A recent article on NPR reports the use of network science in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars: "The U.S. military's biggest success so far in the use of network analysis was the capture of Saddam Hussein in December 2003. He was found after soldiers diagrammed the social networks of his chauffeurs and others close to him. [...] While on leave last month from his post in Baghdad, McCulloh taught a one-week class in "Advanced Network Analysis and Targeting" to a group of Iraq-bound soldiers at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. Each of the soldiers was to be involved with the anti-IED effort in Iraq, primarily in the selection of targets for military operations. One of the goals listed in McCulloh's course guide is to help soldiers mathematically quantify influential network nodes ... in order to provide warfighters with objective measures for the relative values of various potential targets." (You can read the full NPR story here.)