captains afterwards and so forth. Once a week was the president United States 730 in a monday morning to 830 videoconference with him in the ambassador, myself and the whole national security team.

00:11:24:13 - 00:11:43:07

David Petraeus

Tuesday Washington time seven 3830 Secretary of Defense, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the select group of people. So again, it's all in the the president of Iraq's national security, meaning the president of Iraq. We had an hour of his time once a week. So, again, that's really this is something you have to do in real rigor. And then you have to get into the metrics.

00:11:43:07 - 00:12:13:20

David Petraeus

What are they? What's the definition? Ratchet them down. How do you know if you're winning or losing that this kind of stuff? And then there's a fourth task that is often overlooked and you have to do it formally. And there were events on the battle rhythm that enabled us force me actually to do this, and that's to sit down and determine how you need to refine the big ideas, how you need to adjust the strategy, how you need to make adaptations, add new big ideas, reject old ideas, and then do it all over again and again.

00:12:14:08 - 00:12:29:19

David Petraeus

And so in this book, as we look at some of these different wars all of a sudden and just jumped out at us again, and that in trying to capture the history, what we realized was that strategic leadership is crucial.

00:12:31:03 - 00:12:37:15

Sam Cook

Which is frustrating to a social scientist a lot of times because leadership is so hard to measure. But it's also.

00:12:37:20 - 00:13:04:20

David Petraeus

Yeah, I mean, very it's intangible except that you can if you use this construct. Yeah. You can ask do they have the big ideas. Right. I think one of the fascinations about Ukraine, frankly, is that it has been a case of an example of extraordinary strategic leadership. I mean, President Zelensky, from the very beginning, I don't want a ride, I want ammunition.

00:13:04:20 - 00:13:11:19

David Petraeus

How's that for a big idea? You know, I'm not I'm not going to Lviv. I'm going to stay here in Kiev and my family staying.

00:13:12:03 - 00:13:13:14

Sam Cook

Yeah.

00:13:13:14 - 00:13:40:20

David Petraeus

So again and then you get into the more, if you will, substantive big ideas. And of course, is communication skills are extraordinary given his background. Obviously, as an actor and so forth, truly Churchillian in that regard. And then the oversight of the the implementation has been very impressive as well. All of his activities, his battle with them, his iron drive, the campaign plan, you know, he designed the campaign plan that captures the big ideas.

00:13:40:20 - 00:13:47:13

David Petraeus

You communicate them in a whole bunch of different ways. He just speeches, actual plans, mission statements, orders going.

00:13:47:13 - 00:13:47:17

Sam Cook

To the.

00:13:47:22 - 00:14:09:10

David Petraeus

Others urgency guidance. That's one of the oversee the implementation that's the example you know where's where's Putin? He's at the big long table. You know, we're in front of the cameras, whereas presidents Wolinsky he's at Berkeley. And so again, yes, all of that just again, sheer brilliant, the exact I mean, even the the uniform, even the attire, even the all of this.

00:14:10:12 - 00:14:11:01

Sam Cook

He's the only.

00:14:11:01 - 00:14:11:12

David Petraeus

Roster eight.

00:14:11:12 - 00:14:11:20

Sam Cook

For the whole.

00:14:11:20 - 00:14:18:19

David Petraeus

Country demonstrate sheer brilliance. It is and everyone's proud to wear some they all have their own variation. I know there's not.

00:14:19:05 - 00:14:19:19

Sam Cook

Exactly.

00:14:19:19 - 00:14:48:00

David Petraeus

The standardization that you and I knew, but and then, you know, there's a constant examination of, if you will, the big ideas. And some of this, by the way, involves asking for new capabilities, a recognition that you need more air defense in more places, you know. So, again, okay, you know, a new big idea. And of course, he's got a brilliant set of military leaders, starting with generals illusion him, but then superseding all the others and then in different other places.

00:14:48:00 - 00:15:12:07

David Petraeus

And they're exercising strategic leadership over the military aspect of this, the intelligence aspect and so forth. So I find it really a very interesting case study of brilliant strategic leadership, but noting that the war is not over and this is still very much a work in progress. And so, you know, you come back also. Why did you write the book?

00:15:12:07 - 00:15:36:08

David Petraeus

Well, you know, as I thought about it, I'm a student of the world. This is a major event in the world. This is you know, we talk about an evolution in global affairs from, say, ten years ago or more. That was an era of benign globalization in which barriers to trade, investment and capital flows were all being reduced.

00:15:36:08 - 00:15:56:09

David Petraeus

And global trade was going like this to an era of renewed great power rivalries in which those barriers are going back up. Global trade has become globalization is still increasing slightly, but there's also a bit more regional. This is what we do at the Kerry global city, by the way. Again, this is what we do is distill trends.

00:15:56:09 - 00:16:20:12

David Petraeus

By the way, we also have several thousand employees still here of companies that we own that are in Europe or elsewhere, working remotely in most cases, but not all. We had thousands in Russia, actually, so we actually did a de-risking and we had an exit plan and we executed the contingencies that we developed for those who were in places like Turkey of and elsewhere.

00:16:20:12 - 00:16:37:14

David Petraeus

I mean, we gave quite direct guidance to different companies that we knew had people in different places of the Ukraine. And even though some of those were in denial about what was going to happen, we said, you don't have an option here. You can be in denial, but the car still has to be packed.

00:16:38:04 - 00:16:40:05

Sam Cook

And I went through the Sam Cook thing with my team.

00:16:40:05 - 00:17:12:13

David Petraeus

It yes, sure. So you have to have. But in any event, again, to come back, you know, I'm a student of history also in that I'm a student of leadership. So this book provided an opportunity to get into all of those, too, to do that. And again, it was very intellectually stimulating to do it. But one of the recurring themes, perhaps the most important, is the critical aspect of strategic leadership.

00:17:12:13 - 00:17:19:05

David Petraeus

And if you don't get the big ideas right and we didn't, as we'll discuss for nine years in Afghanistan, and.

00:17:19:05 - 00:17:19:17

Sam Cook

It had.

00:17:21:02 - 00:17:40:11

David Petraeus

We sort of had them right in Iraq, we had some pretty bad big ideas, too, like fire in the Iraqi military without telling you what their future was and how they're going to provide for their families. de-Baathification without reconciliation, an agreed reconciliation program, all of this. But eventually we got, you know, the surge really I think came together.

00:17:41:13 - 00:18:09:08

David Petraeus

So, again, it shows the importance of strategic leadership. And if you don't have it and if you don't get it right, I don't care how good the other qualities are in a leader, a national leader, a military leader, what have you, I wouldn't say it doesn't matter. But if you don't have the big ideas right, you're building on a foundation of sand as opposed to a solid foundation.

00:18:09:17 - 00:18:13:01

Sam Cook

Like it's a bridge to nowhere. I mean, it is held as much as you want.

00:18:13:01 - 00:18:25:12

David Petraeus

Yeah, I'll on declaring do not be as energetic and charismatic and inspirational and attractive and all the other, you know, great communication skills. But if you don't get the big ideas right, it's generally going to be for naught. Yeah.

