2 September 2016 MILITARY REVIEW EXCLUSIVE ONLINE

Strategic 

Command

General David 

Petraeus and 

the Execution 

of Strategic 

Leadership

Maj. William J. Denn, U.S. Army

Luck is what happens when preparation meets 

opportunity.

—Seneca, Roman philosopher

In the first few days of January 2007, Lieutenant 

Gen. David Petraeus was riding in a rental car with his 

wife, Holly, and their son on California’s Interstate 5 to 

visit his sick father in Santa Clarita. Almost on cue, every cell phone in the car started ringing, and Petraeus’ 

email inbox lit up with messages. Speaking on his son’s 

phone was an aide to the chairman of the joint chiefs—

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates wanted immediate 

contact with Petraeus.1

Holly pulled into a strip mall to find a spot with 

sufficient cell coverage. Petraeus could only think 

of the irony of taking such a career defining call in a 

rundown parking lot. Secretary Gates asked if Petraeus 

would take command of the war in Iraq. Petraeus told 

Gates yes. In reality, Petraeus wanted to discuss how he 

thought a commander needed to approach the job at 

hand. Petraeus wanted to be sure that the Bush administration understood what they were getting.2

 In that 

particular phone call, the administration just wanted to 

get to “yes,” so they could announce Petraeus’ nomination. A franker discussion would have to come later. On 

January 5th the White House announced that Petraeus 

would take command, leading a new strategy to turn 

the tide in the failing conflict.3

Very few leaders in history have been in a similar 

situation to Petraeus – that of a strategic-level commander; even fewer had served in that role for wars 

that many considered lost.4 By late 2006, many in 

Washington, including many senior military, were at 

a loss for how to salvage Iraq. Conventional thought 

held that the U.S. military presence was causing the 

problems, not alleviating them. The White House 

lacked a coherent strategy, but knew they needed a 

dramatic change. Petraeus, his counterinsurgency 

strategy, and a surge of forces formed the last ditch 

effort and gamble that the White House could take.

As defined by Dr. Robert Murphy at the U.S. 

Army War College, strategic leadership is “the process used by a leader to affect the achievement of a 

Gen. David H. Petraeus. (Portrait photo by Monica A. King, Department of Defense Photographer, U.S. military) 
MILITARY REVIEW EXCLUSIVE ONLINE September 2016 3

Petreaus and Strategic Leadership

desirable and clearly understood vision by influencing the organizational culture, allocating resources, 

directing through policy and directive, and building 

consensus within a volatile, uncertain, complex, and 

ambiguous global environment which is marked by 

opportunities and threats.”5 In essence, strategic leadership is exercised at a level where one is determining 

the direction of an organization.

In a military context, strategic leadership takes the 

form of strategic command but is subjected to a series 

of limitations, namely national policy and scope of the 

mission assigned to them. The extent to which a theater 

commander is a strategic commander depends on the 

extent of those limitations.

For Petraeus, a command in Iraq represented an 

opportunity rare to most generals. Despite the layers 

of authority within the Department of Defense, the 

National Security Council, the State Department, and 

the White House, the degree of latitude and responsibility he possessed was considerable.6

 To the best of his 

knowledge, Petraeus does not remember being given 

specific guidance other than to retrieve a desperate 

situation.7 Not only was Petraeus to be the commander 

leading the war effort, but with full support from the 

President and with tremendous influence in designing the national policies around that effort. In effect, 

Petraeus had carte-blanche; he would be exercising 

pure strategic command.

When called into a situation like Petraeus was in 

2007, how does one think about the role and responsibility of being a strategic commander? How does one 

think about changing the direction of an organization 

as large as the U.S. war effort in Iraq?

