Human Terrain & Anthropology (merged thread)

[Beelzebubalicious]

Here's another HTT related research project. Goes in to some detail on the HTT in Afghanistan.

Erik B. Eldridge & Andrew J. Neboshynsky, Quantifying Human Terrain (http://www.nps.edu/Programs/CCS/Docs/Pubs/Eldridge_Nebo_Thesis.pdf), Naval Postgraduate School, June 2008.

ABSTRACT: Operational commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan have identified a socio-cultural capabilities gap. Historically, when faced with a non-Western adversary, knowledge of the adversary’s asymmetric socio-cultural values has been a key component in achieving conflict resolution. As such, a number of organizations within the U.S. government and civilian sector have undertaken initiatives to quantify what has been termed human terrain. Multiple theories, concepts, and models reside within the confines of social sciences that describe human activities, interactions, and behavior. One organization in particular has developed methods to quantify human terrain. The organization has been able to responsively fuse a wide array of different sciences, technology, and information systems to provide cohesive products to operational commanders. Utilizing a systems approach, the organization was examined to identify methods and techniques that describe and enumerate geo-spatial, socio-cultural relationships and interactions. The identification of unique system variables is the key element in replicating the organization’s capabilities. By reproducing these critical variables other U.S. Government and non-government organizations can leverage the examined organization’s methodology and produce similar results for analyzing and quantifying complex, human-centric problems regardless of the actual geographical location of interest.

[120mm]

But frankly, the lack of logic exhibited in the AAA main points makes the head fairly spin:

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/08/anthropologists.html#more

"HTS prompted a whole re-evaluation of our ethics," Dr. Setha Low, AAA president, said during a teleconference yesterday. She said there are big issues:

1. There are too few anthropologists involved in HTS's eight five-person teams (six teams in Iraq, two in Afghanistan) to accurately represent the full range of theories and perspectives within academia.
2. Researchers participating in combat operations perhaps cannot be intellectually honest. Their research "might be slanted by the needs of the Department of Defense," Low said.
3. Research should be distributed as widely as possible in order to invite peer review, but some HTS findings might be classified.

As Low spoke, I thought: Hold the phone. Doesn't point one contradict points two and three? On one hand, Low is concerned that any anthropologists are working with the military; on the other hand, there are too few anthropologists involved. What gives?



The author does a better job than I of pointing out that you can't bar anthropologists from participating, and then whine and bitch that there aren't enough anthropologists participating.

[marct]

Hi 120,

But frankly, the lack of logic exhibited in the AAA main points makes the head fairly spin:

I suspect that part of it comes from the logic being taken out of context in some ways. The AAA has posted their revised ethics code and space for commentary at http://aaanewsinfo.blogspot.com/2008/09/proposed-changes-to-aaa-code-of-ethics.html and it is worth looking at since it abandons some of the extremely isolationist language of last meetings resolutions.

The author does a better job than I of pointing out that you can't bar anthropologists from participating, and then whine and bitch that there aren't enough anthropologists participating.

:D Makes life interesting, doesn't it? Actually, it is an almost nsanely complex intersection of competing factors. Most of today's Anthropologists have been conditioned against the "military" (as a general category), and you also have the remnants of a form of scientific idealism from Boas showing up, at least in North America. On the other hand, some Anthropologists have, in my opinion, lost the scientific ideal and replaced it with a political ideal which, while also being anti-"military", is also anti-scientific.

In all honesty, I was quite pleased with the new wording on the code. But that is the wording and not how it will be interpreted and played out in various departments.

[120mm]

From the Featherstone piece:

As a vision of the future it was pragmatic and, I feared, too optimistic. The military will always be a blunt instrument, whether it is crashing through walls or entering through a door held open by an HTT. But as long as we use our military as the primary tool of our foreign policy, one could hardly improve upon this vision.

Kudos to Steven for asking the right question, ala "I, Robot".

How about we develop non-military foreign policies that address fighting radical islam, while simultaneously addressing some of the causes that radicalists use to gain support against us through a civilian-led and academically vetted set of programs designed to solve problems without using military force?

I believe Galula said in his seminal counterinsurgency book that the counterinsurgency needs to be led by a civilian agency. But then, he also said that the legal issues surrounding how to deal with insurgents need to be worked out first, but at least we are consistent.