00:18:26:01 - 00:18:43:24

Sam Cook

So what I wanted to do with you is read I read the advance copy of the book. This is before it came out. We're filming this about a month and a half before the release, and I'm convinced that this is going to be very attractive to people in business who understand the.

00:18:43:24 - 00:19:06:15

David Petraeus

New strategic leadership aspect. This model applies in business. It worked in that website at Harvard. I go through the case study of Netflix. Yeah. Is Reed Hastings is one of the great strategic leaders of the world. I mean, people like Jeff Bezos, Jack Ma, others that you can identify who have not just gotten the big ideas right ones and communicate them effectively and overseen their implementation, but have done that repeatedly.

00:19:07:02 - 00:19:35:08

David Petraeus

And then also we hold up the case of Kodak, which had, you know, it was the dominant force in film, photography and services associated with film photography. It had over 2000 patents reportedly on digital photography, but it failed to do test for that swiftly enough to turn those patents into the new big ideas and to transform the company from film photography to digital photography.

00:19:35:08 - 00:19:58:03

David Petraeus

And it's never been the Sam Cook since then or you have Netflix again, which goes through at least four or five incarnations. You know, the four we identify are putting movies in the hands of customers without brick and mortar. So you're going to undercut blockbuster. Number two is you allow them to download content because broadband speed then became fast enough.

00:19:58:03 - 00:20:28:10

David Petraeus

So it's a new context in that the strategic context changed because all of a sudden broadband speeds were rapid enough to allow that downloading number three is they produce their own content, $100 million on house and cars alone, a massive open bit again by Reed Hastings. And then number four was we're going to make major motion pictures and you go out and buy a couple of major studios and get more Academy Award nominations a couple of years ago than any other major motion picture studio that's been around for decades.

00:20:28:10 - 00:20:54:21

David Petraeus

So quite extraordinary. There's also a global aspect to this. There's some other aspects. There's some new big ideas that he's incorporating, even though he's now obviously stepped down as CEO and become the chairman. So they've also had a successful leadership transition so far. But again, this applies very much in the business world. We've we've discussed this, you know, a considerable length of KKR in various moments and various times.

00:20:55:17 - 00:21:30:03

David Petraeus

And that, again, one of the distinguishing features of KKR is that we are constantly developing new big ideas, new products, if you will, new endeavors. You know, go out and buy an entire insurance company with 90 billion in assets under management. So again, it's it's quite this is very, I think, helpful as a construct, whether you're talking about a nation at war, a military organization or a major business or by the way, a startup or startup as a CEO of a startup, as you know.

00:21:30:03 - 00:21:32:10

David Petraeus

Yeah, you have to get the big ideas right.

00:21:32:22 - 00:21:34:00

Sam Cook

Or you're out of business or you're out.

00:21:34:00 - 00:22:01:20

David Petraeus

Of business. You then have to communicate in, you know, whether it's to, again, clients, customers, what have you, all of that help you have to oversee the implementation, whether it's, you know, you and two other people or what if 200 or whatever. And then you have to constantly adapt and refine and so forth. And and I know that you've had some experiences where, you know, this worked pretty well for a cycle or two, but then the context changes and yeah, yeah, it happened sometimes.

00:22:01:20 - 00:22:24:20

Sam Cook

It happened to our staff right before the ironically or right before the war started. Yeah, the war just helped accelerate the downfall. So I've been through that in business. So the beautiful thing about reading history as any kind of leader is we're all watching it play out in Ukraine. I think the most striking example of clear good versus evil fight and brilliant.

00:22:24:20 - 00:22:29:05

David Petraeus

Yeah, I think you're exactly right. I think in our lifetime, I can't think of anything that is more.

00:22:29:13 - 00:22:29:22

Sam Cook

The.

00:22:30:09 - 00:22:40:04

David Petraeus

More black and white clear cut, good versus evil than what is going on right here in Ukraine against its neighbor that denies its right to exist.

00:22:40:15 - 00:22:51:21

Sam Cook

And we're going to go into that in detail in part two of this, which doesn't look about at the end, but so let's go through the major wars in America, because I know you covered you cover your automotive.

00:22:51:21 - 00:23:07:23

David Petraeus

World at it because again, we think we have to have you know, there's a global aspects to all of this. And we look at areas of the U.S. and the recent post-World War Two decolonization, all the rest of this. And they are instructive. But the but the U.S. wars are obviously a particular focus.

00:23:08:03 - 00:23:28:21

Sam Cook

Yeah, there's there's the Israeli conflicts, the British and French. But but I want to surf on the high highways of American history here for our audience so you can get an idea of all the other wars you cover in the framework and how to apply it. Because we're familiar with these. So let's start with Korea to talk about how that plays out.

00:23:29:07 - 00:23:58:00

David Petraeus

Again, we have to simplify this greatly. We will do justice to you know, the leaders that were there. But MacArthur, for all of his genius as a strategic leader with the island hopping campaign after leaving the Philippines, of course, in the southwest Pacific, who is then the commander? He's in Japan. He's commanding those forces in the Far East and again, genius to have the Inchon landing.

00:23:58:10 - 00:24:23:22

David Petraeus

But then doesn't exactly get the big idea right when it comes to whether China might enter the war. And of course, our forces rapidly advance the Yalu that precipitates the Chinese decision to enter and all of a sudden it appearing in retreat and really the strategic leader most impressive in the Korean War and in the leader who really achieves the ultimate outcome.

00:24:24:07 - 00:25:04:23

David Petraeus

You know, they're stabilizing the front lines, getting back to what is now the demilitarized zone. The 30th parallel was, of course, Matthew Ridgway, and he who took over after MacArthur was fired for, I think, real and perceived insubordination to President Truman and a loss of confidence in him. You know, he was actually advocating the use of nuclear weapons and so forth and publicly making statements that were a bit more aggressive, shall we say, that what the administration and the Joint Chiefs actually were willing to pursue.

00:25:05:21 - 00:25:50:23

David Petraeus

And so Ridgway ends up taking over. Of course, he was an incredible battlefield. General in World War two, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, Sicily, then Normandy invasion two distinguished service crosses. So an extraordinary leader at the, if you will, the tactical level, then operational level, that 18th Airborne Corps, in particular, the actions of the Corps during the Bulge and eventually then is out in the Far East, replacing the Commander below MacArthur and then steps up when MacArthur is is relieved and I think demonstrates extraordinary strategic leadership.

00:25:50:23 - 00:26:14:00

David Petraeus

He gets the big ideas right about what needs to be done. He communicates them very effectively. He oversees the implementation brilliantly in all different aspects. I mean, even whether it's communication or the example, the implementation, you know, the two grenades on the on the load bearing equipment, you always he he drives forward and flies back so they never see him retreating.

00:26:14:00 - 00:26:50:13

David Petraeus

All of these aspects that he by the way, I interviewed him for my dissertation, which was a real thrill about some later aspects of his advice to President Eisenhower in the use of force around the NBA through. So he really is the one I think most of all who is the is responsible for an outcome that's not total victory, to be sure, but is a good outcome and has really been stable ever since, despite the repeated threats and provocations and so forth.

