regrets. and then i think the final question i would ask perhaps would be, were you happy you that question of many of the people you interviewed. the verdict. well, a few said yes, she was happy. joy bahar, the co-host on the view, said happy ish. there's no question she she was very proud of what she did and she was proud of the money she made and the achievements she had. but almost everyone else i talked to said, no, she was never content. she was not happy. susan page. thank you. thank you. in.

we are here tonight to. discuss the book by general david petraeus and lord roberts of belgravia and this book, as you also have seen, called conflict evolution of warfare from 1945 to ukraine. before i introduce the authors, please note that this is being recorded by the lovely people at c-span. thank you very much for for coming and will be available to view in the coming weeks. and lastly we'll spend about 40 minutes in conversation. and then the last 20 minutes will have a q&a. and i'm glad you all attended when you couldn't had your book signed, because unfortunately the authors do have an engagement immediately after this. so they unfortunately won't be able to be around afterwards. so allow me to introduce the authors, general david petraeus is a retired u.s. army general, having served in the army for 37 years. he graduated distinction from the u.s. military academy, earned a ph.d. from princeton. he ended his career with five consecutive of commands as general officer, including command of the surge in iraq and

the u.s. central command. and he then served the director of the cia, and he is currently a partner of kkr and chairs its global institute. and lord roberts of belgravia, also known as andrew roberts for year for the name on the book, is a biographer, a historian whose books include bestsellers about winston napoleon and george the third. certainly people that you know, you can think of. i don't him doing something you know something as small as like martin van buren or something like that any time soon. he's he's a fellow no fence smarter than his in his and his ancestors. he's a fellow of the royal society of literature and the royal historical society. and but most importantly, he is a member, a proud member, if i can say, of the international churchill society's board of directors. gentlemen, thank you very much for your time and for being here this evening to with you. thank you so. andrew, i'll begin with you.

pretty softball question. how did this book come about? and could i just my reply to that by saying how it is to be back at the national churchill leadership center. you are a great director. the icc is a fantastic institution. please do join it. ladies and gentlemen, it's it's it's wonderful to be on the board of it as well. i i love the icc and. to answer your question, i got on to david shortly after the invasion of ukraine and said that i thought that there was there'd be interest in a book that place the russian in the ruso ukrainian war in military history context opposed to just its geopolitical political context and david jumped at the chance and went to harpercollins, the publishers. they of course, how we were going to divvy up the chapters

and i said, well, david's going to write about all the countries he's invaded. and so and i and he also wrote the vietnam chapter, the crucial vietnam chapter, and that i was going to fill in the rest and what we did was to once we'd written our chapters, we them backwards and forwards to each other in quite literally thousands of emails in order to create the finished product. you've said many of you have them very kindly bought today. i should just note that andrew and i have done number of events together over the years we don't remember when we first met at long had admiration his work like many of you who brought some of his earlier books. napoleon george the third. what is he the most missed under misunderstood king of yeah, the last king of america came america. and so the first i think, was we did five events just on the churchill book. we had so much fun with the

first one. i do a lot of events in, new york historical society in 92nd street, y, both of which we've done for this book together. and we had so much fun with the very first one that we decided, let's do another. and it was churchill in the military, of course it was churchill and in intelligence and it was churchill in the royal family. finally it was churchill in buddies, which was the most delightful of all, you know, about how the club that he started himself. the other club think it was called his but as you can see andrew's obviously just a prodigious historian biographer. he's also really a delightful, quintessential brit. i want to note as well that he was not baron of belgravia when i signed on with him. i was i was not a royal groupie or. no, no groupie or something like this. this came along, i think, really, he had signed me up to be i, i will know that he has of the more needy constituencies in

in the house of lords. belgrave as many of you will know, known for his beautiful white townhouses, only problem is that about a third of the lights don't come on anymore at night because the owners are all stuck in moscow. since invaded. and while i'm this role, let me also say what you're going to be back here at the at the national churchill leadership, having actually done the very first event here, which we verified because the blacker the posters the wall from that particular event and what a pleasure has been to be involved here over the years. and then also, of course, at the fulton, missouri, that spectacular museum as well. well, general petraeus, you know you are you were, if you will a a practitioner of what's discussed, it was written in this book and now you're the examiner. what is the main takeaway from for you from this book.

so, first of all, i should just note that the reason i jumped at this beyond the joy of actually working with andrew and by the way, this is his 20th book, but the only one in which he's ever had a coauthor, i feel quite oh, that's a great honor out of that. i will do it again one day. now. yes. well, especially that is a new york times bestseller. it's the usa today bestseller. soon will be. yes, i is. but the you know, i was looking for a place to write about iraq and afghanistan, frankly, obviously commanded both of those at the height the war. and when it came to iraq, i mean, to star, a three star, four star central four star, and then eventually cia. that was the entire period of our major involvement there up to late 2011, when we withdrew our combat forces. but i didn't want to do a tell all. i mean, it actually had these magnificent offers, advances for some kind of that. and i just didn't want to go down that road. but i wanted to cover it as

objectively possible in history. for what it's worth, you will see that when we sent it in and of course, the book was done in the traditional third person, as any history should be. and the editor very said when he read the iraq and afghanistan chapters, this just doesn't work. you know, you can't write in third person and then general petraeus to see prime minister maliki and raised the following objections. you said, put a little last on the top of the of the chapter saying that you did it you wrote that chapter obviously it was a lot of back and forth with all of them into it in the first person. and that was a good call the big takeaway actually seriously big and it jumped out at us as we went through these chapters. so that we went back and redid the introduction, bring out even more clearly the critical component of success, generally strategic leadership. this is leadership at the very top. it's the civilian, the very top.