[Ron Humphrey]

I told grandpa I was going to get out on my own because I didn't need my parent's telling me what to do any more. I was growed up:wry:

He told me that parents and the army are like the jewlers tools and a sledge hammer.

Both can be used to refine a diamond the difference
is in how fine the final result is.:eek:

The military can and will do whatever it has to but it is important to understand that the end result will never be quite as pretty as it would be where the diplomats and other gov agencies actually where able to handle the entirety of their own missions.

[Jedburgh]

For those with AKO access, you can now also access some of the unclass products for both Afghanistan and Iraq from the Reachback Research Center (RRC) for the Human Terrain Systems (https://www.us.army.mil/suite/portal/index.jsp).

It may require registration for the KC, but if you already have AKO access, then the approval should be automatic.

[wm]

Here's (http://chronicle.com/news/article/5455/civilian-in-armys-human-terrain-system-is-set-afire-in-afghan-attack) a recent posting in the Chronicle of Higher Education on the latest HTS casualty in A-Stan.

An American woman working with the U.S. Army’s controversial unit of civilian social scientists embedded with troops in Afghanistan was seriously wounded when she was set afire in an apparent Taliban attack, Wired’s Danger Room blog reports.

On Tuesday, Paula Loyd, a member of the Army’s Human Terrain Team, was interviewing villagers in Maywand, in Kandahar Province, when she reportedly approached a man carrying a jug of gasoline. They started discussing the price of gas when he suddenly doused her with the fuel and set her alight.

[120mm]

My prayers go out to Paula, and hope she has a rapid and complete recovery.

[marct]

I was chatting with several of the HTS people over the weekend, and this highlights one of the oft-unspoken problems with the program - teaching academics to duck. Apparently, in Paula's case, her guard took his eyes off her for 5 seconds and the attack came totally out of the blue. I hope she recovers, we need more people like her.

BTW, nice comment over at the Chronicle 120.

[120mm]

I was chatting with several of the HTS people over the weekend, and this highlights one of the oft-unspoken problems with the program - teaching academics to duck. Apparently, in Paula's case, her guard took his eyes off her for 5 seconds and the attack came totally out of the blue. I hope she recovers, we need more people like her.

BTW, nice comment over at the Chronicle 120.

I've been busily following up on negative, uninformed comments on various blogs; I've been researching the program, and the more I learn, the more I like it.

Unfortunately, it has had birthing pains from its relatively fast growth as well as some early on mistakes, and there are all sorts of critters who are jumping on each and every problem to bang their drum opposing it.

[marct]

I've been busily following up on negative, uninformed comments on various blogs; I've been researching the program, and the more I learn, the more I like it.

Unfortunately, it has had birthing pains from its relatively fast growth as well as some early on mistakes, and there are all sorts of critters who are jumping on each and every problem to bang their drum opposing it.

Yeah, I know what you mean. I did a fair amount of blogging on it during the summer.

[120mm]

Yeah, I know what you mean. I did a fair amount of blogging on it during the summer.

I'm finally catching up on your blog. New job means more time to read blogs:):D

Good job outta ya, btw....

[sgmgrumpy]

Afghanistan; Units help military better understand local communities

Tom Blackwell, National Post Published: Saturday, November 15, 2008

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN - It was an unusual incident, even by the lawless standards of tribal Afghanistan: An American woman working in Kandahar province was doused in fuel last week and set on fire.

Almost as unusual is Paula Lloyd's background. The victim is a civilian, a social scientist and part of a "human terrain" team assigned to the U. S. Army unit working under Canadian command.

Such teams, now deployed throughout Afghanistan and Iraq, are designed to give the U. S. military a better understanding of local communities.

And now the controversial concept has been adopted by Canada, which recently launched a version of its own called "white situational awareness" teams.

The name derives from the military penchant for categorizing things and assigning them colours. Red refers to the enemy, blue to friendly forces and white to civilians.

Made up of two army intelligence officers and three civilian Foreign Affairs Department employees, it has been tasked with deciphering the sometimes impenetrable Pashtun culture of the region.

Drawing on information from Canadian civilians and troops operating in Kandahar, local cultural advisors and NATO allies, the team is trying to map out the power brokers of the province and how they relate to each other.