00:26:50:13 - 00:26:55:01

Sam Cook

One the difference between the developing areas as countries and economies is is just strike.

00:26:55:01 - 00:27:24:12

David Petraeus

It is. And of course over time then successive leaders would help to contribute. And an ambassador is in the U.S. and all the rest of this. But again, during that war, the outstanding strategic leader was Ridgway. And for what it's worth, Ridgway, I'm actually thinking about a follow on book, which is titled From Battlefield to High Command, and it's about the very, very small number of individuals in American military history who were brilliant on the battlefield, but they were also brilliant as strategic leaders.

00:27:24:12 - 00:27:26:04

Sam Cook

Oh, this is a this is one of your next books.

00:27:26:04 - 00:27:50:12

David Petraeus

It's a great fun. And we've been actually this is where you look at someone like like Wellington. You look at Grant, the only U.S. military leader in history, in my view, who was brilliant tactically, operationally and strategically. So not just battlefield in high command, but even that in between that so-called operational level, if you think about it. But Ridgway is very, very close to that.

00:27:50:20 - 00:28:14:08

David Petraeus

And so, again, one of the very few and there are very, very few that that make that get over that hurdle. And obviously, Napoleon does not you know, he ends up losing. He can bad big idea to invade Russia and be there during the winter you know in bad big idea to take on the unified forces that Wellington is able to pull together etc..

00:28:14:08 - 00:28:39:24

David Petraeus

So for all of again the battlefield brilliance in other cases, obviously Robert elated he lost. Yeah I got the big ideas wrong. Yeah. The big idea he should have had was to do everything humanly possible to contribute to the defeat of Lincoln in the election of November 1864. And so it's beyond the battlefield. It's how do you bring about the defeat of Lincoln?

00:28:40:05 - 00:29:10:16

David Petraeus

Pull it out. And you do that by not losing in Atlanta, not losing in the Valley, not casting, not rolling the dice at Gettysburg and so forth. But like by conducting operations that contribute to growing frustration in the North about the uncertain outcome of the war. And instead, he gambled a couple of times and lost in grit out General Grant developed the strategic campaign plan that included the victories ultimately of Atlanta.

00:29:10:16 - 00:29:33:19

David Petraeus

Savannah, the Valley, and then, of course, just going after Lee until Appomattox. But but the key event in the Civil War was not actually on the battlefield. It was at the ballot box. It was Lincoln winning the second term, continuing the war, as opposed to give island peace again. Who would have a peace candidate? Who would have sued for peace?

00:29:33:19 - 00:29:52:20

David Petraeus

And we wouldn't have the union that we have now. And then, of course, it was Grant's plan that ensured that that enabled that. So, again, Ridgeway of that level, in my view, you know, Korea is not the American civil war, perhaps, but it was an extraordinary event in world history coming to right after World War Two.

00:29:53:01 - 00:30:00:10

Sam Cook

And it also said, I think the new paradigm of what's acceptable around nuclear weapons, which it.

00:30:00:10 - 00:30:14:13

David Petraeus

Started, you know, this whole idea of limited warfare, of warfare that takes place sort of in the under the shadow or under the umbrella, within whatever the context that nuclear weapons are hanging over.

00:30:14:15 - 00:30:14:23

Sam Cook

Yeah.

00:30:15:05 - 00:30:43:11

David Petraeus

But they're not used and of course we're seen here as well. And they cast a shadow, the nuclear saber rattling and all the rest of that. And yet this so really every war since World War Two, every war has had some limits. The most important limit mean that nuclear weapons have not been used. And of course, what we need to do is get the big ideas right about deterrence continually, repeatedly, to make sure that we're never in a position where that happens.

00:30:43:17 - 00:30:47:04

Sam Cook

Yeah, and it's definitely hanging over that. We'll get into more detail on. Yeah.

00:30:47:19 - 00:30:57:06

David Petraeus

So that's Korea. And again, I think a great case of great strategic leadership on our side in the form of Matthew B. Ridgway Yeah.

00:30:57:21 - 00:31:12:23

Sam Cook

And Vietnam, you wrote your dissertation, I admit when I read the book. And certainly it's sometimes it's hard to tell on coauthors, but I can definitely see your influence on the writing their collab.

00:31:12:23 - 00:31:43:10

David Petraeus

With that one we did in the third person still but the end of that I was the lead. Certainly I'm the best majority of that. But what was interesting is, you know, my dissertation was at the ten year mark after Vietnam. This is 25 years later. And the additional scholarship, the additional declassification has been dramatic. And you think of the contributions by a number of different first of all, the participants themselves were a lot of those were not even out at that time.

00:31:43:24 - 00:31:54:08

David Petraeus

Some were. But then the major works after that, you know, if you think of again the bright shiny line again, I won't get into all the bibliography.

00:31:54:09 - 00:31:55:04

Sam Cook

Here better or.

00:31:55:08 - 00:32:23:08

David Petraeus

But then beaten by Bob Sorley is actually is Lewis or is his name but Bob Sorley is is his nickname some of the I or his family and I know well his again scholarship on Abrams and on Westmoreland and then defenders of Westmoreland all the rest of this it's quite fascinating and I think the conclusion here is that the great strategic leader of the Vietnam War was not American.

00:32:23:11 - 00:33:10:13

David Petraeus

You know, it was actually the North Vietnamese, a military leader who was also one of those who was brilliant in the battlefield, Dien Bien Phu. And then later on as the overall commander during a lot of the the the U.S. period, the U.S. Vietnam War, and, of course, this general job in the U.S. side as succession of leaders, several culminating with the four years that Westmoreland commanded, didn't get the big ideas right, even though the Vietnamese leaders, South Vietnamese leaders early in the war wanted to focus on what was an insurgency and needed to structure their forces for that, and instead the U.S. wanted to model it on what had won the war and stabilize

00:33:10:13 - 00:33:45:10

David Petraeus

the war, achieve the outcome in Korea to build divisions. I mean, modeled on our divisions and the small war, the village war and so forth, was a bit of an afterthought. And then, of course, U.S. forces end up coming in huge numbers eventually, in a way, over 500,000. And it's a big war. And we turn in our focus is on the big war and ignoring or as a secondary effort, certainly economy of force, what's going on in the villages and hamlets by and large, not to say there wasn't a Hamlet strategic Hamlet program.

00:33:45:10 - 00:33:51:17

David Petraeus

There were a very variety of initiatives pursued, but they were never the big priority. They weren't the big war. They weren't the.

00:33:52:20 - 00:33:53:14

Sam Cook

The were lower level.

00:33:53:15 - 00:34:20:10

David Petraeus

Had 101st version. You know, that was the focus. And it's a very interesting actually one of my fellow Princeton Ph.D. in military forces, eventually Brigadier General, retired Pete Dawkins, of course, Heisman Trophy, a Rhodes scholar, wrote a dissertation at Princeton. I think he was the last one that did a Ph.D. before I did at the Woodrow Wilson School, as it was called then, and it was titled the U.S. Army and the Other War in Vietnam.

