The General's Next War

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As America's most famous warrior-scholar looks to export his Big Ideas about fighting wars from Iraq to the arguably even tougher battlefield of Afghanistan, FP's executive editor, Susan Glasser, spoke with him in the Pentagon days after he took over his new command.

Gen. David Petracus: In looking at which lessons learned in Iraq might be applicable in Afghanistan, it is important to remember a key principle of counterinsurgency operations: Every case is unique. That is certainly true of Afghanistan (just as it was true, of course, in Iraq). While general concepts that proved important in Iraq may be applicable in Afghanistan--concepts such as the importance of securing and serving the population and the necessity of living among the people to secure them--the application of those 'big ideas' has to be adapted to Afghanistan. The 'operationalization' will inevitably be different, as Afghanistan has a very different history and very different 'muscle memory' in terms of central governance (or lack thereof). It also lacks the natural resources that Iraq has and is more rural. It has very different (and quite extreme) terrain and weather. And it has a smaller amount of educated human capital, due to higher rates of illiteracy, as well as substantial unemployment, an economy whose biggest cash export is illegal, and significant challenges of corruption. Finally, it lacks sufficient levels of basic services like electricity, drinking water, and education--though there has been progress in a number of these areas and many others since 2001.

One cannot adequately address the …