Strategic leadership, according to Petraeus, is based 

on the strategic leader making sound and ethical 

decisions with a continuous cycle of learning.8 This 

cycle, which he calls “the Four Tasks of Strategic 

Leadership,” includes:

1. developing the “big ideas;”

2. communicating those big ideas effectively;

3. overseeing their implementation; and

4. revising and institutionalizing the big ideas.9

The surge led by Petraeus in 2007 will certainly be 

entombed in the annals of history as one of the greatest military about-faces on the battlefield; however, in 

Petraeus’ opinion, it was a surge of ideas that was even 

more important than the surge of forces.10 This essay 

will detail how General Petraeus developed his view of 

strategic leadership and applied these concepts successfully during the surge in Iraq from 2007 to 2008.11

Getting The Big Ideas Right

The first task of strategic leadership, and the most 

difficult of all, is getting the big ideas right. As defined 

by Petraeus, big ideas are the overarching concepts that 

guide an enterprise or organization. Developing the 

right intellectual constructs to guide an organization’s 

approach is critical—they are the principles that guide 

operations. If the big ideas are wrong (or they lose their 

validity over time), then all subsequent operational 

plans will be built on shaky foundations. No desired effect will occur, no matter how many troops or resources one throws at a problem, if plans are built on poor 

ideas and assumptions.

Big ideas don’t usually come as an epiphany like 

Archimedes yelling “eureka” in the bathtub nor do they 

fall out of a tree like the apple onto Newton’s head. Big 

ideas tend to start as kernels and then are gradually developed and refined through analysis, study, and discussion.12

While many attribute the big ideas that would later 

be encapsulated in Field 

Manual (FM) 3-24, 

Counterinsurgency, as having been inspired during 

Petraeus’ tenure as commander of the Combined 

Arms Center (CAC) at 

Fort Leavenworth, the 

reality is Petraeus had 

been refining these ideas 

throughout his career under the tutelage of mentors.

Petraeus’ mentor 

and father-in-law, West 

Point Superintendent, Lt. 

Gen. William Knowlton, 

had been the military 

deputy to White House 

official Robert Komer. 

Komer led the successfully regarded Civil Operations 

and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) 

program in Vietnam.13 CORDS was regarded as one of 

the first programs to develop comprehensive civil-military cooperation in a counterinsurgency environment. 

Maj. William J. Denn, 

U.S. Army, is a military 

intelligence officer and 

student at the School of 

Advanced Military Studies, 

Fort Leavenworth, KS. 

He holds a B.S. from the 

United States Military 

Academy, an M.P.P. from 

Harvard University, and 

an MMAS from the 

Command and General 

Staff College. Denn is a recipient of the Gen. George 

Marshall Award and 

Gen. Douglas MacArthur 

Leadership Award.
MILITARY REVIEW EXCLUSIVE ONLINE September 2016 4

Petreaus and Strategic Leadership

Petraeus and Knowlton talked extensively about 

CORDS and its potential similarities in other counterinsurgency campaigns.14

As a young captain, Petraeus had the opportunity 

to serve as an aide-de-camp to Gen. Jack Galvin, then 

the 24th Infantry division commander. Gen. Galvin, 

one of the most respected generals in the Army at the 

time, had written much of the secret history of the 

Vietnam War, which Daniel Ellsberg later leaked as 

the Pentagon Papers.

15 Galvin had been a fierce critic 

of how the U.S. military fought in Vietnam. Galvin 

served as an inspiration to Petraeus in studying the 

lessons of Vietnam and in developing his intellectual 

acumen. Petraeus would later write his Princeton 

doctoral dissertation on the U.S. military’s attitude 

toward using force in Vietnam.16

In 1985, Petraeus would again serve as an assistant 

to Galvin, then serving as U.S. Southern Command 

commander and in charge of the brewing conflict in 

El Salvador. Petraeus would observe first-hand the 

frustrations of the U.S. military operating in a “low-intensity conflict.” Influential to Petraeus in El Salvador 

would be Brig. Gen. Fred Woerner, who led the U.S. 