00:34:20:10 - 00:34:51:12

David Petraeus

And it was about the advisory effort, which was the other. And it was very much disconnected. It wasn't where you went to die, but it was, you know, it was not what you wanted to do. You wanted to command a company, a battalion, a brigade, and fight the big war. And the advisory effort, hugely important, was not recognized as being again, the equivalent in some respects at his is quite rigorous by the way he does a lot of survey work to establish the point that he makes.

00:34:52:11 - 00:35:15:05

David Petraeus

So again we just didn't get the big ideas right until Creighton Abrams comes in. And as we lay out in that chapter, he gets the big ideas right for the first time. But this is 1968. You know, we've already been in there. You know, the debate about whether Vietnam or Afghanistan is the longest war. Afghanistan was 20 years.

00:35:15:05 - 00:35:44:05

David Petraeus

Vietnam, if you really start with right after Dien Bien Phu, let's say 1955 or so, you can get a bit longer or even earlier because we actually had some forces on the ground, even during the French period of and Nosheen. So again, we didn't get the big ideas right until 1968. Well, the way over a decade after we really taken over the support for the South Vietnamese.

00:35:45:05 - 00:36:10:19

David Petraeus

And the problem then was that we had so much muscle memory, so much just inertia, momentum and so forth, and the big war that yes, you can try to turn it into smaller operations and smaller actions and you can prioritize the efforts in the villages. You can integrate much better with what the CIA was doing. And of course, they have a very good program, somewhat controversial.

00:36:10:19 - 00:36:46:03

David Petraeus

But certainly I think arguably quite important. And then the efforts for the regional forces, the the local forces and so forth, the rough puffs. But it's all too late and we're already drawing down. There's already the pressure to begin the withdrawal, not conditions based. It's based really on domestic conditions in the United States. Nixon and Kissinger trying to achieve all that they can to negotiate from their position of greatest leverage possible.

00:36:46:03 - 00:37:14:04

David Petraeus

And they take actions in some cases that were quite forceful, of course, but in many cases it's too little, too late. And and then frankly, you have a situation here as well that I do have a question that sort of haunts examination of Vietnam and that is, were our partners at various levels so flawed that it it wouldn't matter if we'd gotten it all right.

00:37:14:04 - 00:37:53:17

David Petraeus

Our side because the the corruption because of the disconnect between these French speaking Catholic, well-educated, elite leaders and the peasants, if, again, different religions, different education levels and so forth. So again, it's and that's one of those it's you can't obviously answer that question. There were, to be sure, many, many fine Vietnamese, many leaders, many courageous, great integrity and so forth, selfless.

00:37:53:17 - 00:38:14:05

David Petraeus

But there were some obviously some imperfections. And then, of course, there was also a bit of, you know, that you have the assassination of the early leader and which we were a party to in certain respects, and and then a bit of a revolving door for the leadership. You finally settle in the to the take it through for a period of time.

00:38:14:05 - 00:38:36:21

David Petraeus

But again, there are questions I think about were they were they sufficient strategic leaders? And then also did we even get the architecture right in the in the rest of that, because as we'll discuss in Afghanistan, where it took us nine years to get the inputs right, the inputs include the big ideas. They include the right level of resources.

00:38:36:21 - 00:39:00:22

David Petraeus

They include the right organization architecture. They include the right preparation of forces, the right to early anthem for, you know, all these aspects. And again, by and large, there were enormous failures on the U.S. side, including of course, just tour relates of commanders six months at most, and then you rotate to the rear or to another job. So you have a churning constantly, many, many other deficiencies.

00:39:00:22 - 00:39:41:16

David Petraeus

And then again, the focus on body count, which then became suspect in many cases integrity issues. And, you know, subsequent studies that examined so many of the shortcomings of how we conducted the war beyond just the big ideas, but now into how do you actually implement all of this. And so, again, the strategic leader of note, it was not an American, although Creighton Abrams does indeed, I think, deserve enormous credit for understanding the nature of the war, for, again, crafting the right big ideas, certainly seeking to communicate them, seeking to oversee their implementation.

00:39:42:08 - 00:40:09:05

David Petraeus

But I think the obstacles by that point in time, the challenges at that point in time, given the situation in the U.S. domestically, were so great that it was just not possible to turn around an effort that had been based, frankly, on flawed big ideas and also a variety of flawed metrics and flawed oversight and flawed personnel practices and all the rest of it.

00:40:09:05 - 00:40:14:04

David Petraeus

And of course, it was also a draftee army, and you had issues related to that as well.

00:40:15:15 - 00:40:32:10

Sam Cook

And this is a perfect segue way because you were a student of this Vietnam War, and my old boss, General McMaster, his book, I contributed greatly to the Dereliction of Duty about the the this war.

00:40:32:10 - 00:40:55:20

David Petraeus

Also the genius to get a book title. You know in three words. Yeah that expresses the theme of a book that's that's quite extraordinary. Adding the big idea right on the book title. You know, you think of Doris Kearns Goodwin as Team of rivals about Lincoln's cabinet. You think of some of these others that just capture the the book, you know, a bright shining lie.

00:40:56:15 - 00:41:11:10

David Petraeus

The story of John Paul, then, as a metaphor for Vietnam, actually. So, yes, again, and H.R. is is a genius at that and many other things, frankly. And then the follow on those go ahead and give the rest of the title because.

00:41:12:12 - 00:41:36:02

Sam Cook

Dereliction of Duty, the Lyndon Johnson, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the national I think the National Security Council, the lies that led to Vietnam. It was a brilliant branding and and but what strikes me is how much that war and use study did. And General McMaster studied it and that directly leads into the next war. Iraq I think obviously endeavor.

00:41:36:02 - 00:41:37:01

Sam Cook

Well sir first.

00:41:37:01 - 00:41:40:23

David Petraeus

The Gulf War and then the you know you had to Iraq wars, if you will.

00:41:41:16 - 00:41:42:19

Sam Cook

In Libya.

00:41:43:00 - 00:42:11:11

David Petraeus

So the army in particular, the Marine Corps in particular. But, you know, really all of our military goes through the Sam Cook credible transformation process from the draftee to a professional army, really rigorous training. And in a lot of that based around what leaders from Vietnam saw, is, again, flawed practices, inadequate training and leadership and personnel policies and tour layouts and all of this.

00:42:11:16 - 00:42:39:18

David Petraeus

I mean, and so you see that all come to fruition. It was interesting because I happen to be the end of the chief of staff of the Army at the time and also as Assistant Executive Officer when we had the invasion of Panama, which we cover briefly here as well, and of course quite really impressive operation. And then also, of course, the response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait with Desert Shield and Desert Storm.

00:42:39:18 - 00:43:07:00

David Petraeus

Again, I think good strategic leadership. But, you know, the biggest of the big ideas is put enough forces on the ground to to destroy the Iraqi army and Kuwait and then double it. Yeah. And then pound them for 39 days mercilessly. And then, of course, that's not to say there weren't some very stiff exchanges. H.R. McMaster, in fact, earned a Silver Star in one of those battles, 73 Easting and a number of other individual cases.

