Conflict

The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine

De: David Petraeus, Andrew Roberts

Narrado por: David Petraeus, Robert Fass

Two leading authorities—an acclaimed historian and the outstanding battlefield commander and strategist of our time—collaborate on a landmark examination of war since 1945. Conflict is both a sweeping history of the evolution of warfare up to Putin’s invasion of the Ukraine, and a penetrating analysis of what we must learn from the past—and anticipate in the future—in order to navigate an increasingly perilous world.

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.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2023 David Petraeus and Andrew Roberts (P)2023 HarperCollins Publishers

Timely and relevant

The views ascribed clearly show the successes and failures of strategic civilian and military leaders in modern war. I imagine this will be a mainstay of reading at our war colleges.

Amazing collection of war wisdom

Listening in mid-2025, this 2023 title has already proven its prophetical value. The entire work is fascinating, but the last chapters on Ukraine and the future of warfare are riveting. Great narration quality, half by Patraeus himself.

Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it

The memes about conflict in the 20th century were mostly wrong and I didn't know it. We won 2 "Vietnams" before Vietnam, and could have won Vietnam with competent leadership. We almost lost Korea. Tge initial Iraq war commander made 1 very dumb decision 4 weeks in that took 6 years of fighting to fix. Amazing, readable history!

Well written and thorough, but a bit self-serving

I thought that most of the book was very well written and thoroughly worth reading. The military analyses of the wars the authors described seemed spot on. The last chapters, however seemed a bit self-serving as they described wars (Afghanistan and Iraq) in which one of the authors had been very involved.

I have no problem with the military aspects of both as described, but I think General Petraeus gives too short a shrift to the murky facts of the political and military quagmire in which we had gotten ourselves involved. Particularly in the case of Afghanistan, while he does mention that a good part of our problem was that we went in with a very incomplete understanding of the nation and people we encountered there, he fails to make as much of the fact as he might have that the Afghani’s were thoroughly unprepared for the kind of nation building into which we turned the war, and that the Afghani’s themselves neither sufficiently supported their own government nor were their own armed forces ever sufficiently ready or motivated to take on their own defense against the Taliban. One cannot take a nation so lacking in natural resources or so completely unused to anything like democracy and expect that within less than a generation it can become anything like the United States. We had over one hundred and fifty years of ‘practicing’ democracy as colonies distant from the mother country before we finally fought a war and wrote our Constitution, and even then the process of becoming a republic was a dicy one (as it still is). It is wholly unrealistic to suppose that our staying in Afghanistan (or Iraq) for some unspecified amount of time would have resolved these issues.

Perhaps the authors could have taken a lesson from our own Revolution. We could probably not have forced the British to give the attempt to retain their control over us without the military help of the French, but we needed no nation building efforts on their part, nor would we have accepted that effort if it had been either offered to or forced on us. We were determined to create our own country, and we had the will and the political wherewithal to do it. We just needed a temporary military boost to complete the job. The Afghani’s lacked both.

An invaluable resource for a dynamic time

A must read for anyone interested in the evolution of warfare and what is in store for the United States in future conflicts.

Experience of writers

War on a first hand level.
Great read if you like the subject.
war today and tomorrow will be difficult to accomadate.

I appreciate the analysis of the various aspects of conflicts past and present.

N/A. Thank you. I do not wish to add additional content. Let’s not make this harder.

Required reading

This book is should be on the reading list of both armchair generals and the professionals. I thoroughly enjoyed the historical references and the current Ukrainian war report is both frightening and informative.

The length and depth of the narrative

I liked the entire narrative, but at times found the story confusing and difficult to follow.

Morale is directly correlated with the belief your side will win.

The breaking down of multiple theaters of combat from both sides perspective as well as the little known aspects of each conflict that the author was privy to.