Military Strategy Assistance Team. Woerner’s strategy 

would address the root causes of the insurgency, laying 

out a plan for rural land reform, urban jobs, humanitarian assistance, and basic services.17 Rather than solely 

focusing on an enemy-centric strategy, Woerner took a 

population-centric approach.18

For the Autumn 1986 edition of Parameters, Petraeus 

would write an article entitled “Lessons of History and 

Lessons of Vietnam.” In it he would conclude:

[there is] recognition that involvement in small 

wars is not only likely, it is upon us. It would seem 

wise, therefore, to come to grips with what appears 

to be an emerging fact for the U.S. military, that 

American involvement in low-intensity conflict is 

unavoidable ... . It would be timely to seek ways to 

assist allies in counterinsurgency operations, ways 

consistent with the constraints of the American 

political culture and system, as well as with the 

institutional agendas of the military services.19

Throughout his career, Petraeus would develop 

these big ideas that would prove so critical in Iraq and 

Afghanistan.20 Between low-intensity conflicts in Haiti 

and Bosnia in the 1990s, as well as more recently as 

commander of the 101st Infantry Division in Mosul, 

Iraq, Petraeus exhibited the capacity to synthesize the 

history of prior conflicts to inform an approach in 

other conflicts. The big ideas found in FM 3-24 were 

not a new discovery out of Iraq’s failures, but rather a 

combination of his intellectual commitment to a career 

studying history, first-hand observations under influential mentors, and his professional military education.

Later, Petraeus’ fifteen months as the Combined 

Arm Center (CAC) commander from 2005 to 2007 

at Fort Leavenworth, served as a time where he could 

apply intellectual rigor to capture and hone those ideas. 

To be fair, Petraeus involved over one hundred civilian 

journalists, scholars, and academics for a two-day vetting and open discussion of a draft version of FM 3-24; 

however, Petraeus always drove the process.21

While there were a number of big ideas captured in 

FM 3-24 and Petraeus’ subsequent command guidance, 

four of the biggest were:

• Secure the people: human terrain is the decisive 

terrain.

• You can’t kill or capture your way out of an industrial strength insurgency.

• Irreconcilables must be dealt with.

• A comprehensive civil-military counterinsurgency 

strategy is essential.

Recognizing the security of people, the military 

had to reverse a trend starting in 2004 of moving 

away from population centers onto super-bases. 

Living among the population is the only way to secure and serve them. Likewise, forces cannot simply 

clear an area and then leave it, moving onto the next 

neighborhood.22 Clearing required committing the 

resources to hold and rebuild areas once they had 

been cleared.23

Second, forces have to reconcile with as many of 

the insurgents as possible to turn them from being 

part of the problem into being part of the solution.24

For every insurgent the military kills or captures, 

potentially several others are created. Insurgent 

calculus works against a counterinsurgent force. This 

idea would inform the entire reconciliation initiative, 

building on the Anbar Awakening that had already 

occurred outside Ramadi but had not yet spread to 

greater Sunni populations.25

Third, while one hopes to reconcile as many insurgents as possible, there are irreconcilables. Senior 

leaders of Al Qaeda in Iraq, senior insurgent and 
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Petreaus and Strategic Leadership

militia leaders were irreconcilable, requiring targeted 

special operations to kill, capture, or run them off.26

Finally, the U.S. effort required a comprehensive 

civil-military counterinsurgency effort. There had 

to be absolute unity between civilian organizations, 

the military, as well as with Iraqi counterparts.27 This 

idea would lend to a close working relationship between Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker, as well as 

the expansion and support of the State Department’s 

Provincial Reconstruction Team Program, a modern 

derivative of the Vietnam-era CORDS.

These big ideas, refined over Petraeus’ career, institutionalized into the Army while at Leavenworth, and 

operationalized under his command would serve as the 

foundation for Petraeus’ surge into Iraq.