it's the maggie thatcher, george h.w. bush, who says the falklands or saddam's of kuwait, this will not stand know. that seems easy. looking back hindsight, it wasn't that easy, especially wasn't easy when it came to the falklands. that was a much closer run affair. and then no, it becomes the military commander who's going to translate this into reality on the battlefield sometimes are multiple hands in that if you think of say general is the chairman of the joint chiefs and general schwarzkopf as the commander of u.s. central command for the desert shield in desert storm, the first gulf war, i actually had an explicit intellectual construct, strategic leadership that i developed between the three and four star tours in iraq, the same time when we did the counterinsurgency field manual overhaul and all of our professional development for commissioned noncommissioned officers in it holds it. there are 40 tasks of a strategic leader.

and as i did them and then even in the private it is this is absolutely applicable there as it is in uniform you have to get the big ideas right you have to really understand the context, the strengths and weaknesses. your forces, the enemy forces, all your coalition members, the physical terrain, the human terrain, all the other of the battlefield in which you're going to carry out a military. and you got to get that right. we have a quote from clausewitz about this. the the most important task of a military commander is you must understand the nature of the conflict as we recount, we didn't always understand that vietnam. it took us a very long time to recognize that we had taken a small war and tried to turn it into a big war instead of focusing on the villages and the hamlets as the south vietnamese asked us to help them do in the beginning. but we were imbued with the lessons of korea and we said, no, you need divisions they're

going to invade you across the demilitarized zone. not a good big. you got to get the big ideas. you have to communicate them through the breadth and depth of the organization. if it's a military command. but really it is anybody has a stake in the outcome of that conflict. and we can talk about this, for example, in case of israel. right now. and what do we think the big ideas, what additional big ideas should be? because there's an awful lot people that are watching that they have a stake in the outcome. then you have to do what we normally think of leadership. you have to oversee the implementation, the big ideas. this is how the example you provide the energy, the inspiration is attracting great, retaining them, developing them. it's those not measuring up to move on to something. it's the metrics on which you focus and they've got to be rigorous and honest. the body count in vietnam was neither they have to be the right numbers that tell you whether really making progress or whether you're winning,

losing and then crucially, how the leader spends his or her time. we call it a battle rhythm. when i in iraq and afghanistan, basically the detailed schedule that has the recurring events, those that you do every single day of the week, those you do a few times a week, twice a week, a week, every other week, monthly, quarterly and. then you rigorously perform those conduct those meetings. that's how you drive a campaign. in our case it included at least twice a week, right? the the morning update and the meetings. we would go immediately join a unit somewhere in baghdad or helicopter or further out or a fixed wing plane or for as far south or north, because you have to get a feel for it yourself. you need to understand what it is your soldiers are doing. they need to see you on your body armor and kevlar and so forth. as and then there's a fourth task that's often overlooked. that's where you have to formally sit down events on your

battle rhythm that force to do this to determine how you need to refine the big ideas and do it again and again and again for what it's worth. if you really want to get into a great deal of detail on this, it was a team of former officers of mine at harvard, at the kennedy school when i was i was a fellow there at the belfer center for six years, nonresident. and they wanted to help distill and we did. so there's a website belfer center that org if you search for and strategic leadership with a lot more not only about these tasks but actually ideas on how perform them the sort of tactics techniques procedures but the big takeaway is you have got to get the big ideas right because? if you don't do that, i don't care how. great a communicator you are. how marvelous. splendid an example. it doesn't matter because you're building on a shaky intellectual foundation. we recount a number of cases in which the big ideas were serious flawed and then a number of others. the big ideas were actually quite powerful.

let me just end by giving an example. one that was was seriously flawed. the french in indochina very frustrated they bring the communists battle. they were very elusive guerrilla fighters insurgents and so forth. so they decided you know what we'll do? we'll make a big base it way out there somewhere. so it would be really to them, why don't we pick place gambian food sort of surrounded by these hills and mountains and so forth and that will be a magnetic attraction for them. they'll come to battle. oh, by the way, let's have some outposts beyond it. and by the way, of course, since it's a french command, will name them for five mistresses of the french commander, you know, how did the indians work out? they came to battle. all right. and of course, they they defeated the french who had to surrender in the end and went into captivity for a period until there was a peace agreement, which resolved both it. that's where you got north and

