GEN Petraeus vs. Ralph Peters on Graduate Education for Officers

[jonSlack]

GEN David H. Petraeus - Beyond the Cloister

"The most powerful tool any soldier carries is not his weapon but his mind. These days, and for the days ahead as far as we can see, what soldiers at all ranks know is liable to be at least as important to their success as what they can physically do. Some key questions before the U.S. military in changing times therefore must be: How do we define the best military education for the U.S. armed forces, and what are the best ways to impart that education? What should be the ideal relationship between soldiering and the schoolhouse?"

I wonder if the unnamed professor at Princeton was Michael Walzer.

[whsieh]

I just started hanging around here, so apologies if this was already referred to (I haven't seen a reference to it at least).

Enclosed are two links on the role graduate education at civilian universities should (or should not) play in a serving officer's career. The first is a piece by GEN Petraeus, the second by Ralph Peters--the latter includes a thinly veiled and extremely critical reference to LTC Nagl and the current COIN manual:

http://www.the-american-interest.com...?Id=290&MId=14

http://www.the-american-interest.com...?Id=291&MId=14

WWSH

[Shek]

General Petraeus' article was posted here, http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=3294, but Ralph Peters' piece wasn't posted yet.

[Rob Thornton]

Welcome aboard sir. Your comments and insights will be value added.

[SteveMetz]

I just started hanging around here, so apologies if this was already referred to (I haven't seen a reference to it at least).

Enclosed are two links on the role graduate education at civilian universities should (or should not) play in a serving officer's career. The first is a piece by GEN Petraeus, the second by Ralph Peters--the latter includes a thinly veiled and extremely critical reference to LTC Nagl and the current COIN manual:

http://www.the-american-interest.com...?Id=290&MId=14

http://www.the-american-interest.com...?Id=291&MId=14

WWSH

This goes way back. Ralph (along with Ed Luttwak) are in what I call the "mailed fist" school of counterinsurgency. They basically see it as a variant of conventional war. They recognize that insurgents attempt to make the pscyhological and political battlespaces decisive because they can't compete with the government (and its supporters) in the military battlespace. My response to them I've stolen from Harry Summers' made up quotation which he attributes to a North Vietnamese colonel: "That is true, but irrelevant." The United States does not do the mailed fist. It might should we be struck by WMD terrorism but, alas, we will not until then.

3-24 is derived more from the ideas of people like Robert Thompson and David Galula. This approach assumes that counterinsurgents, if adept, can compete with insurgents in the psychological and political realms.

[whsieh]

I actually liked Luttwak's book on Strategy--it was very subtle in lots of ways--and I've heard good things about his book on the Romans, which I've never actually read. But yeah, I've seen his stuff on counterinsurgency, and I agree that there's a certain unreality to it. I thought his op-ed a while back on the strategic possibilities of the Sunni/Shia split for larger American policy in the region to be really interesting, but that was a different issue than COIN. I did see Dr. Kilcullen's response to Luttwak here, and I thought he had the better part of the argument. Schultz and Dew had a more interesting critique of the COIN manual in a NYT Op-ed a while back, but I think that that was when the manual was still in draft form.

Peters is well... Peters. I actually think he has some good ideas, and the odd thing about the piece I mentioned is that he does endorse MA degrees and language learning, but there's just so much.... invective involved. And I was quite flabbergasted by the extraordinary repeated exchange regarding LTC Nagl.

WWSH

[SteveMetz]

I actually liked Luttwak's book on Strategy--it was very subtle in lots of ways--and I've heard good things about his book on the Romans, which I've never actually read. But yeah, I've seen his stuff on counterinsurgency, and I agree that there's a certain unreality to it. I thought his op-ed a while back on the strategic possibilities of the Sunni/Shia split for larger American policy in the region to be really interesting, but that was a different issue than COIN. I did see Dr. Kilcullen's response to Luttwak here, and I thought he had the better part of the argument. Schultz and Dew had a more interesting critique of the COIN manual in a NYT Op-ed a while back, but I think that that was when the manual was still in draft form.

Peters is well... Peters. I actually think he has some good ideas, and the odd thing about the piece I mentioned is that he does endorse MA degrees and language learning, but there's just so much.... invective involved. And I was quite flabbergasted by the extraordinary repeated exchange regarding LTC Nagl.

WWSH

The clearest recent expression of Luttwak's thinking was in Harpers. And you're right about the NYT op ed: they were working off of the interim manual which I also though was very bad. I made 83 detailed, line in/line out comments on an early draft of it, some simply factual corrections, and none of them were used.

[Tom Odom]

Peters standard of writing (and speaking I suppose) is designed to appeal to base instinct and lesser intellect; he has great emotional tug with an audience that is frustrated and wants to strike back.

that is not to say that some of his ideas are cogent but they get lost in the hyperbole and lack of realism. A case in point was his presntation in Italy concering redrawing borders. A superficial consideration might say he is correct but any deeper look asks the foillow up questions--the ones that Peters ignores. In that regard, he is much like (but not the same as) the neocons espousing forcefully exported democracy as an answer to the ills of the Middle East.

Tom

[Steve Blair]

Peters makes a great emotional connection with his fiction as well. It tends to be sparse on specifics and deep in emotion, which makes for a good read but one that often leaves you without a firm sense of place or space but very deep characters (IMO, anyhow).

I've found this with both his Peters stuff and the Civil War stuff he did under the name Parry. I think he carries this trend over into his policy commentary. His earlier writing on fighting warrior societies had the feel of being somewhat visionary and was saying things that (at the time) weren't being understood in many quarters. Since then I got the feeling that he's been trying to recapture that moment.

Just my take, anyhow, and apologies for derailing the thread....

[yamiyugikun]

Hi,

I am a civilian that just joined a while ago, but I enjoy reading the Small Wars Forums, because there are many things I can learn and apply to my life. While a librarian isn't a "warrior" per say, I learned many important things like motivation and why knowledge is important in my own professional/educational career.

Sincerely,
Naomi Chiba