Communicating Big Ideas Effectively

Big ideas are never enough; the second task of 

strategic commanders is to communicate them effectively. The unique role of the strategic leader requires 

communication to flow in multiple directions: up 

through the chain of command, outward through coalition partners, the interagency, and the media, and 

downward through units and staffs to the troops.28

While in command, Petraeus aimed to be consistent 

and relentless in transmitting big ideas up, down, and 

out in every method available.29 Some of his communication was through formal direction. His counterinsurgency guidance, change of command speech, 

letter to the troops and his campaign plans, all helped 

to set the tone for operational commanders.30 Other 

secondary communication channels, including media 

reports, reports to Congress, discussions with individual subordinate leaders, and actions with coalition 

partners and Iraqis, indirectly communicated the big 

ideas.31 To Petraeus, consistency of communication 

was crucial to connect understanding of the big ideas 

to consistency of their execution.32

Upwards to the chain of command, Petraeus conducted weekly video teleconferences (VTCs) every 

Monday morning with President Bush and his national 

security team. Tuesdays he would VTC with Secretary 

Gates, the CJCS, and senior Pentagon advisors. He 

sent a weekly memorandum back to the U.S. Central 

Command commander, the chairman of the joint 

chiefs of staff, and Gates. When Congress was in recess, 

he would host up to three delegations per week.

Outward across the coalition, Petraeus would stop 

in London every time he traveled back to Washington. 

Nurturing coalition relationships was a critical task for 

Petraeus, but sometimes this took the form of staying 

on message, especially with the Iraqis. Petraeus made it 

a priority of always talking to Prime Minister Nouri al 

Maliki with Ambassador Khalilzad (and later Crocker) 

by his side to show a unity of effort.33 There were rare 

occasions when Petraeus had to threaten al Maliki with 

his resignation when al Maliki refused to implement 

Petraeus’ counterinsurgency campaign plan.34

Finally, communicating the big ideas down to the 

troops is the most important communication task—it is 

how a leader can enact the most impact on the ground. 

Petraeus used many opportunities to visit troops on 

battlefield circulations to achieve this aim. Over time, 

using relentless communication at all levels, Petraeus’ 

big ideas began to take hold, and those responsible for 

executing the ideas came to understand what they were 

trying to do and why.

Ensuring Implementation

A strategic leader has to personally drive the campaign. Driving the campaign does not mean micromanagement, but rather is reflective of how a strategic 

leader defines success, prioritizes his or her time, and 

empowers subordinates. In Petraeus’ case, driving success included defining metrics, imposing a disciplined 

battle rhythm, and empowering mission command.

Success does not occur in one final battle, but instead is a gradual accumulation of progress measured 

over time. Petraeus and his staff used a tremendously 

structured process to understand all the variables that 

might affect progress: daily attacks, suicide car bombs, 

roadside bombs, sectarian violence, friendly and 

civilian casualties, megawatts of electricity produced, 

oil exported, basic service provisions, hospitals built, 

schools built, rule of law—all helped Petraeus visualize 

how the campaign was being successfully or unsuccessfully implemented on the battlefield.35

Petraeus’ battle rhythm also became a method to 

ensure implementation of his big ideas. There would 

be time to regularly meet with the generals he charged 

with critical tasks such as the train and equip mission 

and detainee operations. He also built two days where he 

could conduct battlefield circulations to visit troops and 

communicate his big ideas into his weekly battle rhythm. 
MILITARY REVIEW EXCLUSIVE ONLINE September 2016 6

Petreaus and Strategic Leadership

Through regular reporting by subordinates and frequent 

visitations to the front line troops, he could continue to 

steer his organization towards progress.

According to Petraeus, “implementing big ideas typically requires empowering people and organizations to 

execute the ideas at their levels without the need for constant approval – indeed, empowering subordinate leaders 

to exercise considerable initiative.”36 Tracing its roots 

from the Prussian concept of Auftragstaktik, and later 

codified in U.S. Army doctrine as “mission command,” 