south vietnam, the partition of that country. and demilitarized zone. but again, if you don't get the big ideas right, all the rest of that stuff doesn't much matter. andrew if i can ask you from a historian's point, you know, you've you've research commanders, you've researched king's prime ministers and emperors but if we can bring the into the present day, of course the one conflict that your book doesn't cover is a recent conflict in in israel, gaza. from a historians point of view, what lessons would you draw from the way you analyzed all types of these conflicts in your book? what lessons can you take away so immediately, if you can, this conflict? well, you know, david and i discussed that question just the other day because we couldn't see in our book any historical parallel and for the field

difficult job that has to face the moment. yes, you can look. at the yom kippur war, which to an extent for a few days at least in that october of 1973, did look as though it might become existential for his world, but otherwise there history is not providing huge numbers of precedents for this kind of operation. obviously, there are a there are operations built up areas, and even in large cities, mosul and fallujah, i'm sure. david will will talk about those in a moment that even in terms of size, don't equate to gaza city and and the ferocity of and the horror unleashed by hamas is something also we found it very difficult to find any precedent for as well. we are in i think the world at the moment is in pretty

uncharted waters, frankly. and although i naturally as a historian believe that there's historical parallels, the sheer horror of what was unleashed on on the 7th of october, i think you have to go back a far earlier, you have to essentially go back to the medieval times, even the dark ages, to see to see such a delight in in the sadism of the of the hamas attack and to put this in context, we lost nearly 3000 innocent civilians. the 911 attacks, several different locations. the israelis lost 1400. if you put that in american terms. so given how much larger our population is, that would be over 50,000 americans to put in perspective relative to the 9.3 million in israel, in the 212 hostages, that's over 7000. think about that in our perspective and course, it is

the single worst really since the holocaust. the other war, 67, 73, subsequent wars never approached a loss. this in a single day nor the barbarity is unspeakable nature of what was done. there are some there are elements in book that do provide reminders, illumination. i that are worth revisiting i experience of them personally. you know the fight to baghdad i remember down in kuwait i was a two star general then commanding the 301st airborne division and i actually did ask, you know, can you give us a little more detail on what happens after we get to baghdad and topple the regime and? there was two retired three stars were running the organization for reconstruction, humanitarian assistance, essentially. you just get us to baghdad we'll take it from there. obviously, planning for that was nowhere near adequate. and then unfortunately the whole plan itself sort of founded on

assumptions that we could watch being invalidated that's partly why i you know, uttered that phrase. and i would hear again and again and again from congressional committees tell me how this ends, forgetting that rick atkinson and you know we're just friends but he was on duty. he was it was on the record he was my embedded journalist. so again what is the post-conflict plan? i think there has to be a vision out for that. in this case. i think inevitably is going to be that israel is going to have to oversee gaza because they are in on destroying hamas. the essentially a terrorist army is bigger than just terrorist cells. obviously, it's a very substantial organization. and the islamic jihad, which has several thousand, maybe as many 5000 more, but they're also intent on dismantling the political wing of hamas, and that is what administers gaza. if if that is the objective for

the military. and i think actually is an inescapable objective. think what has happened here shows you that which we've read the founding documents which call for the destruction of israel, the killing of --. they really, truly meanness. they are not a party with whom you negotiate, such as after the 73 war that henry was at a luncheon for us the other day in new york and reminded us all that at once he brokered the cease when, of course, the israelis have been bent on an existential moment counter attack brilliantly, and we're literally on the road. cairo having encircled the egyptian third army, he could make, you know, a few phone calls or visit for capitals. he could visit cairo, he could visit tel aviv, jerusalem could visit amman, jordan. he could go to damascus. and he could actually structure deal. and of course, the deal with

egypt and the durable peace agreement that recognize the right of each other to exist and so forth, so very, very different circumstance is these elements are what we determined the islamic state elements or al qaida in iraq those days were which was irreconcilable well if if the enemy irreconcilable you can't negotiate you can't strip them away and get them to support you. and then the iraqi government, as we did with the rank and file of many of the insurgent groups, they have to be captured or killed. so, again, destruction. but then what? because it israel is going to end up owning it. they should also announce the desire to transition it as quickly is practicable, but only when certain conditions been met. ideally, obviously to a palestine indian element that will have real capability, capacity and can be supported. but keep in mind that whoever it that ends up administering gaza is not just going to be handing out humanitarian assistance and overseeing reconstruction and

restoration of basic services, that entity is also going to have have a hard edge to it with a lot of intelligence, because hamas remnants, islamic jihad remnants will try to come back. iran will provide them funding, equipment and weapons systems. therefore, to try to do that, they're going to have to have a counterinsurgency campaign, not just a peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance campaign and beyond that there certainly are lessons from urban ops. but i very much agree with andrew that there's nothing that we've seen, certainly in recent memory that is fiendishly difficult. this maybe way city in, vietnam or something. but even near the enemy didn't blow himself up to take you with it didn't have 300 miles of of tunnels underneath gaza city, didn't use human shields, civilians and hostages as human. and of course, in this case, the

