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“Strategic concepts have evolved faster since the Second World War than at any comparable period in history. A commander in that war was essentially using the same structure �� corps, divisions, regiments, battalions �� that Napoleon had employed in the early nineteenth century…Since then, however, warfare has evolved at a dizzying pace, particularly over the past two decades, and this book delineates how and why crucial changes have taken place �� as well as the dramatic developments we can expect in the coming decades…��
- Andrew Roberts and David Petraeus, Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine

There are no guarantees in life or reading, but Andrew Roberts’s and David Petraeus’s Conflict seemed like a sure thing. Its pedigree is impeccable. Roberts has a well-deserved reputation as a master biographer, having delivered big, engrossing tomes on Napoleon Bonaparte and Winston Churchill. Meanwhile, Petraeus is a retired general who �� whatever else you think about him �� reached the very apex of his profession. These two seemed perfectly matched to the subject matter, a survey of how warfare has evolved since the end of the Second World War, taking us right up to the ongoing war in Ukraine.

Alas, despite the alignment of these stars, Conflict came as a minor disappointment to me. It’s not a bad book, per se. It is entirely cromulent. It's a bit disjointed, but not unreadable or grammatically unsound. The authors are not trying to offend or insult anyone, at least not that I noticed. If I had to describe my feelings in one word, it would be “meh.�� If it were a bodily movement, Conflict would be a shoulder shrug. Since I finished reading it, I haven’t thought about it once.

***

If nothing else, Conflict is ably constructed for ease of access. It is divided into nine chapters laid out by both chronology and geography. Some of the chapters are devoted to a single clash, while others contain rundowns of multiple wars. A tenth chapter at the end �� which works better than the others �� provides a series of conclusions about warfare heading into the future.

The scope is ambitious, and Roberts and Petraeus try to cover a lot. Some of their targets are obvious, such as America’s war in Vietnam. Other encounters are less well known, including a nice recap of the strange Falklands War.

Still, the authors try to encompass way too much in a book that is less than five-hundred pages in length. This leads to inconsistencies in terms of depth and detail. Oftentimes, this felt like an encyclopedia, with a lot of short entries that broadly tell you what happened, without getting into the why and the how. There is also a strong American-centric bias in terms of space given to particular topics. Granted, the United States has not been shy about starting or joining wars since 1945. Nonetheless, I would’ve appreciated a bit more time given to the less obvious, and less time given to the very obvious.

***

Most of Conflict is written like a typical third-person history. I’m guessing Roberts handled most of it, though this is unfortunately blander than his other work, which I have really enjoyed. When we get into America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, however, Roberts steps aside, and Petraeus takes over writing duties, delivering a first-person account of these debacles.

Given that he was a participant in both, Petraeus’s recounting is far from objective, and at times feels more than a little self-serving. That caveat aside, these two chapters might be the best part of the book. He does a really good job of condensing America’s longest wars into something that is digestible. Furthermore, unlike other chapters that tend to have only superficial observations, Petraeus actually demonstrates some acuity into how things went wrong, and how they might have gone better. It was interesting to read these sections close in time to Andrew Bacevich’s America’s War for the Greater Middle East, as the two former soldiers provide a point-counterpoint to the United States’s controversial, expensive, and deadly endeavors.

***

Conflict makes a lot of promises that it ultimately fails to keep. Partly this is due to some apparent confusion as to its purpose. The advertising copy promises a “deep and incisive�� exploration of seventy years of combat, drawing “significant insights and lessons.�� The authors themselves �� on the other hand �� state that their work is about “strategic leadership,�� and even give their four key principles on transforming “even the most seriously disadvantageous situations for the better.�� These are different concepts. The former is extremely broad, and can include tactics and technological advances. The latter is more specific, with its focus on extremely high-level command.

For the most part, this doesn’t really matter, because there are long stretches in Conflict where the authors seem to have forgotten that they had a point to make in the first place. Rather, as noted above, most of the book is given over to a whirlwind tour of numerous battlefields.

***

I don’t usually pay attention to the blurbs on a book’s cover, since they are mostly meaningless without their original context. Here, though, they caught my attention, mainly because they express opinions so utterly different than my own. Three generals, an admiral, and the late Henry Kissinger all fawn over Conflict’s analyses, one of them even comparing the book to Clausewitz’s famed On War.

This just boggles my mind. While entertaining at times, Conflict felt extremely superficial, full of banalities, gross simplifications, and over-generalizations. Take �� for example �� the four leadership tips that Roberts and Petraeus believe in so deeply. They consist of grasping the big picture, effective communication, overseeing implementation, and refining the aforementioned big picture. This is the kind of stringing-together of buzz words that you’d see in a corporate seminar. It’s also pretty meaningless. Oh, I have to grasp the big picture? Got it.

But you can take this all with a grain of salt. After all, I am not a general, an admiral, or the late Henry Kissinger.

***

Conflict is a bit hard to discuss, since it doesn’t make much of an impression. I tend to remember great books and terrible books. I get excited talking about great or terrible books. This isn’t great or terrible. It’s in the vast middle ground, pleasant enough to read, and entirely emotionally neutral. But I expected a lot more, given the names involved, and the possibilities they teased.