READ ENTIRE ARTICLE AT: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/story.html?id=961884

[William F. Owen]

Made up of two army intelligence officers and three civilian Foreign Affairs Department employees, it has been tasked with deciphering the sometimes impenetrable Pashtun culture of the region.

Really? It's impenetrable?

So if the US wants to apply it's COIN operations in Columbia, it's going to Human Terrain Teams?

[120mm]

WILF, you make me laugh, and remind me of something I've always believed.

There is this myth that somehow, "Eastern minds" are mysterious and not understandable by westerners. I guess that might work for the dense and imperceptive among us, but I've NEVER seen or heard of an "Eastern mind" making a decision that wasn't either obvious, or decipherable by noodling it for a little bit.

Amazingly, even the "inscrutable oriental" makes decisions based upon self-interest, either short-, long-term, or of the enlightened variety. All it takes is to discover what that self-interest IS.

[William F. Owen]

WILF, you make me laugh, and remind me of something I've always believed.
Laughing is good.
There is this myth that somehow, "Eastern minds" are mysterious and not understandable by westerners. I guess that might work for the dense and imperceptive among us, but I've NEVER seen or heard of an "Eastern mind" making a decision that wasn't either obvious, or decipherable by noodling it for a little bit.
Concur.
Amazingly, even the "inscrutable oriental" makes decisions based upon self-interest, either short-, long-term, or of the enlightened variety. All it takes is to discover what that self-interest IS.
So what is it that the Human Terrain Teams are telling us, that we don't know or can't get ourselves? I really am keen to know this.

[Rex Brynen]

Drawing on information from Canadian civilians and troops operating in Kandahar, local cultural advisors and NATO allies, the team is trying to map out the power brokers of the province and how they relate to each other.

For me, the really scary thing is that it implies that we (and I mean here specifically the Canadians) haven't been doing this yet, although its clearly part of INTEL 101 for COIN operations (or, for that matter, aid and reconstruction operations).

On the other hand, I'm not that surprised (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showpost.php?p=38098&postcount=94)....

[Hacksaw]

Wilf... I think its a little off target to cast aspersions at a program based on a reporter characterization of the topic as "deciphering the sometimes impeneterable..." I don't think either HTT members or program managers would make that claim...

Neither do I think the provision of additional resources to support the critical function of understanding the operational environment as an admission that forces aren't doing the task... it only signals the significance that leadership places on the task and the subsequent allocation of resources...

The only "worry" I have with regard to this program would actualize if commanders and staff delegated the task of understanding/describing their environment to "pros from Dover", I don't see this as likely, but certainly possible if you get a critical mass of the unimaginative/criminally inept.

Not sure why this creates some much consternation on this panel... the hystrionics of the anthropology community aside... what is the issue with bringing SME to bear on a military problem??

Live well and row

[Ken White]

The teams fulfill a valid need and are quite likely to be effective. It's easy for Wilf and 120mm who have spent some time among Arabs and Asians to say : :There is this myth that somehow, "Eastern minds" are mysterious and not understandable by westerners. I guess that might work for the dense and imperceptive among us, but I've NEVER seen or heard of an "Eastern mind" making a decision that wasn't either obvious, or decipherable by noodling it for a little bit.In addition to the dense, there those who are not one bit dense but who just arrived in the area and have to make rapid combat decisions and do not have the time to sort through nuance -- they don't have time to noodle...Amazingly, even the "inscrutable oriental" makes decisions based upon self-interest, either short-, long-term, or of the enlightened variety. All it takes is to discover what that self-interest IS.I partly agree -- I'll also point out that none of us knew that before we spent some time among them and I'll further bet big money that none of the three of us is nearly as adept at discovering what that self-interest is to the extent we would like or would like to think we are... :D

You left out the Asian concepts of family, face and honor which all have a significant impact and are not at all like western concepts. Politeness and the resultant tendency to tell you what they think you want to hear -- and that is not a lie to them -- also impact.

Regardless, the teams will provide insights and, importantly, will institutionalize the knowledge (well, hopefully, anyway...) so that even folks going into the area for the first time are as smart as the three of us are...