enemy lives there has had years to learn it, or at year, maybe months at the least, to prepare the defenses. and if they are as creative as the offense was before they carried these barbaric acts, this is going to be a very, very challenging. so then it's you to do it methodically. i've seen ideas people saying you should do commando raids, you should do this, that, you know, can destroy hamas with commando raids. by the way the commando raids themselves will be incredibly dangerous. it's going to turn into the mogadishu mile very quickly. they're going to get in somewhere and they're going to have to fight their way out a little, like going into sadr city when we're going after the top iranian supported shia militia leaders, but more so again, i think they there's no alternative but to every single building floor room struggle and hold and you to leave forces behind there's sufficient that

they can't get swarmed and turned into hostages and. you have to do it progressive we do have a lot experience with that. we did that in ramadi or 400,000 fallujah, several hundred thousand mosul, over a million. but this again is even tougher. so challenges here are enormous. and i think the most critical is to provide the vision, the post-conflict and also in explicit for what life will be like for the palestinians after hamas gone. and by the way, it shouldn't be life for the palestinians in there needs to be a vision for the palestinians, the west bank as well. i see no to a two state solution and i hope that this horrible event can be a catalyst to get serious about getting back to that as well so it's a pattern. justin, could you also tell people about what happened when you captured? yeah, i mean, we had a situation that i hope no israeli commander is going to to face. we're in the fight to baghdad

and we were ordered to this city that was threatening our lines of communication and. it was a city of three or 400,000. najaf is holiest city in shia islam, very important. and so we couldn't not even a neck in the gold dome mosque even though they were shooting deliberately at from either side of it and unfinished hotels under construction. but eventually we took it took several days of all three brigades converging on this sizable city and so i called my bosses hey boss i've got good news and bad news. good news is we owe najaf. yes, well, the bad news is i said we owe najaf. what do you what do you want us to do with it? and i hope that, again, the post-conflict phase is a lot better. i know. look, i can tell i assure you, i've actually done getting video conferences with folks tel aviv and jerusalem and so forth and they are feverishly working it. the problem is that there's no easy answer, especially israel

doesn't want to reoccupy, but i just don't see an alternative to that in the short term at least. so we have about another 10 minutes of of our question and answer and what i want to get into is i read the book, by the way, so i to put that on record for good and qualifications, it's the least i could do. so actually the least you could do it is in fact. yeah. yeah. so it's literally least you could do. you're welcome. so instead of going chronologically and going of conflict by conflict cause there's quite a few in here, i want to talk about some of the individual themes. if i if can and one theme, the first theme in andrew i'd love for you to to answer. you know you write morale is essential to victory and you write in reference to israel it could be, you know, applied to any conflict especially the american war of independence

that that last king lost a couple hundred ago. but it could also applied to the the incredible bravery of the people of ukraine. and so tell us about and i know you visited kiev, kiev, kiev and ukraine. tell us about how important morale is during this does come through very powerfully and in the book, it's one of the themes, one of the threads of, the book and and when david and i visited kiev in about four months ago and he subsequently went meeting president zelensky, other ministers and generals since then, we we recognized an extraordinary courage, of course, in in ukraine. you they have these marvelous size of buildings, these posters saying, be brave ukraine. and and they and they are and they are not, uh, they're not willing to just simply of the

horror of the last 18 months to, to give up, you know, they, they do want to fight through to ultimate victory whether or not that's possible will be will be seen. but you have to have that in order to to be victorious and obviously where the national churchill leadership center the way in which winston churchill was able in in the blitz and afterwards to present a path to victory, even though logically and rationally actually, you know, there wasn't one because the united states wasn't in the war. the russians were on the side, the germans, the whole thing was a seemed to be completely impulsive all that. if you can persuade the people and if the people in the end willing to believe as it were then, things can be done that seemed to be totally extraordinary. and one of the things that we were hugely impressed with, of

course, the whole world's impressed with is the leadership qualities. when david was about strategic leadership, that leadership qualities of president zelensky are truly extraordinary and and and remarkable from a historical perspective. you know, you can go back in the post 1945 period to look at strategic leaders and how they can be game changers and and amongst all of them presidents. alinsky does stand out and of course what you on the other side is a strategic leader in in vladimir putin, who's mistake after mistake. you know including the key one about getting the big wrong in this case that that he assumed ukraine was in few days going to sort of roll over and and and give up and was a nation of 44 million people who it turned out had a um a proper strategic

leader who saw things in churchill and since he's been called churchill with an iphone which is rather fabulous way of doing it. so so yes there is that and now obviously recently the southern has started and the size of the minefields turn out to be much much larger than than expected. it's very difficult to mine when you have russian drones above above and so on. but it the chapter i think i'm right in saying on so david and actually fits in very well with the one of the overall messages this book about morale and think of zelinski his first big ideas i don't want a ride i want ammunition. that's a pretty powerful big idea. i'm going to stay in kiev. my family is going to stay in key. we're going to defend kiev to. the death all males are going to stay in the country.

