February 6, 2008: The U.S. experience in Iraq has led to a renewed interest, among its NATO allies, in urban warfare. U.S. veterans of that kind of war, have developed new weapons, equipment and tactics. Urban warfare is nothing new, but in peacetime this deadly specialty tends to get less attention. Avoiding the unpleasant, so to speak. But Iraq, and to a lesser extent, Afghanistan, made it clear that the more proficient you were at urban combat, the more quickly you could accomplish your mission, and with fewer losses. The Americans actually got a lot of good advice from the Israelis, but in most NATO countries, the Palestinians are considered victims of Israeli aggression. So learning anything from Israeli military experience is considered politically incorrect.

But U.S. and other NATO troops train together regularly, so these Israeli techniques, and many new ones the Americans have developed in the past five years, have become sought after knowledge in NATO armies.