Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, Peril (2021), New York: Simon & Schuster, hardcover, p. 415-416
“

Across the Potomac River at Quarters 6, inside his second-floor, top secret Sensitive Compartmented Information facility, surrounded by multiple secure video screens connected to the White House and the world, Chairman Milley was still trying to sort out the meaning of the January 6 riot... The conventional wisdom, which had settled into Washington, was that there had been warnings. But Milley knew the internet chatter lacked coherence and did not provide the specific, credible intelligence that could avert a catastrophe. It had been a grave U.S. intelligence failure, comparable to the missed warnings prior to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and to Pearl Harbor, and exposed glaring gaps and weaknesses in the American system. What did Milley and others miss? What did they not understand? Milley, ever the historian, thought of the little remembered 1905 revolution in Russia. The uprising had failed, but it had set the stage for the successful 1917 revolution that led to the creation of the Soviet Union. Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the 1917 revolution, had later called the 1905 revolution "The Great Dress Rehearsal." Had January 6 been a dress rehearsal?

— Bob Woodward on Mark Milley

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Across the Potomac River at Quarters 6, inside his second-floor, top secret Sensitive Compartmented Information facility, surrounded by multiple secure video screens connected to the White House and the world, Chairman Milley was still trying to sort out the meaning of the January 6 riot... The conventional wisdom, which had settled into Washington, was that there had been warnings. But Milley knew the internet chatter lacked coherence and did not provide the specific, credible intelligence that could avert a catastrophe. It had been a grave U.S. intelligence failure, comparable to the missed warnings prior to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and to Pearl Harbor, and exposed glaring gaps and weaknesses in the American system. What did Milley and others miss? What did they not understand? Milley, ever the historian, thought of the little remembered 1905 revolution in Russia. The uprising had failed, but it had set the stage for the successful 1917 revolution that led to the creation of the Soviet Union. Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the 1917 revolution, had later called the 1905 revolution "The Great Dress Rehearsal." Had January 6 been a dress rehearsal?" in the context of "Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, Peril (2021), New York: Simon & Schuster, hardcover, p. 415-416" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

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Source: Wikiquote: "Mark Milley" (Quotes about Milley: [[File:Donald Trump official portrait.jpg|thumb| This guy turned out to be a Woke train wreck who, if the Fake News reporting is correct, was actually dealing with China to give them a heads up on the thinking of the President of the United States. This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH! ~ Donald Trump]]) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Bob Woodward

About Bob Woodward

Robert Upshur "Bob" Woodward (born March 26, 1943) is a journalist in the United States, known mostly for his work in helping uncover the Watergate scandal that led to President Richard Nixon's resignation, in a partnership with Carl Bernstein, while working as a reporter for The Washington Post. He has written twelve nonfiction books and has twice contributed reporting to efforts that collectively earned the Post and its National Reporting staff a Pulitzer Prize.