Petraeus sought to enable disciplined initiative within 

his commander’s intent to empower agile and adaptive 

leaders. He would seek to empower brigade and battalion 

commanders in particular, but also the “strategic lieutenants” whose tactical actions would have strategic consequences.37 Promoting initiative within the auspices of his 

counterinsurgency guidance and commander’s intent was 

at the core of implementing his big ideas and defeating the 

insurgency at its most local level.38

Revising and Institutionalizing Big 

Ideas

Sometimes the big ideas need to be revised; one 

example is detainee guidance. Detainee guidance was not 

prominent in Petraeus’ previous assignments, nor in FM 

3-24. However, after the Spring 2007 riots involving about 

nine thousand detainees, Petraeus knew that big ideas 

were needed to guide detainee operations.39 The result 

was a systematic assessment under a new detainee joint 

task force commander. The new big idea was that detainee 

operations needed to conduct counterinsurgency inside 

the prison wire, just as much as outside. Detainee operations should rehabilitate the reconcilables and identify the 

extremists to get them out of the facilities.40

Strategic leaders are also responsible for ensuring that a 

“learning organization” captures best practices that are institutionalized for the future. For Petraeus, “the long-term 

effectiveness of any organization—whether a military 

unit, a civilian government agency, or a business—often 

depends on its ability to identify and institutionalize 

adaptations that have proven effective and need widespread implementation.”41

As the CAC commander, he observed this while overseeing the Center for Army Lessons Learned. As Petraeus 

notes, lessons are not “lessons learned” until they’ve been 

institutionalized, not just identified. Petraeus worked to 

institutionalize ideas while CAC commander and worked 

with the Asymmetric Warfare Group and his Training 

and Doctrine Command counterparts while in Iraq. They 

codified the lessons into Army doctrine, organizational 

structures, training scenarios at the Combat Training 

Centers, as well as leader development.42 When combined, 

these efforts would ensure the military would not forget 

lessons learned from the course of Petraeus’ career.

Conclusion

Many assume that Petraeus was lucky, being in the 

right place at the right time to be tapped for command in 

Iraq during President Bush’s surge. While there is truth 

to that observation, this essay has attempted to illustrate 

the tremendous amount of preparation over the course 

of a long career that laid the foundation for Petraeus’ 

command and success of the surge. Moreover, the surge 

was predicated on the strength of new big ideas that could 

only be implemented by a strategic leader willing and 

prepared to transform his organization. General Petraeus 

executed strategic leadership by developing these big ideas, 

communicating them effectively, overseeing their implementation, and ultimately institutionalizing them to turn 

around a hopeless war-effort in Iraq.

What remains unexamined are the unintended consequences of giving one leader such influence over operations and policy. Under one strategic commander, issues 

may simply be crowded out—such as Iran’s role in a future 

Iraq or Al Qaeda safe havens in Syria, both contributors to 

Iraq’s dysfunction today. Future research in strategic command may see value in a more collaborative role in policy 

formulation. Nonetheless, Petraeus’ leadership provides a 

tremendous case study in organizational transformation, 

mission command, and strategic leadership.

NOTES

1. Thomas Ricks, The Gamble: General Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq (New York: Penguin Books, 2009), 

127.

2. David Petraeus, interview by author, New York, 10 February 

2015.
MILITARY REVIEW EXCLUSIVE ONLINE September 2016 7

Petreaus and Strategic Leadership

3. Michael Gordon and Thom Shanker, “Bush to Name a New 

General to Oversee Iraq,” New York Times online, January 5, 2007, 

accessed March 5, 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/05/

world/middleeast/05military.html?_r=0.

4. Historian Victor Davis Hanson in his book The Savior Generals (2013) identifies five generals since Greek antiquities that won 

wars that most considered lost: Themistocles at Salamis in 480 B.C.; 

the Byzantine general Belisarius in 527 A.D.; William Tecumseh 

Sherman in 1864; Matthew Ridgeway in Korea, 1951; and Petraeus 

in Iraq, 2007.

5. Robert Murphy, “Strategic Leadership vs. Strategic Management: Untying the Gordian Knot,” unpublished paper, 8, accessed 

6 March 2016, http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/army-usawc/

murphyarticlefeb02c.pdf.

6. David Petraeus, interview by author.

7. Ibid.

8. Ibid.

9. David Petraeus, “Strategic Leadership and Old Nassau,” 

Princeton University Madison Medalist Alumni Day Lecture, Princeton, NJ, 20 February 2010.

