When Shock'n'Awe failed and diplomacy began

Via Steve Clemons of the Washington Note:

I agree with Ricks that Captain Samuel Cook and his Crazyhorse Troop showed remarkable sense in changing what were failing heavy-handed counterinsurgency methods into something far more effective. The opposite of this strategy can easily be seen in two award-winning films that benchmark what was going on before officers like Captain Cook and another favorite of mine, Captain Jon Powers (who recently ran and lost in a Democratic primary for a New York House seat), began changing the game on the front line of contact with Iraq's civilians. One of these was Michael Tucker's Gunner Palace and the other Alex Gibney's Taxi to the Dark Side.

The Surge is still controversial, and I look forward to reading Tom Ricks' assessment of it -- and why the surge, per se, mattered so much. One of the questions I look forward to exploring is why a "change in tactics" (i.e., using any of the sensible tactics Captain Samuel Cook used in the video above) required a greater deployment of troops.