Former CIA director David Petraeus warned Wednesday that the US should not take the international order for granted, suggesting that it could collapse and benefit US adversaries such as Russia.
“Americans should not take the current international order for granted,” Petraeus told the House Armed Services Committee. “It did not will itself into existence. We created it. Likewise, it is not naturally self-sustaining. We have sustained it. If we stop doing so, it will fray and, eventually, collapse. This is precisely what some of our adversaries seek to encourage.”
Petraeus specifically mentioned Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying that the former KGB agent “understands that, while conventional aggression may occasionally enable Russia to grab a bit of land on its periphery, the real center of gravity is the political will of major democratic powers to defend Euro-Atlantic institutions like NATO and the EU.”
Petraeus spoke at a hearing examining “the State of the World: National Security Threats and Challenges.” Beyond Russia, he warned of the threat posed by Islamic extremism, but offered an indirect criticism of President Donald Trump’s travel ban.
“We must also remember that Islamic extremists want to portray this fight as a class of civilizations … we must not let them do that,” Petraeus said.
The committee chairman, Rep. Mac Thornberry, a Texas Republican, said that at a similar hearing two years ago he quoted former National Security Adviser and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who said US hadn’t faced a more diverse and complex array of crises since the end of WWII.
“I’m not sure that anything has been simplified or made easier in the last two years,” Thornberry said. “In fact, it seems that the world has only grown more dangerous.”