00:43:07:00 - 00:43:35:16

David Petraeus

But by and large, again, the big idea there was just have so much force and then even more and then set the conditions for, again, 39 days and and then just demolish them, you know. Yes, it was a left hook, but we also just walked right through them, as you know. And and they were a force that was dramatically depleted by the time that we closed with and destroyed that particular enemy.

00:43:36:03 - 00:43:39:20

Sam Cook

Little little bit of controversy at the end as to if we could have destroyed.

00:43:39:20 - 00:43:52:11

David Petraeus

Yeah, there are some hard to know. There are questions that will haunt that, you know, and those, you know, should it have been continued further or should it have, you know? And then there are some questions about why did we allow them to have the helicopters. Here is a bunch of issues.

00:43:52:11 - 00:43:54:03

Sam Cook

And again, I remember the Kurds. I had a.

00:43:54:03 - 00:43:58:14

David Petraeus

Pretty good vantage point for that. As you know, again, the aide to a member of the Joint Chiefs.

00:43:59:03 - 00:44:00:03

Sam Cook

But but because.

00:44:00:03 - 00:44:01:05

David Petraeus

It was a bunch of times.

00:44:01:06 - 00:44:07:05

Sam Cook

Because Saddam remained in power, there was a a long term. No fly zone.

00:44:07:06 - 00:44:25:12

David Petraeus

A lot of then you have the southern no fly zones and or the no fly zone. The sort of the frustration with all of that as well, which which is another contributing factor to the ultimate decision, of course, to invade Iraq, obviously, based on a flawed intelligence assessment as well, about the possession of weapons of mass destruction, but.

00:44:26:04 - 00:44:36:01

Sam Cook

And they continued basing American forces there because of that threat leading to al Qaeda. Sure. So that brings us to, you know, the conclusion of the Iraq war. If we're if we're even there.

00:44:36:01 - 00:45:08:00

David Petraeus

Yeah, well, of course, again, there's various phases of the Iraq war. And then, you know, the interesting thing here and the reason we decided to do this in the first is that I was there as a two star, then as a three star. And even when I was back in the States during the three star tours at the headquarters at Fort Leavenworth, still completely focused on Iraq and Afghanistan to get the big ideas right, get the doctrine right, and to communicate that effectively all the leader development courses do.

00:45:08:00 - 00:45:08:18

Sam Cook

Counterintelligence.

00:45:08:19 - 00:45:26:19

David Petraeus

Mission, noncommissioned and ward officers. And we oversaw, you know, had six different hats at Fort Leavenworth and in each one of those, you could pull a different lever of what was called the engine of change for army. And the chief of staff of the Army said, shake up the army. Dave When I asked him for guidance, I said, okay, I can do that if you have my back.

00:45:27:05 - 00:45:54:15

David Petraeus

So we produce a field manual a less than a year together with Jim Mattis, we made it Army and Marine. Four old ground forces again overhaul all the leader development courses, overhaul every aspect of the road to deployment. The preparation of our forces, the the exercise at fort out in the Nevada desert, in particular Fort Irwin, which had already been begun transformation but continued it to make it as realistic as we could about.

00:45:54:15 - 00:46:33:20

David Petraeus

What you're going to see in Iraq or Afghanistan, rather than, you know, big force on force, which was the big dominant theme of those exercises prior to that, in prior to the original deployment, of course, as well, where there were some force on force to be sure, and then various other aspects of the material requirements of this organizational design, all of these different pieces, even the pre command courses that we would put the exercise for the headquarters, which we also control the battle command training program for the Division Corps headquarters, because of course, you could only could put about a brigade out at Fort Irwin.

00:46:33:20 - 00:46:43:07

David Petraeus

We overhauled those as well and started it all with a counterinsurgency seminar instead of a military operations in urban terrain, which is still what it was when I took command.

00:46:43:07 - 00:46:44:05

Sam Cook

I learned at.

00:46:44:15 - 00:47:17:22

David Petraeus

The combined arms center in I think it was September or October of 2005 even there were you know, we were thinking about this and preparing, frankly, to go back and then a recognition, you know, increasing Lee over the course of 2006 that is not working. And then President Bush steps in and replaces his secretary of defense, the commander on the ground, the ambassador, Central Command commander, and.

00:47:17:22 - 00:47:20:10

Sam Cook

Took him about almost three years to and he.

00:47:20:10 - 00:47:42:03

David Petraeus

Then takes over the Washington piece of the war in a way that he had not before. It largely had been allowing Secretary Rumsfeld, secretary of defense, to do that. So he becomes this extraordinary strategic leader in Washington. Nothing was before, but now he's he's once a week running a National Security Council meeting at 730 on a monday morning.

00:47:42:06 - 00:47:54:11

David Petraeus

I mean, how do you show what's important there? More than started meeting at 730 at all in Washington, but on a monday morning with the whole national security team around the table and the ambassador and me and the other end of the.

00:47:54:12 - 00:47:56:03

Sam Cook

Base for a long. We knew of all of this.

00:47:56:19 - 00:48:19:23

David Petraeus

Well, we did. I mean, this is. Well, we were you work out all the time. So from Washington, I would send a memo back on a Sunday afternoon from Baghdad, by the way, to the secretary, the chairman and the CENTCOM commander with a weekly update. And I knew that weekly update was being fed around and would end up across the Potomac in the White House as well, and be highlighted for some of the participants at that table.

00:48:20:24 - 00:48:44:15

David Petraeus

So again, that was one of the ways we communicated our big ideas. But but so he takes it over. And and then you have, I think, a real case of strategic leadership, because the big ideas are not working. The idea of transitioning tasks to Iraqi security forces in withdrawing from the neighborhoods to big bases and then driving around a couple of times a day.

00:48:45:02 - 00:49:09:03

David Petraeus

Clearly, the security situation, you know, it was a full it was a a Sunni-Shia civil war. Yeah, you can talk about what stage it was, but it was a full on Sunni-Shia civil war in Baghdad and various other places. When you have 53 dead bodies every 24 hours, women of civilians due to violence, non-natural causes, not in the military, not the police, not criminals, although that's out of control.

00:49:09:03 - 00:49:33:07

David Petraeus

And so task one of the strategic leader, big ideas, right? There are 180 degrees different from what we were doing before. We're going back into the neighborhoods. We're going to take back the control of security from the Iraqi security forces who we then have to reconstitute. That's another whole the big idea about how do we get them back up to up to strength and effectiveness and all the rest of that.

00:49:33:07 - 00:50:06:18

David Petraeus

We are going to pursue reconciliation for the first time in a large scale. There was there were small cases of it before we did it up in Mosul when I was the commander in the very beginning, when they had de-Ba'athification, there is another instance actually, General McMaster did some the Marines did some in the West. And then right before the surge, there was a very good case out of Ramadi that we built on, you know, went out, saw the Colonel McFarland, who was the brigade commander, who had initiated that.

