It appears to be a much more liberal endeavor than conventional war, but the right way to understand these techniques, like winning hearts and minds and stabilization operations, is that they are tactics of a particular method of warfare, and the ultimate objective of warfare is to assert control... What so often happens - we saw this in Iraq - is when ordinary people are not susceptible to the narrative the US is trying to sell them, then the irregular campaign becomes more dependent on military force, on hard power.