No nation or group can stand up to the America army in a pitched battle.
Yet America's army and the Afghan government have collected digital records of more than 2.5m of them.
The data are passed on beyond Afghanistan, to America's army, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.
Each project has its own lobby, and its own role in the perpetual rivalry between America's army, navy and air force.
America's army chiefs were right to use their influence to restrain Egypt's armed forces from shooting into the crowds (see article).
In the latest version of the game, called America's Army: Special Forces (Overmatch), the military is adding the experiences of nine soldiers who served in Afghanistan or Iraq.
Given a choice, a lot of senior people in the Pentagon would clearly prefer to spend that sort of money on sharpening up America's army, navy and air force.
The best way to deal with racial conflict is 24-hour immersion, says Charles Moskos, a professor of sociology at Northwestern University, who notes that the most effectively integrated institution in America is the army.
America's army is already using the technology to analyse interactions between people in other countries, with a view to including this information in programs designed to teach cultural differences to soldiers stationed in foreign lands.
Militarily, Turkey has NATO's biggest army after America's, and hosts a large American airbase at Incirlik.
Its army told America it must, within days, stop using Shamsi airbase in Baluchistan for launching its drones.
ECONOMIST: Relations between the two look increasingly poisonous
And in March, skilful diplomacy by the army and America averted a political crisis sparked by Mr Zardari's efforts to have his more-popular rival, Nawaz Sharif, rendered ineligible for election.
Rigid, deceitful and, it seems, convinced that Islamist militancy poses a much lesser threat to Pakistan than America reckons, the army will always be an awkward ally along the north-west frontier.
Army reservists from America's farming states are meanwhile striving to teach Afghans how to boost their wheat and fruit harvests.
Some used to argue that now America has the biggest standing army the world has ever known it was a little bit redundant.
Today, Chile's is the most modern and best-equipped army in Latin America, says Armen Kouyoumdjian, an adviser to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
America has built an Iraqi army, but its loyalties are divided.
After its harsh birth in Korea and its stormy Vietnamese adolescence, America's fully-integrated army finally came of age in the Gulf war, the climax of Ms Buckley's story.
ECONOMIST: Blacks in the American forces: Double V for victory | The
In the past, keeping Israel close has allowed the army to cosy up to America.
To the agency, the Guatemalan Army was the defender of America's freedom.
Last week the CIA director, Leon Panetta, flew to Islamabad and confronted the army with evidence that intelligence America had recently passed on about two bomb-making factories in Pakistan's tribal areas, being used by insurgents active in Afghanistan, had led to a tip-off.
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The president-elect has an enormous job ahead, invigorating America's economy, getting the US army out of Iraq and making good on the countless promises that won him the presidency.
He said that since security is improving and the Iraqi army is growing more capable, America should be able to withdraw a marine unit immediately, a brigade by Christmas and some 30, 000 troops by next summer.
But it could also lead to Musharraf's ousting, because most independent analysts here believe that the two pillars of Musharraf's support for the last nine years - the Pakistani army and the United States of America - simply could not back the president were he to do that.
Without surveillance equipment from America and its ally, Israel, the Angolan army could probably not have tracked down and killed Mr Savimbi.
ECONOMIST: This is Angola's best chance for peace for a decade
More to the point, America's abilities to influence Pakistan's army are limited.
America announced plans for a new, slim Iraqi army, and promised monthly sums to many of the ex-soldiers who have been unpaid since the end of the war.
With creative examples like a poet who became a management consultant, and an Army helicopter pilot who transitioned into corporate America, Dorie makes this point eloquently and shows us how we can all do it.
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