and again, it just kept on going. and then he's got a very good military commander in chief general's illusionary. and i met with him four weeks or so ago and is translated again into a very impressive campaign noting. obviously it's not over. the outcome is still uncertain, but the russians have lost. ukrainians won the battle of kiev that was the overriding objective is to take kiev, topple the government, replace president zelenskiy with a pro-russian figure. they lost the battles of sumie and cherny here in the northeast archive closest to the border. that was one that many people thought would fall as not. and now they've even retaken the rest of kharkiv oblast or province and the russian forces that had made it west of the dnipro there, east of the dnipro and around here. yes, again, very tough counteroffensive. but even there, the ukrainian military no plan survives contact with the enemy it didn't so they adapted.

so that's that fourth task and they've refined the big ideas and the big idea is instead of trying to do an armored breach because they don't have air power, our doctrine calls for superiority to conduct they're going to breach and certainly to make sure the enemy have drones right over top of you can call in accurate artillery are they going infantry squads and they're fighting you 150 meters a day instead several kilometers a day. tree line to tree line. house, house and so on. so it's it's truly impressive. and as andrew mentioned, putin's leadership has been absolutely disastrous in that regard in almost every case, he got the big ideas wrong. again, how stout the ukrainian defense, be he thought his forces were much better, they turned out to be. he also underestimated. i think the response by the us, other nato countries, the western world and, then, you know, his communication to the outer world has not been particularly convincing and. even the example that he

provides know he sits at the end of a long table in a suit. they're all down at the end of the table. almost need a microphone to be heard. where is out in the front lines have been changed to an odd sweatshirt on the first day of the war as up the suit ever since and of course zelinsky communicating brilliantly in each of these different encounters the first wartime leader to address congress since churchill both houses congress and so on. so it's a wonder to compare and contrast the problem still ongoing, the outcomes in russia does size three and a half times the population of ukraine and an economy that's bigger so i'm yes general if i could follow up on on your points another theme i think ties in nicely is and that is of information so you know our dear friend winston here, you quote him in your book, you say, quote, in wartime truth is

so precious, that should always be by a bodyguard of lies. so can you describe a conflict in which this type of i don't want to say hiding, but some sort of of handling of information? who needs to know it when, what type of message are we giving out? what what confidence in mind for you that really key. i don't think you've seen a situation where the us and the uk released much finished intelligence having laundered it of course to the public not it but just removing it and of course removing anything on ukraine that would indicate sources and methods. so the trick is there's lot of declassification that's done. how do you do it without releasing these sources message or jeopardizing that has? that's unique. the other unique aspect of ukraine is that this is the most transparent battlefield we've seen. by the way, it's going to be the same case in in israel. and that has a lot of

challenges, because urban combat is inherent, highly destructive, damaging kill, innocent civilians. it's to be very costly. and so commanders have to be aware of that. for what it's worth, we had big ideas for everything in the surge in iraq, and it was captured in the counterinsurgency guidance i drafted and then would reissue about every month, month and a half, i just the send key and it would go out to everyone and on dealing with the press. our big idea was be first with the truth. we want to beat bad guys to the headline. what we want to do with the truth we are not going to put lipstick on pigs. we're not going to spin our way out of anything. we're just going to be objective and honest as we be. and if the first report was wrong, as sometimes it is, we're going to go back out and correct it. and if we have a bad day, we're going to go up and, you know, try to it in any way. we're going to say we had a horrible day today in baghdad, 150 innocent iraqi civilians were killed in three bombings in

different markets which actually did happen. here's what we believe took place. here's what we think we need to do to mitigate the risks this in the future. and we'll give more information as it comes so again in given the transparency in battlefield in which everyone has a internet access social media platforms into which upload video and photos and so forth, that's a transform situation. and the ability to monitor all that media is very, very challenging as well. if i can just add and the last chapter of this book, chapter ten, is about the future of and we go into drones, of course, but also cyber space and sensors, and a.i. robotics and on. but another really key is of course disinformation and misinformation and which we've already seen in in the

israel-hamas struggle with regard to the the hospital that that hamas claimed had been bombed by the israelis. turned out it was islamic jihad. so you have a a sphere there which in the internet age is absolutely vital that you fight and. it's being fought through deepfakes and bots, all sorts of things, which frankly clausewitz never had to worry about and neither pretty much anyone before 1945 either. so so this aspect, the future of war, is something that we go into in the book pretty seriously because it is a feat, a feature that we think is going to be seen more and more in future conflict. gentlemen, i'm now going to open up to to the audience i'm sure you have many questions. so here's what we're going to do. we have quite few people here. i'm going to have my colleague alice we're going to take a few questions this side of the room and then and then we'll take it from the others.

