Zero Dark Thirty

 I'm almost boring myself with how many times I say that the United States is fighting its first, full-scale war against a non-uniformed combatant, but the significance of that remark is under stated. The Global War on Terrorism employed a completely new style of warfare called counterinsurgency, which the Field Manual for was not written until 2006. General David Petraeus  actually helped write it (for me, the fact that a living general actually helped write a war doctrine which was then used to govern the majority of the war is fascinating- usually they're all dead and they torture me with facts about their life by showing up in my military science tests). It's very fitting that after having written the FM for COIN, Gen. Petraeus was appointed director of the CIA. After all, the COIN FM was used by that branch also given their expertise in small, concentrated operations and specialties (like the collection of information through means of coercion). With respect to the war on terrorism, I heard it best said that "where the broad sword fails, the dagger may succeed."
When our enemies hide behind women, children, and the elderly, when their camouflage is the attire of a delivery boy, a building employee, a shop keeper...knowing who to shoot and who not to is 90% of the war.