Today on Uncommon Knowledge, Amb. Charles Hill, author of Grand Strategies: Literature, Statecraft, and World Order. In his book, Amb. Hill argues that “ the eons-long struggle between the…[clan] and the civil society of statehood is fully alive…in Afghanistan and other parts of the Middle East.” Is President Obama aware of this?
No, I don’t think he is…In Washington, you will hear them say, “Well, we have to get out of this area and focus on this one – wrap it up over here and move from A to B.” Washington has no sense of the reality, which is that every part will reverberate or have something to do with the other part. Business people know this. They know that the supply chain, quality control, manufacturing, the personnel system, the larger economy, the world economy – these things are all tied together….What you do in Afghanistan, what you do in Iraq—these things are connected. Gen. Petraeus fully understands this. Washington does not.