Far, far more importantly, that knowledge may cut through the terrible ego and arrogance of the westerner who thinks he's got the east figured out. ;)

[William F. Owen]

Wilf... I think its a little off target to cast aspersions at a program based on a reporter characterization of the topic as "deciphering the sometimes impeneterable..." I don't think either HTT members or program managers would make that claim...


Certainly not my intent to cast aspersions. I am genuinely trying to get to the bottom of all this "culture" and HTT thing.

I see it nowhere else in any COIN publications or any historical reference to it. It's a new invention, and nothing I've read gives it adequate colour or depth.

I want to understand it, and then I might cast an aspersion or two! :D

[Bob's World]

Anything that allows DoD to evolve from a blinders on focus on the threat as being described to them by the intel officer is a good thing. My recent experience is largely with our efforts in the Philippines, and while we didn't have special teams, we didn't need them because for SOF, assessing the environment and the populace prior to designing COIN engagement is as fundamental as breathing. Like security, it is the thing that you do first and the thing you keep doing throughout your engagement. The conventional force is going thru the school of hard knocks on this, but is continuing to evolve.

At a higher level, progress continues to be made incorporating this more holistic approach into our planning process as well. Be it "Commander's Appreciation and Campaign Design," or "Systemic Operational Design." Both processess essentially insert into the Mission Analysis process a methodology that breaks down the problem and analyzes the systems and dynamics at work; vice simply asking "where are the bad guys." We continue to evolve.

[120mm]

The teams fulfill a valid need and are quite likely to be effective. It's easy for Wilf and 120mm who have spent some time among Arabs and Asians to say : In addition to the dense, there those who are not one bit dense but who just arrived in the area and have to make rapid combat decisions and do not have the time to sort through nuance -- they don't have time to noodle...I partly agree -- I'll also point out that none of us knew that before we spent some time among them and I'll further bet big money that none of the three of us is nearly as adept at discovering what that self-interest is to the extent we would like or would like to think we are... :D

You left out the Asian concepts of family, face and honor which all have a significant impact and are not at all like western concepts. Politeness and the resultant tendency to tell you what they think you want to hear -- and that is not a lie to them -- also impact.

Regardless, the teams will provide insights and, importantly, will institutionalize the knowledge (well, hopefully, anyway...) so that even folks going into the area for the first time are as smart as the three of us are...

Far, far more importantly, that knowledge may cut through the terrible ego and arrogance of the westerner who thinks he's got the east figured out. ;)

I don't claim an expertise, but I AM from a very small, backwards, redneck place... (with due apologies to at least one other board member who I know is from there) and I have yet to encounter a "foreign" cultural concept. And I disagree that the Asian concept of family, face and honor are foreign to Western culture; they just aren't the McCulture variety that is marketed in, to and by the US as a whole.

I STILL get a cheesecake for my birthday, which I eat with feigned enjoyment, that is given to me by a now-elderly neighbor, because I once remarked that I like cheesecake. And I do so because of family, face and honor implications....

BTW - I get to do so for the 32nd time a month from today.

[reed11b]

BTW - I get to do so for the 32nd time a month from today.
Rock! I am not the youngest member of this community! Thank you for being a "young pup"
Reed:D

[120mm]

Laughing is good.

Concur.

So what is it that the Human Terrain Teams are telling us, that we don't know or can't get ourselves? I really am keen to know this.

HTTs need to tell this to the military commander, because they are too foreign to the military CoC to engage in "can-do, hoo-ah, suck up" behaviors that everyone who wears green tends to do. But that's just my opinion.

The primary problem with The Army is that they suck at self-examination. Too many people at too high of levels focused on their own rice bowl. HTS isn't perfect, but at least they are outsiders, capable of seeing the problems.

[120mm]

Rock! I am not the youngest member of this community! Thank you for being a "young pup"
Reed:D


Wrong - The neighbor lady found out I liked cheesecake on my 13th Birthday. Been choking it down since then, or for 32 additional years. You can do that math to find out how old I will be.

[Rex Brynen]

And now the controversial concept has been adopted by Canada, which recently launched a version of its own called "white situational awareness" teams.

Am I the only one who find the name both amusing and peculiarly appropriate (as in, "some white folks in Afghanistan could so with some situational awareness...")?