00:50:07:08 - 00:50:27:16

David Petraeus

And and I knew we needed do reconciliation because the big idea was you can't kill or capture your way out of an industrial strength insurgency. Yeah, you have to reconcile with as many of the rank and file as you can. But then there's a corollary, and that was the third big idea, which is to intensify, pursue even more relentlessly the fear reconcilable leaders.

00:50:27:18 - 00:50:28:22

Sam Cook

Yeah, separate them and this.

00:50:29:01 - 00:50:39:22

David Petraeus

Our special mission units every single night 12 to 15 targeted operations taking the top as we're trying to get as many of the bottom two come over to our side.

00:50:39:22 - 00:50:41:12

Sam Cook

We started paying and I mean, it was.

00:50:41:12 - 00:50:59:14

David Petraeus

Well, it wasn't we didn't actually and that's actually one of the mythology, the myths of this particular war. We didn't have the authority to pay them. I mean, we started this immediately. I started it. I embraced it. It was already going on. Colonel McFarland had it going on. He then handed off to his successor. Did the battle of Ramadi and so forth.

00:51:00:06 - 00:51:16:18

David Petraeus

But we didn't have the legal authority yet to pay them until about June. And my general counsel finally got the authority to treat sheikhs as contractors and then to have their their, you know, men, their tribal members perform security fix like security duties for which we could pay the contractor.

00:51:16:18 - 00:51:18:04

Sam Cook

Less, say to invest money wherever.

00:51:18:09 - 00:51:46:23

David Petraeus

It was. But it took us. So initially they turned to support us for two reasons. In a lot of cases, they were frustrated with al Qaeda, was blowing up their villages and doing horrible things and and practices that were reprehensible and abhorrent to them. But also, you had a realization that if they stay with the bad guys, we're going to come after them.

00:51:47:00 - 00:52:18:24

David Petraeus

Yeah. So, you know, you have a choice. Yeah. Come with us and then eventually come with Iraq, which was the other that then you had to transition to Iraq, taking over, if you will, the various programs that we established. But eventually I mean this is huge was 103,000 combatants, 80,000 Sunni insurgents, 23,000 Shia militia members that we stripped out from underneath their leaders even as we went after first the Sunni extremist Al Qaida and insurgent leaders.

00:52:19:06 - 00:52:46:11

David Petraeus

And then over time to the Shia leaders in very intensely with the Shia uprising that March in April of 2008, March Madness, then in the battle of Basra in Sadr City and all these others. So, again, big ideas. Huge, huge. Again, change management is no bigger than 180 degrees. And what we did was completely reverse what we've been doing over the objections of the Prime Minister, I might add.

00:52:46:18 - 00:53:06:07

David Petraeus

The Iraqi Prime Minister did not support what we intended to do. I was confronted by his national security adviser and basically politely said to the Prime Minister wanted to do what he wanted to do if he chose to do that, that I'd be on the next plane to Baghdad or next I'd be on the next plane to Washington.

00:53:06:17 - 00:53:22:03

David Petraeus

And I intended to take the policy with me. No sleepless night as I wait and to see how you respond to that and never heard anything him again. And we went out and did what we needed to do. So you get the big ideas right. We communicated in all kinds of different ways, everything from change the mission statement very quickly to change the base.

00:53:22:04 - 00:53:22:11

David Petraeus

I was a.

00:53:22:11 - 00:53:33:05

Sam Cook

Commander and I remember the first tour, how despondent I was with the the big idea was where all the focus was killing our way out of this. Yes. Never is going to work. The second tour I'd read that you.

00:53:33:05 - 00:53:37:14

David Petraeus

Had new kill it without question. We dropped more bombs too during that time. But yeah.

00:53:37:23 - 00:53:43:09

Sam Cook

In the second second tour I we got your memos and we all read them and, and it was clear at the lowest level a brief.

00:53:43:14 - 00:53:59:07

David Petraeus

We tried to do that again. I personally developed counterinsurgency guidance, as you'll recall, and I'd hit the send key about every month and a half or so with the latest version. And, you know, I'd find a new quote that would capture some remember is a series of admonitions. Yeah secure and serve the people and they really explain that you can only do that by living with the people.

00:53:59:07 - 00:54:20:05

David Petraeus

So we're going back downtown, 77 additional locations just in the Baghdad area alone. Promote reconciliation, explain what that is, and pursue the irreconcilables even more relentlessly more integration of civil and military. The ambassador and I and you know, we built on the campaign plan predecessors had done where they both signed it and but made it even more so.

00:54:20:05 - 00:54:51:07

David Petraeus

Of course with the new big ideas promote initiative as a small unit or as you knew and that one said In the absence of warriors, figure out what they should have been and execute aggressively. So again, it was but but again, also the major up operations plan. The annex is all of the you know, then the details of all of these different huge efforts to rebuild the Iraqi Ministry of Defense and all of its military forces and institutions and depots and bases and forts and all the rest of that.

00:54:51:07 - 00:55:17:16

David Petraeus

Sam Cook with the Ministry of Interior. Ultimately, nearly a million security forces in those two ministries. If you're very all encompassing with your accounting rules. And then so that's to the communication, of course, and the overseas side of the implementation. As I described, we had a very rigorous battle, rhythm and metrics that I brought a Ph.D., Rhodes Scholar from the Air Force Academy out on the right.

00:55:17:16 - 00:55:18:08

Sam Cook

The right military.

00:55:18:08 - 00:55:37:11

David Petraeus

Ratcheted these down. Yeah, it was it wasn't body count. I mean, we did keep track, but we didn't that was not a big didn't become the be all and end all that it was in Vietnam where there was a sense that you could win a war of attrition. Remember, the big idea in Vietnam was that we can kill men, that we can kill more of them than they can provide.

00:55:37:11 - 00:55:40:22

Sam Cook

Even if it was 10 to 1, which it may have been, it didn't matter exactly.

00:55:40:23 - 00:56:19:23

David Petraeus

I mean, that that one in in Washington was pretty substantial. And again, there were there was hundreds in a week. So, again, it was unsustainable and it was the wrong big idea, you know. So in Iraq, again, during the surge, I like to think we had great but believe we had the right big ideas. And then the metrics show because you drive violence down by the early 90% is sort of indisputable would ratcheted these numbers we stood by them presented them to Congress and then a host of other you know, we didn't get all of the achievements certainly that we would have liked to have had certain political aspects which ultimately would undermine three and

00:56:19:23 - 00:56:30:21

David Petraeus

a half years later, when the Prime Minister took some very highly sectarian actions that undid what we'd worked so hard to achieve, but it did endure for a good three and a half years or so.

00:56:30:23 - 00:56:48:11

Sam Cook

Well, and also when when Iraq struggled with the ISIS bursting out of Syria and to to the credit of the Iraqi government and the security forces with the very small re injection of forces, we managed to get that.

00:56:48:11 - 00:57:18:01

David Petraeus

You know, 5500 U.S. forces to enable them. And there was enough institutional there was there were enough aspects of their institutional elements, forces and infrastructure in chain, all the equipment, everything else that despite poor performance, the initial invasion, they could regroup, they could with us providing basically advice, assistance and enabling not fighting on the front lines, although certainly we did in a number of counterterrorism operations.

