The Best Defense interview: Petraeus on not running for president, pirates, President Obama & 'The Blind Side'.
... Americans are, I think, up to speed on the situations in Afghanistan and Iraq and, to a lesser degree perhaps, with respect to Iran. Areas that I think have been less noticed include: Pakistani operations to combat the Pakistani Taliban (though, to be fair, they have received more attention recently); efforts by the United States and countries in the region to help Yemen deal with AQAP and a variety of political, economic, and social challenges; efforts to establish the Regional Security Architecture in the CENTCOM AOR; initiatives by U.S. forces, together with NATO, EU, and other partners to combat piracy; and the regional effort to counter Al Qaeda and other trans-national extremists...
My dinner with Gen. George Casey: girding for a long war, and more.
... He indicated he believes that President Obama is going to be a war president, like it or not. "We believe this is a long-term ideological struggle," that "this enemy is not going to quit," and that existing global trends are "like to exacerbate" the situation. "We are in for a decade or more of persistent conflict."
He thinks future warfare will resemble the fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon in 2006, in which "a non-state actor has the instruments of state power." That means, he said, that the organizing principle for training and educating the force must be "versatility." ...