Joseph Felter is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and a senior research scholar at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. Felter retired from the US Army as a colonel in 2011 following a career as a Special Forces and foreign area officer. He has conducted foreign internal defense and security assistance missions across East and Southeast Asia and has participated in operational deployments to Panama, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He led the International Security and Assistance Force, Counterinsurgency Advisory and Assistance Team, in Afghanistan, reporting directly to Generals Stanley McChrystal and and David Petraeus and advising them on counterinsurgency strategy.