if i can ask you both to to be a little brief so we can get as many as possible is just raise your hand. and so this right here, alice, i thank you. i have a question for both are either of you about the american military and serve institutional and learning? do do you feel is there a tendency to sort of fight the last war have you have you in the examples you look at in the book, what's your take away from american military's ability to learn and adapt to warfare as as it's evolved over time? i guess i probably ought to take that one. first of all, i think the adage, you know, the military tends to the last war is true sometimes. again, i mentioned the lessons of korea weighed on the us advisors that insisted on

providing the vietnamese forces with divisions rather than with smaller forces that could have carried out what we would know as comprehensive counter insurgency campaign because the threat was in the villages and hamlets at that time at least it certainly wasn't coming across the demilitarized zone. the north didn't have that kind of capability. then. but then there are some other cases. you know, we've sought to consign the lessons of history to the aspin of history, such as after vietnam and the military never wanted to do anything like that again. and this is partly why we didn't even doctrine for counterinsurgency several years into the war in iraq. i mean, when i went home after the three star tours, i was determined that we were going to produce a doctrinal manual to provide the intellectual foundation that, frankly, we didn't have certain people got it. some people had actually been involved in stuff before. i'd been fortunate to be see of the stuff in central america to have served in haiti as the un officer, to have spent a year in

bosnia. none of these were full fledged counterinsurgencies, but they all had elements of what you needed to do in a counterinsurgency. and so we needed that. but we didn't have it because again, no one wanted to do it ever again. and therefore we were not as prepared for it. i we're much better than that now. i think we recognize that the american military has to do everything along the spectrum of conflict from support to civil authorities, the u.s., through various peacekeeping and disaster relief on up through various forms of irregular war, counterterrorism and, then up to conventional and ultimately to the, you know, peer competitor, which would be, say, indo-pacific theater, which is one we absolutely must deter. and i believe that we can. so, again, i think the ability to learn is absolutely. there. the other challenge is that the folks at the very top have to

want to create and embrace a culture of learning. we that very hard in the counterinsurgency manual we said the side that learns the fastest typically prevails and we set out we had events on the battle rhythm that that facility too that you know i'd meet once a month with all the lessons learned team chiefs once a week with the strategic planners who require us. and then when we would have a meeting, say, of all the two star commanders, each of them had to give two lessons that he had learned or initiatives that would be of general to everyone else. but again, you to have it in, you have to surround yourself with people are willing to tell you that the big ideas aren't as powerful and, persuasive and as you might think they are. so i bring general mcmaster over. i brought the colonel over who had had the temerity suggest we were actually facing an insurgency the first few months in and was thrown out of the air for it. i brought him back with me. so again, there has to be a

again, a culture that is built and that's where learning begins and then it has to permeate the entire organization and you have to take actions on your battle rhythm to facilitate that. one of the interesting things, actually, is that the united states army has institutionalized this pretty well in the past. the yom kippur war, for example prompted no fewer than 36 reports from different from different parts of the pentagon into that war, sending it soldiers out there to interview israeli generals, walking the battlefields, checking out, what had happened there and seeing whether or not they could learn lessons that ultimately were able to use in another desert campaign. of course, in in 1990 against in the gulf war. yes, sir. and that right there. yep. and more of a historical question, obviously, the title of the book, the launching point from this exploration starts

with 1945, although obviously world one and world war two were profoundly impactful on the technol technological use in war, could you kind of talk to why you started it in 1945? yeah, well, and what we what we discovered very much was that one of the most important themes of this war of this book was that warfare doesn't move in a linear way it it can forward leaps and bounds. we have talked earlier about yom kippur and and ukraine, of course, which were paradigm shifting wars undoubtedly, it can sometimes get completely side tracked as in the iran iraq war, where neither khomeini or saddam hussein provided the kind of strategic leadership that davey was talking. and therefore, you have 2 million people, up to 2 million people die in an eight year long war. many of the features of which such as gas and and trenches and.

barbed wire and so on. remind you of the first world war that was being fought 70 years earlier. so it struck us that the that the the moment of 1945, that that moment where a world war ends. and of course, you then get the nuclear umbrella where all wars are fought. since then, a limited however big they you've got the chinese civil war that killed million people but nonetheless you know the bomb has not been used since nagasaki and therefore that does make a a sort natural historical area that that we thought would be worthwhile. you know, ukraine is this interesting. max boot captured this beautifully great washington post columnist. he describes ukraine as all quiet on the western front, blade runner and. it is if you think about, again, in the trenches, why our reminiscent world war one tanks

and armored vehicles, world war actually the cold war. these the same systems that we had in germany, for example. and on the other side, the same systems that russia is using here. and then but then you see some very advanced drones and they're actually advanced during the course of this war. it's really developing quite rapidly. you look at what the ukrainians have drone done with a domestically produced maritime drone that has done so much damage that, the russians have actually had to withdraw much of the black sea fleet from the crimea and port of sevastopol because they they just were too close to ukraine and they've had to move it to a russian sea base further out. so and again you also see, as i said earlier, that transparent in the battlefield from smartphones, access and social media. so this is really it's not the definition of warfare, but it certainly is the definition of,

again, well over a century's worth of different types of practices, all of which you see here. one more question on the side. is there over? yeah, sure. yep. there's a there's a microphone up. you got me. so, gentlemen, thank you very much. the way you've got me thinking when you talk disinformation and the the the effects of it and and if you would, would you both comment on the on role of and the importance of governance, the system of governance that gives a putin for instance, or its or soviet leader the ability to throw human beings at this extraordinary numbers and and and world war two or a single message to the soviet or the russian people and what zelinsky, of course, has to work in the context of a democracy or where we have you have the your your kind of free press. and we have our free press and

