Love the first sentence of this paragraph:
Not long ago, the Human Terrain Program would have been a little too kumbaya for an Army more accustomed to shooting enemies than schmoozing sheikhs. So would McFate’s contention that “in a counterinsurgency, your level of success is inversely proportional to the amount of lethal force that you expend.” But by 2006, with the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns unraveling, the attitude was shifting. McFate was invited to help rewrite the Army’s manual on counterinsurgency. It counseled officers to apply all of the tools at their disposal: not only bullets and bombs, but economic development, propaganda, and political deal making. The Pentagon steadily increased the number of teams, and the program is slated to eventually comprise nearly 700 people — all serving as guides to Iraq and Afghanistan’s cultural, political, and tribal landscapes.
Very interesting.
