That's all true, and no, you can't quantify that, or at least it's very hard to quantify. Here's what I can quantify: http://www.gallup.com/poll/141716/new-hi

That's all true, and no, you can't quantify that, or at least it's very hard to quantify. Here's what I can quantify: http://www.gallup.com/poll/141716/new-high-call-afghanistan-war-mistake.aspx http://www.gallup.com/poll/141716/new-high-call-afghanistan-... I personally believe that the expected value of -5% public approval for the Afghan war is very, very positive; on the order of hundreds of millions of dollars and many lives. I also assign a high, but hard-to-quantify value to generally decreasing the public's trust in government, which leaks like this tend to do. I just don't believe that scenarios similar to the one you describe can be having a similar degree of impact. I think your description is plausible, but to imagine that it's happening frequently sounds like an overestimation of the technical capacity and manpower of the Taliban and insurgent groups. I am very ready to condemn avoidable harm caused by bad practices surrounding leaked information, things that Wikileaks can clearly control, like redacting names. However, the sorts of situations you describe are inevitable with any leak of meaningful classified information, and since I think that these type of leaks are a big net positive (after taking your scenario into account) I'm not inclined to consider them damning in any way. (I understand that you might disagree strongly with me about the utility of the war in general, so I don't expect to convince you if that's the case.)