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During the November 2004 battle of Fallujah, Filkins and photographer Ashley Gilbertson asked to photograph a dead insurgent in a mosque minaret. The episode shows that a correspondent's presence is never neutral: getting the picture can cost someone else's life, and the witness becomes part of the causal chain.
In Afghanistan, battles were often settled by commanders switching sides once the balance of power became clear, with fighters negotiating surrender and changing allegiance rather than fighting to the last man. Loyalty was a tradable position held by local strongmen, so the Taliban's 2001 collapse came largely through mass defections bought or brokered, not military destruction. The result is that the victorious coalition absorbs yesterday's enemies, leaving the underlying power structure largely intact.
In late 2003, Lt. Col. Nathan Sassaman's battalion wrapped the Iraqi village of Abu Hishma in barbed wire, issued residents ID cards, and controlled entry through checkpoints after insurgent attacks. He described the approach as convincing Iraqis the Americans were there to help through a heavy dose of fear and violence plus money for projects. The case tests whether coercive control can produce consent: it suppressed attacks locally while deepening resentment and the sense of occupation.
Americans in Iraq operated without the language, kinship knowledge, or social cues to know what Iraqis actually believed, so Iraqis routinely told them what was safe or profitable to say while acting on different loyalties. Viewing the war through this gap explains why US officers could believe progress was being made while support for the insurgency grew. Information asymmetry, not firepower, set the limits of what the occupation could achieve.