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The Spectacle Blog
Gen. David Petraeus was in Washington last night to accept the American Enterprise Institute’s Irving Kristol award. AEI has posted the speech online, and it offers a glimpse into the late 2005 through 2006 period, when he led a team from a wide range of backgrounds to develop to reshape the army around a series of principles that would manifest themselves in the surge in Iraq.
It’s a good talk, both as an historical capsule into how the surge strategy developed, but also as a study of how ideas are developed and can translate into action. “The truth is that ideas are all-important,” Petraeus quoted Kristol as observing over three decades ago. “The massive and seemingly-solid institutions of any society are always at the mercy of the ideas in the heads of the people who populate these institutions.”
Petreaus recounts that:
As I saw it then—and as I still see it now—there are four steps to institutional change. First, you have to get the big ideas right—you have to determine the right overarching concepts and intellectual underpinnings. Second, you have to communicate the big ideas effectively throughout the breadth and depth of the organization. Third, you have to oversee implementation of the big ideas—in this case, first at our combat training centers and then in actual operations. And fourth, and finally, you have to capture lessons from implementation of the big ideas, so that you can refine the overarching concepts and repeat the overall process.
Meanwhile, Dave Weigel draws our attention to this quote at the end of the speech:
Our first president once captured very eloquently the feelings of those who serve our nation: “I was summoned by my country,” he said, “whose voice I can never hear but with veneration and love.”
I explored the prospect of a Petreaeus presidential run in the May issue of our print edition. You can read it here.
View all comments (15) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Philip Klein
http://spectator.org/blog/2010/05/07/petraeus-on-the-surge-of-ideas
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Pingback| 5.7.10 @ 6:19PM
Twitter Trackbacks for Petraeus on the Surge of Ideas :: AmSpecBlog [spectator.org] links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Alan Brooks| 5.7.10 @ 10:16PM
"I explored the prospect of a Petreaeus presidential run in the May issue of our print edition."...
"Petreaus recounts that:"
If you don't spell his name right, I'm not going to vote for him. You think I owe you something for Reagan? My loyalty is to America, not to you;
especially if you don't spell check the subject's name. What are you, a public school teechur? this is AS, not Pee Wee Hermin'z Fun Klub
Nate| 5.7.10 @ 10:51PM
David Brooks had a great column on Petreus today in the Times.
I know you all think David Brooks is a communist (or whatever the absurd insult of the week around here is), but you might like his column today.
Alan Brooks| 5.9.10 @ 11:04PM
But the general might be a nothingburger like Colin Powell, mouthing David Gergenisms:
"we must put aside our differences to move forward in the spirit of ..."
Move forward to where? outer space?
Bob K.| 5.8.10 @ 9:01AM
Commanding Generals are supposed to design successful military strategies and here Petraeus is equating the implementation of his military strategy to "Institutional Change!" What will he call it when the next war requires a different strategy?
Who does he think he is kidding? Are we supposed to be impressed with this obscure verbiage? Or is he trying to impress an indifferent government and an ignorant press with his supposedly great intellect?
He should read Grant's autobiography. Maybe he could learn something about writing from it. He acts like he already know everything about war.
Steve W| 5.8.10 @ 6:30PM
"What will he call it when the next war requires a different strategy? "
It appears to me you think all wars are exactly the same, and what works in one will work in others. If studying history teaches us anything it's that each war is different.
If I may....
In War: Resolution
Victor Davis Hanson
http://www.claremont.org/publi.....detail.asp
Pingback| 5.9.10 @ 3:44AM
Global Engineering Applications Market In Civil Engineering … | Architectural Enginee links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Bob K.| 5.9.10 @ 9:06AM
Re Steve W and Maplestoy:
Petraeus was successful with his surge and as yet it remains successful. Time will tell if it's effects will keep Iraq stable or if it will work in Afghanistan.
But that isn't the problem. It is one thing for Petreaus to impress the gurus of the AEI with the jargon of managerial concepts which they devour like cereal at breakfast. It is quite another thing, if he wants to be President, to sell to the American Public the concept that the States will have to continue takeing turns sending the flower of their youth, now serving in their respective National Guards, to a 30 years war in the Middle East to establish and maintain a status quo there that the AEI endorses.
David Goldman, who writes under the pen name "Spengler" in "Asia Times" has a current essay on this: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/M.....4Ak01.html
I also refer you to Churchill's quote on war at the end of Victor Davis Hanson's essay from the Claremont Review in Steve W.'s post above.
Petraeus, if he wants to be President, will also have to explain to the voters why we continue to ignore the threat to our Nation's security that our open border's policy causes while we continue to spend Billions for Defense in the Middle East.
I wonder if the AEI has any management
concepts for this problem? If not, here is one. Bring the 30,000 troops home from Afghanistan and station them at our border with Mexico. Work out the details using the "Four Steps to Institutional Change."
Ken (Old Texican)| 5.9.10 @ 12:48PM
Bob K
The General is under orders, dumbunny. He goes where he is sent...and has done a pretty good job.
The orders come from the president...not AEI.
Bob K.| 5.9.10 @ 4:18PM
Hi Ken,
With all due respect, I think it would be nice if you could be civil when you express your disagreement with a poster here that you have not yet engaged in a pissing contest with!
I am an unabashed big "C" Conservative and I have been a subscriber to American Spectator since it was a tabloid in Indiana. I have subscribed to National Review for longer than that. I have read Russell Kirks's "The Conservative Mind" and Richard Weaver's "Ideas Have Consequences." I recommend all these publications (and there are many more) to any thinking conservative. Of course you can still read them and disagree with me on Petraeus's qualifications to be President. In fact, you could have read, and may indeed have read, Victor Davis Hanson's essay in the Claremont Review that Steve W. so kindly posted a link to and you also could have read the essay that David Goldman wrote on "Petraeus's 30 Years War" and we could have had a civil and informative discussion about this matter with out resorting to childish names like "dumbbunny."
But I don't blame it on you Ken, although I've read enough of your posts to know that you know better. I blame it on RETjr. and Wlady for letting these discussions of columns written with much thought by hardworking journalists degenerate into something you would find in a Left Wing blog!
Have a nice day,
Bob K.
S.L. Toddard| 5.9.10 @ 7:19PM
An acting general accepting an award named after the godfather of neoconservative ideology from a political "think-tank" .
The politicization of the military continues apace, hand in hand with the militarization of our Empire. Our countrymen, such as they are, cheer the process. Would that more Republicans were republicans, and opposed the authoritarians instead of aiding them.
oil painting | 5.10.10 @ 4:55AM
Still life oil painting(Still life oil painting )
Flower oil paintings(Flower oil paintings)