To get to the broader debate that Wilf raises:

1) I agree that other cultures are rarely impenetrable, and indeed that there are certain dynamics of power and politics than run through a great many societies. By the same token, there are concepts that are different, cultural values that aren't appreciated, tolerances and intolerances that need explaining. Moreover, I absolutely agree with Ken than those of us who spend a lot of time in other parts of the world sometimes don't even realize the things that we know about societal behaviour, cross-cultural communication, etc.... and that newbies may well be in need of a crash course (lest they otherwise, well, crash).

2) On top of this, the news report (Hacksaw is right: it shouldn't really be taken as a necessarily clear and accurate description of the teams) suggests that a lot of what will be done is social mapping—where power and resources lie, and how local political dynamics work. This does require some specialist attention, either brought in from the outside, learned on the spot, or some combination of the two.

Deciphering where real power lies, how decisions emerge, the balance of cultural/ideological/material/pragmatic factors in decision-making, the influence of identity, clan, and family factors, the amorphous boundaries of social groups, and the relationships between them, (etc, etc.) is all hard work. (It also as much art as science, but that's another issue...)

[Bob's World]

Spending 7 months in the Egyptian Army (Desert Shield and Storm) was an eye opener for for me as a young ODA Commander. Yes, people at their core are the same everywhere, and concepts like Maslows heirarchy apply to every populace; but if you think that a phrase or action that means one thing in your home town will mean the same thing three states over, let alone within a completely different culture, you are sadly mistaken. Yes, we need to draw upon our commonalities, but we also need to understand our differences if we want our engagement to be effective (i.e., produce our intended effect).

People from the Middle East see things very differently than People in America do. That is a fact. But don't stop slicing there. People within the Middle East are all very different as well. As any Iranian would quickly tell you "We are not Arab!!" When one travels to Asia, the people there similarly have a very keen sense of heirachy between nations and cultures that are very important to them. Most Americans can't tell a Japanese from a Korean by sight, but trust me, the people of the region can again slice it much finer than that and attribute tremendous significance to differences that we don't even register.

You see this in the Philippines a lot. The people there speak english, they have adopted a great deal of US culture, but at their core, they are Philippino; and how they think and percieve things is based upon thousands of years of Philippino cultural development, and that is very different than the cultural development of the average American. If an American drops a dish, he says "Sorry, I dropped the dish." If a Philippino drops a dish, he says "The dish fell." This is just one example, but if a people by their culture do not accept responsibility for actions, how does that translate to a government of that same people and their approach to Insurgency?

These are complex issues, and should not be down played. This is why the persistent engagement of our forward deployed Special Forces personnel is so important. Over years of going back over and over to the same areas they devleop an understanding that cannot be conveyed in the little booklets that our conventional forces always produce and hand out to everyone as they get on the plane. Keep printing the little books, but never forget that the knowledge it contains is just the tip of the iceberg.

[Rex Brynen]

People from the Middle East see things very differently than People in America do. That is a fact. But don't stop slicing there. People within the Middle East are all very different as well. As any Iranian would quickly tell you "We are not Arab!!"

Important point, and I would go even further: it can vary by locale, age, gender, level of education, etc. etc. The political role of Palestinian clans (for example) is very different in Gaza than it is Ramallah; Sunni urban politics is different in poor Tripoli than in middle class Beirut.

I'm also tempted to add Arlington County and Foggy Bottom, or Ottawa and Gatineau. :D

[Ken White]

I don't claim an expertise, but I AM from a very small, backwards, redneck placeMe too, I bet mine is smaller than yours... :D and I have yet to encounter a "foreign" cultural concept.Then you're really lucky, I've run into several; Boston, New york, Los angeles among others. As for overseas differences, I spent a couple of years in the ME living and traveling on the economy in peacetime and I've spent about seven in Asia proper mostly but not all in wartime.