00:57:18:17 - 00:57:45:18

David Petraeus

But so, yes, that that did endure in that respect as tragic to see that happen in arguably I, I wish we'd kept forces on the ground, frankly, instead of pulling all our combat forces, we did have trainers still in there in a three. But if we'd had the base structure, we could have reinserted that much more rapidly. But to be fair, this wasn't this is not something that you and the that decision you can lay at the feet of the administration.

00:57:45:18 - 00:58:03:02

David Petraeus

But it was the prime minister who undid it was his action that really undid the situation in Iraq, not the withdrawal of the forces, even though it would have been nice to have kept them there. And then, of course, a decision was made to reintroduce them. The problem was that the Prime Minister and his forces took their eye off ISIS.

00:58:03:14 - 00:58:22:19

David Petraeus

They were allowed to reconstitute, drift into Syria, gain a lot of additional force, and then came back in and established the caliphate, but then took a couple of years and terrible loss of life and damage to eliminate. But eventually that did. And of course, to be fair to the reader, they should know we sort of stop history. Yeah.

00:58:23:10 - 00:58:32:07

David Petraeus

With the end, really. The end of the three and a half years after the surge, we know what happens, but we don't go into that. A great pitlane.

00:58:33:01 - 00:58:42:19

Sam Cook

And finally, Afghanistan, which you you know, this is a tale of two wars, Korea, Vietnam. Yeah, I'm an Iraq and Afghanistan. What what was different about Afghanistan?

00:58:43:06 - 00:59:00:22

David Petraeus

It's a great question, because I laid that out for Secretary Rumsfeld one time. So when I was at the end of the three star tour in Iraq, which was a 15 their first tour, you know, the division commander was a we're about a 12 month tour there. Then we had a 15 month tour. Then eventually the surge was 19 and a half or more.

00:59:00:22 - 00:59:28:05

David Petraeus

And then there are some other visits and other assessment. I did an assessment actually as a two star before going back to the three star, but and then Central Command, but in Afghanistan, on the way home from the three star tour Iraq sector, Rumsfeld asked that, I come home through Afghanistan and to do an assessment and to focus on the security force assistance program again to train and equip that the men sticky of.

00:59:28:05 - 00:59:28:19

Sam Cook

So I was into.

00:59:28:21 - 00:59:49:17

David Petraeus

That and this is in September 2005. The mood in Afghanistan seemed to be going well, you know, the violence level is way below that in Afghanistan. And I drove around Baghdad with, you know, a fellow is driving himself in a thin skinned vehicle, is much more relaxed. But you can sense that there's something happening. And I did sense that.

00:59:49:17 - 01:00:12:07

David Petraeus

And then but I looked in particular the security program. But then I had to look at the context in which this was playing out. So when I came back and briefed him, the first slide of that briefing was titled Afghanistan does not equal Iraq. You know, I laid out all the compare and contrast. And what I realized was Afghanistan is vastly more difficult than Iraq.

01:00:12:07 - 01:00:39:21

David Petraeus

And I laid out why I felt that was the case, even though, again, the level of violence was much, much less than Iraq at that time and the level of problems seemed much, much less. You had this charismatic Karzai, and it seemed to be going reasonably well. But I realized that the sanctuaries that the Taliban and Haqqani and IMU and others had in Pakistan, in Pakistan wasn't doing anything and would never do anything adequately.

01:00:39:21 - 01:01:12:17

David Petraeus

The lack of money, you know, no real economy there. The in fact, the major export crop is illegal. It's that poppy and opium and so forth. And you know, it's hard to have rule of law if your major export crop is illegal. Lack of infrastructure compared to Iraq. All these are compared to Iraq, lack of literacy, lack of any history of strong central government, just many feature after feature, real terrain, real mountains, real deserts, rugged weather and so forth.

01:01:12:17 - 01:01:35:22

David Petraeus

Again, all of this in contrast to Iraq, much more difficult, even though Iraq seemed to be and was the main effort because it was not going well. And I came back and I said, I fear that Afghanistan is going to be the longest of the long wars. Then I looked at the security assistance and we had some there were some real mistakes being made there.

01:01:35:22 - 01:01:55:23

David Petraeus

The focus of the metrics was on the number of trained, not the number of actually in the ranks. It turned out where our mission was training fewer than we were losing. Yeah, so we're actually going downhill. Yeah. The police training was all contractor driven. Six weeks. They never shot a weapon. Yeah, they marched for 2 hours a day.

01:01:56:10 - 01:02:25:23

David Petraeus

An hour in the morning hour. They said it was physical training. They said, you know, we're not trying to produce the old guard here. Yeah. Or ceremonial unit. These are police that are going to go out and engage in the counterinsurgency campaign. So again, there's a whole bunch of issues like that that jumped off the page. And so I had a team with me that had been involved in this stuff in Iraq beyond that, it was sort of clear to me we didn't quite have the inputs right, shall we say, and just to jump a little further forward.

01:02:25:23 - 01:02:57:10

David Petraeus

So in a way, of course, then I go to Leavenworth in the surge in Iraq, then Central Command then refocused on Afghanistan pretty intently, because we go through the whole period, General McChrystal takes over the Afghan assessment review led by the president, the additional forces, General McChrystal starting to get things saying the right gets it all on the right trajectory, but then in the right to take over command from him after he's been there about a year.

01:02:58:10 - 01:03:18:17

David Petraeus

And we still didn't actually have the inputs. Right, because we didn't have all the forces on the ground yet. He'd gotten most of the big ideas, right. He'd gotten the organizational. So what I talk about and inputs so think this is nine years into the or late 2010 we finally get the inputs right in Afghanistan because it's always been the supporting effort.

01:03:18:17 - 01:03:42:14

David Petraeus

And by the inputs I'm talking about the right big ideas first and foremost, but then almost the right level of resources military, civilian, diplomats, spies, development workers, rule of law, you name it, the right organization architecture. For the first time. You know, we it was a it was a much more complex structure because you had a line that went to naito come ISAF.

01:03:43:02 - 01:04:04:02

David Petraeus

You also had a line that went to CENTCOM, U.S. forces. They were there were differences and or a special elements that were under U.S., not under NAITO. You had to get this crafted right and then get it all coordinated. He had to have the right preparation of the forces. He had every material, as you would call them. Some of the material that was good in Iraq, wasn't good in Afghanistan.

01:04:04:02 - 01:04:28:18

David Petraeus

The mine resistant armor protected vehicles that were fine on the roads in Iraq were too large and not sufficiently stable, if you will. So we had an MRAP, all terrain vehicle version. So again, a lot of other adaptations, and then we didn't have any infrastructure there. So as you bring in new forces, you have to create build new infrastructure from scratch to accommodate them.

