Many things German don't work in America. Forestry is one classic example. When the US realized 100 years or so ago that forests were not an endless resource and required management we turned to the experts in Germany for advice.

Their answer was simple and logical: Cut down all of the wild forest and replace it with efficient plantations of even aged, mono-cultured stands of manageable trees. Maximize the volume/profit per acre, etc.

So we set about cutting down the old growth forests with American industry. We also wanted to make our national forests accessible to all for multiple use, so we scattered the timber sales throughout the forest so as to promote a vast road network to service the sales. In a matter of decades we came to realize that more miles of forest road than interstate freeway was a problem to maintain, and that checkerboards of clearcuts were destroying the "deep forest" ecosystem and ecology that affected fish and farming as much as it did elk and owls.

What made sense in a densely populated state like Germany simply did not work in a vast continental nation such as the US. We will be recovering from that error for several generations yet to come.

So direct lifts that work well one place may be highly unsuited to another. Someone needs to pass that to the team leading the design for Afghanistan...