They may not be different to you but there are differences -- not quite the same thing -- in my opinion and that of most people I've talked to. That includes the local residents overseas who are acutely aware of those differences if you really talk to them at length.And I disagree that the Asian concept of family, face and honor are foreign to Western culture; they just aren't the McCulture variety that is marked in, to and by the US as a whole.I didn't say they were foreign, I said: "You left out the Asian concepts of family, face and honor which all have a significant impact and are not at all like western concepts." To me that simply meant you didn't mention them and they have an effect in any relationship or dealings with Asians. We have the concepts as well but theirs are not like ours, the interpretations and strengths of application differ. Thus my angels / pin comment; what you said I said is not what I said. :confused:I STILL get a cheesecake for my birthday, which I eat with feigned enjoyment, that is given to me by a now-elderly neighbor, because I once remarked that I like cheesecake. And I do so because of family, face and honor implications... Good for you for doing it for all those reasons. Good of that person to track you down around the world and get it to you -- unless you're always lucky enough to be home for your birthday; if so, good for you.

My Family was slighted by another family two centuries ago -- I do not wait for one of them to appear in my sights to be killed. Others have been known to carry a grudge that long -- and to kill over it. Nor do I consider my wife and daughter inferior creatures (I wouldn't dare :wry: ). I've got three Cousins I can't stand; wouldn't ask them for help or help them for any reason, ever, cousins or no...

There are differences.

If you really don't believe there are differences and if you bought any local products while you were in the ME, I'll bet you made the seller's day... ;)

[120mm]

Re: both the above. Once you are aware there ARE micro-cultures and internal differences in social logic, it makes it a heck of a lot easier to actually dig in and figure out the 5 Ws of cultural issues.

Of course, sensitivity and perceptivity vary between individuals, and a very perceptive individual will see the feedback and seek to adapt to the cultural difference. Others will just snowplow their way through, ignorant of even the existence of difference, or dismiss them as being "strange".

[120mm]

Ken, I didn't mean to mean that cultures aren't different, I meant that they didn't seem "foreign" to me. Even big cities, while different, had a landscape and rhythm that was understandable. I've embedded my responses for fun and profit...

Me too, I bet mine is smaller than yours...

Smaller than 3 people per square mile?


Then you're really lucky, I've run into several; Boston, New york, Los angeles among others. As for overseas differences, I spent a couple of years in the ME living and traveling on the economy in peacetime and I've spent about seven in Asia proper mostly but not all in wartime.

They may not be different to you but there are differences -- not quite the same thing -- in my opinion and that of most people I've talked to. That includes the local residents overseas who are acutely aware of those differences if you really talk to them at length.I didn't say they were foreign, I said: "You left out the Asian concepts of family, face and honor which all have a significant impact and are not at all like western concepts." To me that simply meant you didn't mention them and they have an effect in any relationship or dealings with Asians. We have the concepts as well but theirs are not like ours, the interpretations and strengths of application differ. Thus my angels / pin comment; what you said I said is not what I said.


Even better is "what you said I said not being what you said" is not conceptually the same, so we're really talking past each other.

Good for you for doing it for all those reasons. Good of that person to track you down around the world and get it to you -- unless you're always lucky enough to be home for your birthday; if so, good for you.

1 month in transit, being crushed, and high heat didn't help it any; I *really* didn't eat it, I threw it out. But that can be our secret on this public internet forum....:D

My Family was slighted by another family two centuries ago -- I do not wait for one of them to appear in my sights to be killed. Others have been known to carry a grudge that long -- and to kill over it. Nor do I consider my wife and daughter inferior creatures (I wouldn't dare :wry: ). I've got three Cousins I can't stand; wouldn't ask them for help or help them for any reason, ever, cousins or no...

There are differences.

If you really don't believe there are differences and if you bought any local products while you were in the ME, I'll bet you made the seller's day... ;)

Oh, c'mon, Ken, where's your Tiddlywink spirit? Surely you wouldn't let the family down....;)

Your grudge example is a good place to work from. It isn't tough to understand a "grudge", though the variable of "time" is unusual to some. To your typical 13 year old girl, "grudge" is a natural concept. Maintaining it intergenerationally for 200 years is long, but not unheard of. Now, is that a totally "foreign" concept? Not really, at least to my way of thinking. It's well within the range of human experience. So is the concept of not claiming fault, or needing to save face. They're familiar concepts, provided you don't "foreignize" them by getting wrapped around the axle about a different variable or two.

I think this concept has an analogy in male-female relations. The great majority of males I know cannot seem to communicate with females, and find them mysterious at best, and totally erratic and illogical at worst.

