The article also discusses success stories as defined by the author, the point being that systems with slightly better governance, or more purely humanitarian aid such as medical aid, is more likely to "take" and less likely to support patronage or misuse overtly.

If stability operations are going to be important in the future for all NATO countries then we should examine this stuff in a more intellectually rigorous fashion, IMO.

Difficult to do, I know, because metrics are always tough to guage when we are talking about any attempts at social engineering, or steering any human activity really.