Surveillance cameras have a pretty lousy track record of fighting terrorism and crime, here in the West. But that hasn't stopped major U.S. cities from putting up spycam networks – or kept Kabul from getting in on the act. Afghanistan's National Police have strung cameras around the capital, and are now monitoring their feeds from a central location. "When a suspect is located, they are followed from camera to camera, from every angle of view – until they are identified as a threat, or not," a NATO video says.

The cameras have a place, of course. Western forces have used all kinds of surveillance blimps, drones, and towers to watch over war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan - and caught all kinds of adversaries in the process. But keeping Kabul safe is going to rely primarily on more and more-upstanding cops on the beat, not turning those officers into monitor-jockeys.

ALSO: