General Petraeus: collection

**Fuchs** · 11-21-2012

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article.../21/king_david

**JarodParker** · 11-22-2012

Originally Posted by Fuchs

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article.../21/king_david

Wow. That was complete garbage. She opens with this gem...

Allen's superhuman ability to write 20,000 to 30,000 pages of "potentially inappropriate" email

Then she goes on to call Petraeus a "warrior-general". Really!? I respect the guy's service, but c'mon. Mattis is a "warrior-general." And later on she starts talking about hairstyles, push-ups and pressing clothes, when she's not making grand canyon sized leaps. The whole thing read like a high school gossip column.

*For the record, I don't think generals should head the CIA

**Fuchs** · 11-22-2012

Ignore the entertainment, focus on the remarks about different organisational culture.

**ganulv** · 11-22-2012

Originally Posted by Fuchs

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article.../21/king_david

From the post:

The CIA's primary mission is to learn.

Is it? Or is it to predict?

**jcustis** · 11-22-2012

I'd say it's both. You can have all the knowledge in the world, but if you can't discern and understand what you are looking at, you're worthless as an intelligence agency.

**Fuchs** · 11-22-2012

Originally Posted by ganulv

From the post: Is it? Or is it to predict?

1st you need to learn about others and things before you can predict. Predictions are furthermore always questionable, so being able to present facts first and treat predictions at most as the icing on the cake appears to be reasonable to me.

**davidbfpo** · 11-22-2012

I'm not so sure about militarisation but culturally this wasn't a good match

A comment by Nigel Inkster, ex-SIS (MI6), on the cited FP article.

**parvati** · 11-24-2012

Petraeus' Image Takes Hit, Still More Positive Than Negative
Majority says it was necessary he resign

http://www.gallup.com/poll/158891/pe...ersion=Android

**SWJ Blog** · 12-10-2012

General Principles: How Good was David Petraeus?

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**SWJ Blog** · 03-26-2013

Petraeus Returns to Public Life, ‘Keenly Aware’ of Altered Reputation

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**SWJ Blog** · 06-12-2013

Petraeus: We Must Be Coldly Realistic Over The Use Of Force

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**SWJ Blog** · 09-02-2013

Reflections on the "Counterinsurgency Decade": Small Wars Journal Interview with General David H. Petraeus

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**SWJ Blog** · 12-01-2013

The Way Petraeus Saw Counterinsurgency Operations

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**davidbfpo** · 03-02-2015

Moderator's Note

I have merged forty three threads and renamed this thread - it reflects my practice when a practitioner's views and consequent debate merit being in one place. A few threads have been excluded, such as those about his departure from USG service, as they are not 'small wars' and some appear to have a wider remit, comparing him with others. Those threads can be id'd by using Advanced Search with his name and searching thread titles (ends).