About the Book

In this deep and incisive study, General David Petraeus, who commanded the US-led coalitions in both Iraq, during the Surge, and Afghanistan and former CIA director, and the prize-winning historian Andrew Roberts, explore over 70 years of conflict, drawing significant lessons and insights from their fresh analysis of the past. Drawing on their different perspectives and areas of expertise, Petraeus and Roberts show how often critical mistakes have been repeated time and again, and the challenge, for statesmen and generals alike, of learning to adapt to various new weapon systems, theories and strategies. Among the conflicts examined are the Arab-Israeli wars, the Korean and Vietnam Wars, the two Gulf Wars, the Balkan wars in the former Yugoslavia, and both the Soviet and Coalition wars in Afghanistan, as well as guerilla conflicts in Africa and South America. Conflict culminates with a bracing look at Putin’s disastrous invasion of Ukraine, yet another case study in the tragic results when leaders refuse to learn from history, and an assessment of the nature of future warfare. Filled with sharp insight and the wisdom of experience, Conflict is not only a critical assessment of our recent past, but also an essential primer of modern warfare that provides crucial knowledge for waging battle today as well as for understanding what the decades ahead will bring.

About the Authors

General David Petraeus, US Army (Ret.) is one of the leading battlefield commanders and strategists of our time. He served over 37 years in the US military culminating his career with six consecutive commands as a general officer, five of which were in combat, including the Surge in Iraq, US Central Command, and NATO/US Forces in Afghanistan. He subsequently served as Director of the CIA, following confirmation by the Senate by a vote of 94-0, during a period of significant achievements in the global war on terror.

General Petraeus is now a Partner with the global investment firm KKR and Chairman of the KKR Global Institute, which he established in 2013. His awards include four Defense Distinguished Service Medals, the Secretary of State’s Distinguished Service Award, the Bronze Star Medal for Valor, the Combat Action Badge, the Ranger tab, and master parachutist wings.  He has also been decorated by 14 foreign countries and is believed to be the only person in uniform to throw out the first pitch of a World Series game and do the coin toss for a Super Bowl.

Andrew Roberts is the Roger and Martha Mertz Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, a Visiting Professor at the War Studies Department at King's College, London, and the Lehrman Institute Lecturer at the New-York Historical Society. He has written or edited nineteen books, which have been translated into twenty-three languages, and appears regularly on radio and television around the world.

His books include the bestselling The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War, Masters and Commanders: How Four Titans Won the War in the West, 1941-1945, Waterloo: Napoleon’s Last Gamble and Napoleon: A Life, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for biography and a finalist for the Plutarch Award. His 2018 biography of Sir Winston Churchill, Churchill: Walking With Destiny, became a Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller, was translated into nine languages, and won the ICS Churchill Award for Literacy and the Council on Foreign Relations’ Arthur Ross Prize. In 2021 Andrew published The Last King of America: The Misunderstood Reign of George III, which won the General Society of Colonial Wars Distinguished Book Award. In 2022, Roberts published The Chief: The Life of Lord Northcliffe.