10. Ibid.

11. This essay is a continuation of a larger project entitled 

“David Petraeus: On Strategic Command” sponsored by Harvard 

Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. The scope of this research project was for the author and his 

research team to understand the elements of strategic command 

from General Petraeus’ experiences as commander in Iraq, U.S. 

Central Command commander, and ultimately as commander in 

Afghanistan. The result of this project was a multimedia documentary available for public use. For more details visit http://www.

belfercenter.org/PetraeusStrategicLeadership.

12. David Petraeus, “Strategic Leadership and Old Nassau.”

13. James Kitfield, Prodigal Soldiers: How the Generation of 

Officers Born of Vietnam Revolutionized the American Style of War

(Washington DC: Brassey’s, 1995), 105.

14. Fred Kaplan, The Insurgents: David Petraeus and the Plot to 

Change the American Way of War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 

2013), 27.

15. Ibid., 22.

16. Ibid., 24.

17. Ibid., 28.

18. Influential to Petraeus at the time also was a widely 

read U.S. Army War College paper by Coln John Waghelstein, a Special Forces commander in El Salvador, which concluded, “Simply killing guerrillas will not solve El Salvador’s 

problems.” See Kaplan, The Insurgents, 29.

19. David Petraeus, “Lessons of History and Lessons of 

Vietnam,” Parameters 16, no. 3 (Autumn 1986).

20. Gen. Galvin would also ask Petraeus to ghostwrite 

an article for the Winter 1986 Parameters, entitled “Uncomfortable Wars: Toward a New Paradigm.” Penned under 

Galvin’s name, the article was read as an assault on the 

Army establishment. The conclusion was that low-intensity 

conflicts were going to dominate the upcoming battlefields. 

Governments must not only battle insurgents but also 

“reestablish political legitimacy” by addressing “contentious, long-ignored, but popular issues tied to key facets 

of national life—sociopolitical, economic, educational and 

juridical.” See Kaplan, The Insurgents, 30.

21. Armin Rosen, “The Legacy of David Petraeus and the 

Future of American War,” The Atlantic online, 16 November 

2012, accessed 6 March 2016, http://www.theatlantic.com/

international/archive/2012/11/the-legacy-of-david-petraeus-andthe-future-of-american-war/265301.

22. Petraeus, “Strategic Leadership and Old Nassau.”

23. In one divisional area alone in Baghdad, U.S. 

forces would establish seventy-seven additional locations, 

partnered with Iraqi security forces, living among the 

population.

24. Petraeus, “Strategic Leadership and Old Nassau.”

25. Ibid.

26. Ibid.

27. Ibid.

28. Ibid., 7.

29. Petraeus, interview by author.

30. Ibid.

31. Ibid.

32. Ibid.

33. Ibid.

34. One such event was when al Maliki demanded that coalition forces reduce their presence in population centers, consolidating again on super-bases. Al Maliki would also demand that 

coalition forces reduce their night raids against insurgent leaders.

35. Petraeus, interview by author.

36. Petraeus, “Strategic Leadership and Old Nassau,” 7.

37. Ibid.

38. In order to accomplish this Petraeus sometimes felt he 

needed to go around the traditional chain of command. Often 

he would hand out his email address to junior leaders instructing 

them to email him directly if their problems weren’t being addressed by their chain of command. He would also seek reporting 

from his “directed telescopes,” junior leaders throughout the force 

instructed to give him ground up reports of their progress and 

struggles. Petraeus was not attempting to undermine the traditional chain of command, but rather gaining a better perspective of 

the ground truth, solving problems, and empowering his leaders 

to turn his big ideas into real action at their level.

39. Peter Mansoor, Surge: My Journey with General David 

Petraeus and the Remaking of the Iraq War (New Haven, CT: Yale 

University Press, 2013), 153.

40. Petraeus, interview by author.

41. Petraeus, “Strategic Leadership and Old Nassau,” 8.

42. More specifically, the Army underwent what is referred to 

as a DOTMLPF review to understand how transform in the areas 

of Doctrine, Organization, Training, Materiel, Leadership Development, Personnel, and Facilities.