Petraeus on Russian Incompetence: General Who Lost Iraq and Afghanistan

Petraeus criticizes Russian incompetence after losing Iraq and Afghanistan

General David Petraeus, former commander of US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, claims that "Russian incompetence is staggering." This statement, made in a thirty-minute interview, has reignited the debate over who has the authority to lecture on military strategy. After all, Petraeus led two wars that the United States won on the battlefield but lost politically. Zero wars won, summarizes one side of the analysis. The other responds with the inverted argument: if the Russian army is so incompetent, why has it failed to subdue Ukraine for two and a half years?

What Petraeus said and why it generates backlash

The interview is presented as a reference piece: thirty minutes of content on military doctrine, logistics, and leadership. The problem is the résumé. Petraeus oversaw the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the 2007 troop surge, and the withdrawal from Afghanistan. In Iraq, Saddam Hussein's government fell within weeks. In Afghanistan, the Taliban were ousted within months. And in both cases, two decades later, the result was the same: the US army left and the governments it installed collapsed.

Some argue this reading confuses two distinct things. Operational effectiveness—toppling a regime, occupying a country, destroying a conventional army—is one thing. Political victory is another. By that standard, Petraeus lost the two wars he led. The CEO of KKR, as he is called with irony, gives lessons from an investment office.

The argument that dismantles the comparison

The most repeated defense is the asymmetry of scenarios. Petraeus only faced Third World armies, subjected to sanctions for decades and without external military support. He has no experience in symmetric conflicts like the one fought by Russia and Ukraine. His specialty was counterinsurgency in occupied territories, a tactical problem that does not translate to a war of artillery, drones, and trenches.

The counterargument is devastating from the other side. The United States invaded Iraq halfway across the world, eliminated its government in a few weeks, and suffered a ridiculously low number of casualties. Russia has spent two and a half years trying to conquer an area equivalent to Portugal in a neighboring country, with good communications, flat terrain, and no geographic obstacles beyond a few rivers. Hundreds of thousands dead and wounded on both sides.

Did the United States win the Iraq War?

Militarily, yes. It crushed the Iraqi army, occupied the country, and stayed as long as it wanted. What came next is different: the power vacuum, the insurgency, the rise of the Sarracinic State, and a withdrawal that left Iraq in Tehran's orbit. Those defending this thesis compare the case to the conquest of Mexico: Hernán Cortés did not lose the war against the Mexica because Mexico became independent later.

Those refuting it point out that military victory without political victory is a delayed defeat. And presenting the invasion of Iraq as an operational success requires ignoring that it was based on false information about weapons of mass destruction. The excuse was invented by Western intelligence services themselves, not by a confused translator.

The front that matters: Kursk and Russian attrition

The conversation quickly shifted to the ground. The Ukrainian incursion into the Russian region of Kursk is interpreted in two ways. For some, it is an attrition operation forcing Moscow to divert troops. For others, it is an invasion without conquest: entering is not securing. Russia, however, has incorporated several formerly Ukrainian republics into the Federation and maintains control of the territory it occupies.

Casualty calculations are a minefield. Circulating figures range from 10,000 dead in Kursk to a million total casualties, including the 100,000 attributed to the Russian side. None come from a verifiable source. Both sides agree only that attrition is enormous and that time works in opposite directions depending on whom you ask.

NATO's shadow and Ukraine's attrition

Here the analysis splits into two currents. One holds that Ukraine is not fighting alone: it receives weaponry, intelligence, and advice from NATO, turning the conflict into an indirect struggle between Russia and the Alliance. The other responds that this does not change the essence: if the Russian army were as competent as assumed, it should have resolved the issue two and a half years ago.

Ukraine pays the human cost. European taxpayers pay the material cost. And Russia pays the strategic attrition, having seen Sweden and Finland join NATO and its economy reoriented toward China and India at bargain prices. The three-day special operation aimed at Kyiv is now in its third year.

Where the analysis gets stuck

Petraeus is right about one thing: Russian incompetence in the initial phase of the invasion was evident. The assault on Hostomel Airport, the forty-kilometer column stalled at the gates of Kyiv, the lack of coordination between forces. All that peine and is documented. What does not hold up is the conclusion drawn: that Russia will lose the war.

Because the same general who diagnosed that incompetence also led the withdrawal from Afghanistan. There, the world's most powerful army took twenty years to understand that you cannot win a war if you don't know what it is for. Something similar happens with Ukraine, only reversed: nobody knows how much territory suffices to declare victory, who signs the peace, or what happens to the millions of displaced. The analysis gets stuck exactly there.