CISAC scholar hopes to use data to fight political violence

For just more than a year, U.S. Army Col. Joseph Felter traveled around Afghanistan in a role his supervisors described as "a directed telescope." His job: go to the different provinces and neighborhoods in Afghanistan, talk to military personnel at all levels, and report back with his observations and conclusions directly to Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who headed Afghan operations until June 2010, and then Gen. David Petraeus, who took over McChrystal's post. Felter says the experience provided critical insight into what was happening in Afghanistan, and what was working, or not, with the U.S. counterinsurgency strategy. He found that the most effective units were those that understood the population with whom they were living and could work closely with local security forces. "Counterinsurgency is such a local enterprise," he says.