If you have 27 minutes, listen to the following podcast of a fascinating segment NPR segment Fighting Words. http://www.wnyc.org/shows/bl/episodes/2009/05/18/segments/132176 (if the link doesn't work, copy and paste into your browser).
It is an interview with David Kilcullen, adviser on counterinsurgency to General Petraeus and the author of The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One who talks about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is interesting as a discussion about how to fight insurgent groups, but it can also be analyzed from the perspective of what he has to say about comparing “what works” in different countries, and what it takes to apply an approach that has been successful in one country to the situation in another country. In particular it is a great lesson on how much we need to know about local conditions before we import “successful” tactics from another setting (whether it is to fight terrorism or to improve health and education outcomes). This is a core theme of this course. Listen particularly from minute 6.
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I don't have 27 minutes yet, though there's no doubt that local conditions must prevail, unless we're speaking to national choices, such as the president, the park service, and the high-speed rail system. We got 2 out of 3, so maybe it's time to revisit the trains.
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