The U.S. Army launched a program during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to have academics and scholars advise them. Did it work? John Kael Weston considers the evidence in Vanessa Gezari’s new book, The Tender Soldier. Plus: read an excerpt.
In early 2009, about midway through an assignment with the State Department at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, I received an unexpected message from a top military leader in the Pentagon.