A strategic assessment of the wars in Iran and in Ukraine was delivered to senior executives in the long-term insurance industry yesterday at the 2026 Bermuda International Life and Annuity Conference.

It came from retired US Army general David Petraeus who left a 37-year illustrious military career for a short stint as America’s top spy at the head of the CIA, before becoming a partner at KKR, the global investment firm.

Mr Petraeus was giving keynote remarks, discussing trends in a conference session with Darryl Herrick, the global head of insurance client solutions at KKR.

He confirmed having met officials from the Bermuda Monetary Authority, as Mr Herrick questioned what Bermuda needs to do going forward.

He commented: “There's a reason that Bermuda is regulating $1.5 trillion in insurance and reinsurance. That's because of the big ideas, right?”

“The biggest acknowledgement of that is that we [KKR] are not going to the Cayman Islands any time soon, or the Isle of Wight or these other possible destinations? 
So this is really an extraordinary accomplishment.

“How do you maintain that? Again, it’s about, OK, you got the big ideas. But how do you keep them right as the situation evolves? 
It's a pretty good intellectual construct to focus on, because they keep pulling you back to the importance of the big ideas.

“They have to be pretty clear, and they can’t be fuzzy, and you have to, again, as the situation evolves in the world, keep them up to date, and that is the key.

“But I think that they show very, very impressive capabilities in that regard, and that's why I’m here. It’s why you're here. That’s why 20 per cent of KKR's AUM [assets under management] is here, right? 
That's a pretty, pretty big accomplishment for a country of 60,000 people.”

Chairman of the KKR Global Institute and chairman of KKR Middle East, Mr Petraeus is also a board member at Optiv and OneStream, a strategic adviser for Sempra and Advanced Navigation, a personal venture investor, an academic, and the coauthor (with British historian Andrew Roberts) of the New York Times bestselling book Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Gaza.

He still has a hand in the strategic military complex, after six consecutive commands as a general officer, five of which were in combat, including command of the surge in Iraq, command of US central command, and command of coalition forces in Afghanistan.

Just a couple of weeks ago on one of his frequent visits to Ukraine, a jet-powered Russian drone blew up the train locomotive right next to him.

Amid reactions from the conference crowd, he nonchalantly commented: “It was terrifying for those who had not been under fire before.”

He added: “I was pretty confident that they weren’t going to hit passengers. I don’t think they knew that I was on the train.

“I don't go on the VIP train with Boris Johnson and all the others. We have our own train car. I have a team that goes with me to Ukraine all the time.

“A couple of former Moscow station chiefs from CIA days … we get our own train car, but we just attach it to a regular passenger train, and I don't think that they were tracking that.

“I am sanctioned by people, which is very, very fair, you know, a very strong supporter of Ukraine. I should note, as an aside, I was runner-up for Time Person of the Year in 2007. Vladimir Putin beat me out.”

The amusing anecdotes were just a warm-up to his explanation of how modern-day warfare has evolved, and how many countries, including the US, have not yet caught up.

He said today’s war is an air command, with heavy surveillance; tanks are not effective in the Ukraine conflict; and unmanned, self-operating drones are as near as this year or next, identifying targets without the need for pilots.

The Ukrainians make 25,000 drones a day, but deploy only 10,000 of them daily, because of the lack of pilots.

But he said: “When you get an autonomous system, and then you'll have autonomous launch and other developments, the numbers are going to be staggering. You then will see drone swarms, and drone swarms are something for which we have no defence right now.”

Russia is now using jet-powered drones, which fly higher and faster than the interceptor drones that the Ukrainians use.

“So that's a real problem right now,” he said. “They [Ukraine] are only knocking out 50 per cent of the drones instead of the normal 90 to 95 per cent.”

The drone technology advances on both sides is accelerating with new software on a weekly basis.

The digital component of warfare is becoming more important, as artificial intelligence replaces the need for physical components and commanders will one day have agentic AI staff officers.

He said experts have reported to him on the rapid advances in AI and how it is going to affect warfare. He said while the US desires to win the general AI race, he expects there will be a need for some constraints and regulation to dictate its rapid advances.

With regard to Iran, he sees pressure on its government to make a deal to end the war, because they are already facing inflation of 80 per cent, high unemployment and an economy that is grinding to a halt. But negotiations cannot leave Iran with control of the Strait of Hormuz.

He believes 17 million to 22 million barrels of oil is needed to get supply and demand back in balance, and he believes it can be done. He says there are interests from American oil companies and from within the region to find ways around the blockade.

New strategies are emerging in the Middle East, he said, as countries like Iraq, Kuwait and others seek ways to avoid future dependencies. New pipelines are being developed and other ways will emerge for the distribution of oil and various other products.

Mr Petraeus said: “Every one of those countries will invest very, very heavily in hardening, resilience, defences, retaliatory capabilities, redundancy, going underground with data centres, even, and all the rest.”

He noted: “You can see perhaps the Saudis doing more in the Red Sea. So this is a very, very significant development for what will happen in the future, even as we're focused on how to get the strait, reopened for business as usual. Because, obviously, there are other goods that come out like fertilisers.

“Helium is produced in the Gulf, vital for making chips. If you can get 17 million barrels, you get supply and demand, Brent crude goes back to the low 80s, maybe even high 70s. Then you can see a path forward.”