01:04:28:18 - 01:05:03:11

David Petraeus

Then you have to do it for their Afghan counterpart. So again, the effort just to get the inputs right was enormous. And again, we didn't get that right until again in late 2010. And then, unfortunately, we really only kept them right for about six or seven months because there was a determination made and a Nell's during the speech at West Point, which I attended as a Central Command commander that announced the buildup of forces, also announced that we would begin drawing down in the summer of 2011.

01:05:03:11 - 01:05:29:02

David Petraeus

So again, you have another, you know, series, if you will, of examinations of strategic leadership. How we do did we have the big ideas, right? Did we have all these other elements? And, you know, again, I argue that we didn't have the inputs over, all right, for nine years of that war and then then we never really had commitment within an administration.

01:05:29:16 - 01:05:49:09

David Petraeus

Have you think about it, per we invade in late 2001 in the wake of 911, and to eliminate the Al Qaida sanctuary in Afghanistan in which the attacks were planned. But then very quickly shift to a focus on Iraq, the invasion of Iraq, and then, as Admiral Mullen used to say when he was chairman of the Joint Chiefs in Iraq, we do what we must in Afghanistan.

01:05:49:24 - 01:06:31:04

David Petraeus

We do what we can. Yeah. So you you then move along. And by the time we do get it right. So that administration does refocus at the end of its time on Afghanistan. But again, only after the surge has succeeded and make some changes that new administration makes significant changes in the first four years first term but then is is determined to draw down you know so there's an inconsistent and then the next administration and Trump is in hard for two years and then of course does the Sam Cook thing.

01:06:31:04 - 01:06:56:09

David Petraeus

And actually the negotiation, the agreement that I think is one of the worst diplomatic agreements in our history. Yeah. Where we give the enemy what they want, get virtually nothing for it, enforce our own partners, the Afghan government. That's not at the table to really release 5500 or so Taliban detainees that go right back to fighting and help take down the country.

01:06:56:09 - 01:07:38:22

David Petraeus

Of course, when we finally do leave the argument that, you know, they didn't kill us doesn't hold that well because we weren't on the front lines. Yeah. So again, you see this in consistency, the lack of strategic commitment, not just from administration to administration, but within administrations. And you may recall at the one year mark, I wrote a piece in The Atlantic that laid out essentially our shortcomings over the course of the 20 years in Afghanistan and including some very significant design failures, if you will, when it comes to that.

01:07:39:23 - 01:07:57:12

David Petraeus

The only idea for the Afghan security forces that was possible was that you had to have a number of them out in the villages protecting population centers and critical infrastructure lines of communication. And then you have a central reserve that's very high quality. These are okay.

01:08:00:05 - 01:08:22:01

David Petraeus

The real fighters are the 35,000 commandos that you can then ferry out there on. We force Blackhawk helicopters on them, which they couldn't maintain. I was at I advocated for a contingent purchase of Russian helicopters, which is still what we were doing when I was there, because they could maintain they were analog, they were basic, they couldn't work in, high altitude was over.

01:08:22:20 - 01:08:26:02

Sam Cook

So the war. No.

01:08:26:19 - 01:08:56:22

David Petraeus

Let me finish that. But then the Achilles heel, then of the entire defense concept becomes the operational readiness of the U.S., provided helicopters, the US provided C-130 transport aircraft, which also take troops out the bases, and then the U.S. provided close air support. And when the operational readiness declined, when we pulled out not just our remaining troops on the ground, the 3500 or so that were in advise assisted enable missions.

01:08:56:22 - 01:08:59:10

David Petraeus

But the 17,000 Western contractors.

01:08:59:18 - 01:08:59:22

Sam Cook

For.

01:09:00:15 - 01:09:31:11

David Petraeus

The defense concept was it took us, you know, a shot below the waterline, metaphorically speaking. And it was a matter of time before the troops realized that there's nobody coming to the rescue with, again, reinforcements, emergency resupply, aerial medevac in, close air support. And then at that point in time, I think it was predictable. And I did actually say on Fox News some weeks prior that I feared a psychological collapse of the Afghan security forces.

01:09:31:11 - 01:09:59:01

David Petraeus

And that's exactly what happened. And of course, it was exacerbated because you had very flawed strategic leadership by the Afghan president. And then also who, you know, he talked about an example. He leaves. So and again, that's why it's interesting to compare and contrast the leadership by our partners in Afghanistan with the strategic leadership of our partners here in Ukraine.

01:09:59:02 - 01:10:23:14

Sam Cook

It's a it's the best and the worst in on full display. Well, sir, the the high, you know, surfing the high waves of American history here is is just I can assure you, from having read the book, All the wars, you go into just a taste of really the breadth and depth that you go into. So I wanted to thank you for that.

01:10:23:14 - 01:10:46:23

Sam Cook

And then on Ukraine, you covered it a little bit at the beginning, and I'm going to save the next part on Ukraine for a second. Have to of this because of you. So, you know, we're sitting here in Kiev. You're on one of your visits here and you've agreed to join us for a golf tournament to raise money for the borderlands for.

01:10:47:00 - 01:10:49:20

David Petraeus

Worthy cause in the United States. That will be not in Ukraine.

01:10:49:20 - 01:11:15:00

Sam Cook

Yeah, no, that that's going to be in Miami, Florida, ten January 20, 24. And it would it be an amazing event for, you know, bringing over a bunch of Ukraine veterans, some of whom you've already met, to meet American political leaders and business leaders that we we will bring to the event. So if you're watching this and you'd like to see part two of this, an in-depth hour long discussion in the Sam Cook format on stage at the awards gala.

01:11:16:05 - 01:11:33:23

Sam Cook

You can sign up for that event, see it in person, get a signed copy of the generals book, which he's going to sign for everyone who will attend. So if you can't come but you still want to sign, copy the book. The general is also agreeing to the signs. If you buy it only from us right below this video.

01:11:33:23 - 01:11:34:14

David Petraeus

Anything to help.

01:11:34:14 - 01:11:36:04

Sam Cook

You? Yeah, well, anything that's going.

01:11:36:04 - 01:11:37:17

David Petraeus

To communicate the big ideas here.

01:11:37:18 - 01:11:38:08

Sam Cook

Yeah, exactly.

01:11:38:08 - 01:11:40:07

David Petraeus

The marketing is part of communication.

01:11:40:09 - 01:12:02:13

Sam Cook

Well, the foundation is is proud to have you as the first participant on our podcast where we interview the history, the history makers in Ukraine and the historians, the people like you are writing. And sir, you're also making history here because you're the only retired general I've seen who's about this is actually showing up on the ground in public.

01:12:02:22 - 01:12:05:17

David Petraeus

And sort of helps to see at least so yeah. For yourself.

01:12:05:17 - 01:12:21:00

Sam Cook

Well you're you're leading by example and I've seen you in many, many forums here with senior leaders. And I'll tell you that your presence here inspires the Ukrainian and the help I know you're providing behind the scenes IS is going to make a difference and already has.

01:12:21:15 - 01:12:22:20

David Petraeus

It's a privilege to do it.

01:12:23:01 - 01:12:28:08

Sam Cook

All right. Well, sir, thank you. Looking forward to the next one, Miami, Florida, and I hope to see you there. Thanks so.