and yes what we what we tended to come to the conclusion really was that democracy is, um, that authoritarian totally syrian dictatorships were much better starting wars, but that democracies were better at fighting ultimately and winning them partly because you can start a war with and surprise attack which happens in many circumstances thinks obviously of 911 and pearl harbor but actually the the the six-day the yom kippur war the falklands war this hamas attack the attack on kuwait. exactly. in 1990. you know, it was said by paul wolfowitz, um, that surprise attacks so often the surprising thing is still surprised by them. um, and that is right but, but it tends to create a it sort of

sticks a fire under the people who have been most mostly democracy. you know, in almost every one of these cases apart from six-day war, that was democracy. and so the reversion fury, the the return, the vengeance, essentially is is, is, is bigger than when you get a a slow build up of forces and cross cross border attack. so this lady right here, cat in the second row. thank you. i'm sure you had to edit quite a bit content wise in the end. were there any particular storylines that you had to cut that you wish you could have included? you know, there were a couple of occasions where andrew and i remind each other that we were actually the authors of this book and we could be insistent at times uncertain of the items that we felt needed to be

included. but i don't think there is anything. yes, we did. you know, we started i think we were thinking about 20 to 25000 words per chapter. it ended a good bit more than those in several of those chapters. but again, you work with your editor and and we insisted on inclusion of certain very there were a number of actually of episodes that you know, i participated in. and i thought this is pretty important. and so it stayed in yes i mean to fit 70 plus years of of warfare into 500 pages is i think in itself quite an achievement we were with they were they were one or two small engagements that that didn't make the cut because we would concentrate as i say, on the on the paradigm shifting conflicts. we weren't just going to try and do a comprehensive history of. all of the 140 plus wars that they've have been since since

1945. and so if we found one classic example going back, your talk about the the tank, where it seemed at the beginning that anti-tank weaponry was going to make the tank obsolete, but only three weeks in three weeks time, it was from ariel sharon's surrounding of the egyptian that army that the tank. absolutely a a a key weapon. and it led to a great joke from an american general who that tanks are a bit like dinner jackets in that you don't need them very often, but when you do need them, nothing else will do. the gentleman right in the back palace or cap, i thank you. i'm currently finishing the first volume of manchester is the last lion and it jumped out at me and what roberts can correct me on the exact year 1920 something and where churchill was visiting gaza and

150,000 arabs come to protest screaming death the -- and then a very churchillian way he thought they were cheering on and he waved. yes yes. hey, but my question is, given the historical animosity there, is there a military solution to this israel a hamas situation, or if militarily, the israelis are even able to beat hamas, does that even lead a peace between israelis and the and the palestinians? is the pa authority capable of taking over for hamas or is the animosity deep that it's it's even beyond? and there's dreaded second part questions. there is about four questions. exactly. and look, the bottom here, i laid this out earlier with

respect military. force is necessary, but not there does have to the destruction of hamas. but as laid out, there has to be a vision for the palestinian. it has to be operationally there has to be a thought about post conflict governance and all of these additional elements i laid out that should very clearly that military force. again, while vital, critical necessary, is not. and that's often the case, although occasionally enemies are able to discover our military force can be both necessary and sufficient. so i'm always cautious about that particular phrase, which is usually uttered by diplomats, not by soldiers. so why are you still reading william manchester? i you know, you should realize that the the the best single volume biography of the great man is churchill walking with destiny agreed here it could be

could be a matter of taste no. so there's a gentleman with the glasses in black coat. thank you thank you you. at the beginning the importance of strategic leadership in the conduct war. and i was wondering you think either of you think is responsive. well for the lack of strategic leadership in various contexts, is it ideological is it parochial this. lack of imagination, sheer pig headedness? you know what, the cause of lack of strategic leadership in modern conflicts? i think it's all of the above, you just said, but it's generally a lack of understanding of nature, of the conflict, which we saw, for example, in vietnam. we saw it again to a degree.

the french. and then when you do see it, exercise as well, it's again a recognition of this is what this is, this is these are the objective factors. this is how we craft the strategy can enable us to achieve our. with military force and then to add what other elements are required. as is noted earlier, force is by no means always and sorry, can i also add, i think that short termism can often work against the the capacity of people to see the big picture. the example being in algeria here in the 1950s where the french were attempting to put down the algerian uprising and they used torture deliberately went for routine use of torture, which very much went against the founder principles of the french

republic, the declarations of the rights of man. and so on and and it was a so it's revolted the the sense of what being a frenchman was all about so domestic problems and also you didn't get actionable intelligence from the use of torture so so and you can understand how how that was a short term that was grabbed by general massu but of course in the long term it was an absolute disaster. so cat, if you'll come up here, we have to ask questions. we're going to do this gentleman right here and then we'll end with tim. but please rise in the front row. in front. gentlemen, thank you for coming. general petraeus, thank you for your service and all the inspiration you've given me. two part question serve. do you think since the end of the cold, the united states has had grand strategy? and on that note, when it comes to the political that we have,

