Lots of snakes offer that apple

OP-ED: Petraeus Opts Out of Politics -- or Does He?, Huffington Post. October 22, 2008

A wonderfully subtle smear from Bacevich on Petraeus: Bacevich says Petraeus gives off the impression of being apolitical but is actually a very sophisticated practitioner of politics, therefore he MUST BE WATCHED!!! The warning carries a whiff of McCarthyite threats: "okay, you may have done well in Iraq, but we're keeping our eye on you!" No actual betrayals or treasonous acts cited, just the opportunity implied and the hint that this guy could be dangerous.

Nice ...

It's almost like an offer in the mail: "Dave Petraeus, you've been pre-approved for the charge of treasonous careerism! If you'd care to take advantage, rest assured that we'll process your application with great speed!"

Too bad the general is too mature and sophisticated to accept that apple, because the snakes willing to make that offer are many.

Comments

[Agustin Mackinlay]

Tom. Don´t misunderstand me: I´m a great fan -- I plan to use to books in my forthcoming lectures on International Political Economy at the University of Leiden (Holland). But do you really think that people care about Petraeus in the midst of the most critical moment ever in terms of globalization? There´s a real crisis out there, Tom! If you don´t write on the subject of the financial crisis, somebody else will -- with "Barnettian" terms and all that. As a matter of fact, I think I´ll do just that. Cheers, and good luck with the book!

[William R. Cumming]

Since reading Samuel Huntington's "The Soldier and The State" and finding myself agreeing in part and disagreeing in part with the author I have been deeply concerned that military civil issues and discourse is not at the level of analysis or discussion that it should be. That is one of many reasons why I welcome your blog and books. What most Americans fail to realize, although analysts like Chalmers Johnson and Nick Turse in his book "The Complex" have documented is the deep penetration of our culture since the end of the draft of ignorance and misunderstanding between the political leadership, the citizen, and the military. Simple disclosure of issues and policy such as this blog provides is of the greatest utiltity. By the way what was the subject of the PhD thesis of General Petraeus? Where was it awarded? Who were his thesis advisors? What flag ranks and field grades is he mentoring? Americans have always been somewhat suspicious of flag rank officers with political ambitions even when carefully masked! Still Washington, Harrison, Jackson, Grant, Eisenshower is not an unimpressive list of Presidents, whatever they did or did not accomplish. My undergrad thesis involved Jackson, the first President elected from west of the Blue Ridge. Several recent excellent biographies of Jackson have recently appeared. Perhaps he was right about central banking. Essentially his criticism was that they were not democratic institutions. What knowledge of economics does General Petraeus have?

[Anonymous]

Agustin: grand strategy encompasses many subjects, not just the crisis of the moment

[Stephen Pampinella]

William,

Interesting mention of Huntington's 'Soldier', which essentially graphs Clausewitz's thinking on war onto a structural-functional analysis of the officer class. The civilian-military discourse has been perverted as of late. In particular, Huntington writes at length as to how officers must remain apolitical as a means of maintaining professionalization, and at the same time are at the mercy of the choices of the statesman, which may go against his professional judgment but ultimately must be obeyed. Certainly our political elites ( Bush-Rumsfeld) have put the military in this uncomfortable position. At the same time, Huntington is wrong in describing war as completely apolitical as war as evolved beyond an act of purely military judgment. Tom describes this as 'war in the context of everything else', including politics.

Petreaus understands this. The use of force in Iraq/Afghanistan can't be just assumed to be legitimate acts, but must be justified by a common agreement between the military and indigenous population about the appropriateness of that use of force. So yes, Petreaus has to be political in some sense, but this relates to the relationship we have with the people we fight amongst (Rupert Smith's description). Petreaus isn't politicizing the war here, only being a good soldier. I understand Bacevich's position, but it misunderstands the role of political justification and discourse in contemporary warfare.

[Tom Barnett]

Indeed, Sean.

As I indicated in previous posts, the tendency to get wrapped around the axle of today's crisis is natural but unstrategic.

The financial crisis is certainly a system perturbation that reveals the tremendous interconnectivity so far achieved in the financial market sphere. The Asian Flu/Russian bankruptch/LTCM debacle in 1997-98 was an early glimpse, as was the Tech Crash of 00-01.

Realizing that the boom/bust cycle has now gone truly global certainly makes a turning point in globalization's evolution (the achievement of synchronicity), but once achieved, it simply becomes the norm, meaning I'd expect to see 5-to-10 more of these before I die.

I can't build a grand strategy on the fantastic assumptions that such crashes must either "never happen again" or they'll become our constant bane. They're simply a mechanism for further evolution of the global economic system. I cover that in Great Powers with or without the current events happening, because I assumed something like this was--and remains--inevitable.

Frontier-integrating ages naturally feature dislocating boom-and-bust cycles. Read your American history 1865-1914. We are simply repeating that reality now on a global scale.

End of the world? Hardly. Just its growth pangs.

[stuart abrams]

I'm not sure I like the idea of Petraeus', or any other military figure's, abstinence from voting. This actually does more to create a mystical aura around such figures, suggesting that they are almost too important to vote. We should strive to make military figures more "normal." Ideally, the military should be a profession, much like law, medicine, business, etc., in which the best and the brightest - like Petraeus - can prosper and be recognized and appreciated for their success, without engendering a fear that they are potential Caesars. That seems consistent with Barnett's general view of the future of the military.

[Jon Kay]

Stuart, there will always be those who fear the military. And, given Caesar's or even McArthur's precedents, it's hard to fault the notion that some civilian vigilance will always be needed, though there will also always be excessive paranoia among some, that being the way society is.

Petraeus, IMHO, faces a special challenge along these lines because I feel one of Bush' ineptitudes has been in supporting him politically. He's always explained his mission in a way that makes it sound alot stupider than it actually is. Bush was allergic to explaining that serious changes in tactics were at play (MUST NOT ADMIT MISTAKES). He's unfairly unpopular with many Dems as a result.

Abstaining from voting probably makes it easier for some to deal professionally with the changes in power. It's easier to deal with Bush if you didn't vote against him, probably, and same story if Obama wins as seems likely.

[Cadet Echo Boomer]

To many Americans the military is too big, too complex, and too secretive for them to be able to understand, thus they don't even try. And can you really blame them? Just look at all the graduate-level military schools we have in this country:

Command and Staff Colleges* Air Universityo Air Command and Staff College* United States Army Command and General Staff Collegeo School of Advanced Military Studies* Naval War Collegeo College of Naval Command and Staff* Marine Corps Universityo Marine Corps Command and Staff College* Joint Forces Staff College* Defense Acquisition University

War Colleges* Naval War Collegeo College of Naval Warfare* National Defense Universityo National War Collegeo Industrial College of the Armed Forces* U.S. Army War College* Air Universityo Air War College

Graduate Schools* Naval Postgraduate School* Air Force Institute of Technology* Industrial College of the Armed Forces

Most Americans don't have any idea what these schools do, and even the most "informed" of my fellow students are clueless as to the great reshaping of our military taking place right now, even though its being debated openly. And if a subject has failed to penetrate the consciousness of undergraduate students, it surely has failed to penetrate the consciousness of the average American. We are already debating the restructuring of our force, but we haven't yet debated the grand strategy that is the impetus for that realignment.