Download The Insurgents: David Petraeus and the Plot to Change the American Way of War AudioBook Free
Based on previously unavailable documents and interviews with more than 100 key players, including Basic David Petraeus, The Insurgents unfolds against the background of two wars waged against insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the primary insurgency is the one led at home by a new generation of officers - including Petraeus, John Nagl, David Kilcullen, and H. R. McMaster - who were seized with an idea how to combat these kinds of "small wars" and who modified their foes' techniques to overhaul their own military. Fred Kaplan clarifies where their idea originated from and how the women and men who latched onto this idea created a community (some would refer to themselves as a "cabal") and maneuvered the idea through the highest echelons of vitality. This is a cautionary tale about how creative ideas can harden into dogma, how smart strategists - "the best and the brightest" of today - can earn bureaucratic battles but nonetheless lose the wars. The Insurgents made the U.S. army more adaptive to the issues of the post-Cold War era, but their self-confidence led us deeper into wars we shouldn't have fought and couldn't help but lose.