which our military from the asia-pacific to the eastern med, how do you rate the state of our military today? and do you think our politicians should perhaps recalculate some of our geopolitical around the world? thank you. you know, had nothing comparable to the strategy of containment, which was a grand strategy. there have been various efforts are elements of grand strategy, are people who actually believe we shouldn't have a grand strategy. so, again, i think that first question is pretty straightforward nothing like what john gaddis described again in of containment and so forth. i think the state of military is solid. there are challenges obviously not just the recruiting challenge i would hold out that we we have the greatest of

challenges and the greatest of challenges at any time. the cold war, at least, be world war two. and if you think of the united states as the guy in the circus who has to keep a whole bunch of different plates spinning, you have a plate that represents the u.s. and western relationship with china that that's bigger than all the other plates in tent. can't lose sight of that one even as we are supporting our ally israel and support our partner ukraine. and we have allies and to help us with that. there's still a north korea plate. there is a iran maybe multiple plates for iran supporting the shia militia nuclear program, missiles and rockets. there are cyber threat plates. there's obviously the russia plate there. there's a whole host. again, different challenges. and i think the challenge for the u.s. is because we, the ones uniquely who have to keep these plates spinning again with help, varying degrees for varying plates from various partners, that we have to have the ability

to address all these different plates. keep in mind, there are still islamist extremists there, and we learned the hard way. if you don't keep an eye on an organization, pressure on it as what's happened with the islamic state. after we withdrew our combat forces and the prime minister of iraq took ruinously sectarian actions, took their eye off it. you'll have caliphate on your hands within a of years. that then takes quite a long time to eliminate. so i think how do you have forces that can do everything as we earlier as well all across the border you still need expertise in counterinsurgency even as you are shifting your focus the rebalance to asia, which. exactly right. that highlights the other challenge, i think, which is that we have to transform our forces more rapidly than we are right now from in a simplistic way would be described. a small number of large platforms to a massive number, large manned, heavily manned, expensive, exquisitely capable,

but also vulnerable to a massive number of unmanned systems, some of which will be remotely piloted, others of which will increasingly algorithmically piloted. the human in the loop is the human the software program and determines the conditions the machine has to meet before it takes a particular action. that is challenge to do in, but there are vested in the military industrial congressional complex the triad that mccain described and was always battling with in there. understandable. again, but we have to move rapidly in that transformation because at the end of the day that most important plate requires deterrence, which is founded on a potential assessment of your capabilities on the one hand, and your willingness to employ them on the other. one other quick note with respect to that final element is in the book, we lay that what

happens in one part of the world reverberates another. everything is connected. and if you have an episode here that shows a lack strategic patience or, will or or capable, it reverberates elsewhere. and that's really quite an important element. and we also another theme of the book is that although deterrence is tremendously expensive. of course it is, especially on the american taxpayer. it is actually also cheap compared to the alternative of which is war. last question. if you give it to jim, please. thank you both for. an illuminating and enlightening evening. i'd like to maybe wrap up with history. you've both looked at history straight in the eye tonight, and over the last 70 years and seems to me that the big idea is to get them right, you need to study history. maybe you can talk a little bit about political and military today and their great gasp of

history is this something that's being taught in the military academies. certainly we're not seeing as much history being absorbed. perhaps in congress as we used to when when congressmen were militarily, for instance, maybe talk about the importance of history and the kind of work you've done with this book for, military leaders and for politicians today. i set an exam, a history for anybody who wanted to stand for public office. frankly, i it's a it should be an absolute prerequisite that people should have enough knowledge history that if they're to try and decide anything to do with the future. i'm not sure that many british politicians would pass that exam, frankly. but then neither would our schoolchildren. we had the day you ran fulton, missouri the we had a question about winston churchill.

where 20% of british schoolchildren thought that he was a fictional character. and that is a very worrying thing, especially here, of course, in the national churchill leadership, etc. it means that the job you do and the job that justin does is a tremendously centrally important one. that yes, of course, of course, history is vital. you know, this of brings to mind all these great aphorisms about history. you what's the one those who fail to study the past, doomed to repeat it or whatever it is? yeah, there's one i actually used in my dissertation because it was the american military and the lessons of history that they took. and i'm not sure those are the right lessons actually to take and i especially what are the joys of doing this book was my dissertation was done at the ten year mark after vietnam. this is done decades later and you have the benefit of all the additional scholarship and actually the declassification of a number of the classified papers of the major figures during that time.

and so one of the comments i had in there was that you have to be aware that history obfuscate as well illuminate it can, mislead you, it can weigh you down. actually. and i think that the lessons of vietnam very much weighed down our military leaders when came to recommendations on, the use of force and so forth, and not always again in a particularly illuminating manner. sometimes that was not the case. i believe in the study of history. it is much still taught in our military academies and in the pre commissioning courses. others who are entering the military as commission officers. it's wonderful to see all of you, your fellow students of history, or you would not be here. clearly, it is something that i think does deserve more attention in our schools and universities and certainly those who are going to be crafting

legislation, especially when, it comes to the use of force, frankly gentlemen, thank you. and before we wrap up, i just want to say we will be if are interested in joining as a member, we will be having some forms that you can grab the way out. look for kat or alice colleagues. and please join me in thanking general petraeus and lord roberts. ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our program. ten years to save the