REVIEW BY GRAHAM GOODLAD
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has prompted the appearance of several books, setting the war in its historical context. This is the first study, however, to view the conflict in the long-term perspective of military history since 1945. It is an ambitious undertaking by a partnership between two authors from very different backgrounds. General David Petraeus was a senior US army commander and is an acknowledged authority on counterinsurgency, who also served for a year as director of the CIA. Andrew Roberts is a historian best known for his biographies of Napoleon and Churchill, and his writings on the Second World War, who was recently appointed a Conservative member of the British House of Lords.
In Conflict, the pair have set out to describe and analyse the nature of warfare over almost eight decades. In the compass of a 500-page volume, they have not attempted a comprehensive history but have concentrated on wars that they regard as possessing broader significance; for example, in the development of tactics or weaponry. There are one or two surprising choices – South Ossetia and Rwanda are covered but not the 1979 Sino-Vietnam War, after which the poor performance of the People’s Liberation Army stimulated a major programme of Chinese military modernisation. Nonetheless, the authors cover the great majority of the post-1945 conflicts that one would expect to find, from Korea and Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan.
The big picture
The book’s central theme is that of strategic leadership. Whether exercised by political or military figures, Petraeus and Roberts argue, it is understanding of the big picture that determines a protagonist’s chances of battlefield success. They identify four characteristics that an effective leader must demonstrate: a grasp of the overall strategic situation; an ability to communicate; being able to implement a plan; and to know how to refine and adapt ‘big ideas’ so that they can be applied again in different circumstances.
The Congress of Roman Frontier Studies