Personally, I've never found it particularly difficult to communicate with females; I find their behavior predictable and (mostly) transparent and frankly, I am confused at what all the other males are complaining about.

[Ken White]

there are also those that have it all figured out. My observation over the years has been that about one or two out of 100 may actually be there -- and you may well be that batch hereabouts -- while the other 98+ range down the scale from almost as knowldgable as they believe to totally dangerous. Ain't no doubt in my mind I'm somewhere in the middle of that incomplete knowledge pack.

Asians aren't strange and I've never said or implied that -- they are different and that's not only okay but desirable IMO. They do many things better than westerners do -- basic politeness for one; and a lot of things as well but with a slightly different approach. You'll rarely see a price tag in the ME, for example. You do not want to admire any item at your host's house too lavishly or you'll end up taking it home...

You do realize you could confuse someone, particularly somebody as old and senile as I am. This:"and I have yet to encounter a "foreign" cultural concept."and this:Once you are aware there ARE micro-cultures and internal differences in social logic...would almost seem to be contradictions and this:"I think a very important question we need to ask ourselves, is "What impact is our insistence on forcing a foreign concept of "law" on a society where we are trying to fight a counterinsurgency have on our strategic goals?" * seems to imply that you accept there are differences and they deserve serious consideration...

* From the "Honor, murder and law" thread.

[reed11b]

My argument is not the use of HTT's but the naming and placement of them in the structure. I just get an expanded CA vibe from the whole project, and perhaps imbedding a CA element w/i a HQ section would be more effective, combined with an on-going focus of teaching leaders HOW to think instead of WHAT to think. Then again, I am more or less on the outside looking in at this point.
Reed

[Ken White]

Ken, I didn't mean to mean that cultures aren't different, I meant that they didn't seem "foreign" to me.That's great. I can say pretty much the same thing, never had any "I don't fit in " angst even when I knew I didn't -- however, what applies to us may not apply to the whole Yankee Army, thus the HTTs may have some merit...Smaller than 3 people per square mile?Depends on when -- when I was a kid, yep. Not today.Even better is "what you said I said not being what you said" is not conceptually the same, so we're really talking past each other.I don't think I said what you think I said but then again you didn't say what I thought you said or something like that-- so you're probably right... :DYour grudge example is a good place to work from. It isn't tough to understand a "grudge", though the variable of "time" is unusual to some. To your typical 13 year old girl, "grudge" is a natural concept. Maintaining it intergenerationally for 200 years is long, but not unheard of. Now, is that a totally "foreign" concept? Not really, at least to my way of thinking. It's well within the range of human experience. So is the concept of not claiming fault, or needing to save face. They're familiar concepts, provided you don't "foreignize" them by getting wrapped around the axle about a different variable or two.Now you're tap dancing -- not too well, either... ;)

There is a difference; not a 'foreign concept' but a difference in application -- which is all I said in the first place.I think this concept has an analogy in male-female relations. The great majority of males I know cannot seem to communicate with females, and find them mysterious at best, and totally erratic and illogical at worst.

Personally, I've never found it particularly difficult to communicate with females; I find their behavior predictable and (mostly) transparent and frankly, I am confused at what all the other males are complaining about.Hmm. Okay. I'm reminded of my earlier comment about the seller of stuff in the ME...

The other males are NOT saying females are mysterious, erratic or illogical. Not at all. Most guys can figure out what females are up to as easily as you can. What they are saying is that females think and react differently than do males. Just as Asians think and react differently than do westerners.

Which is all I said in the first place...

[120mm]

I think the fundamental problem is that I'm not communicating well what I mean. I see "different" and "foreign" as two discrete categories. To me, a "different" cultural aspect is comprehensible and understandable, while "foreign" often completely blows the mind of the receiver, or is not even picked up in the first place.

Thus my analogy about male/female relationships. Whether they acknowledge it or not, the majority of males, just don't "get" females, or the females I'm talking to are fibbing about it, at least to me....:) For example, I just attended a meeting where the only female there exhibited a wide range of both receptive/exhibiting behaviors toward one meeting attendee, while simultaneously exhibiting "you creep me the heck out" behaviors toward one other attendee, and exhibiting "I'm interested in what you're saying" to another attendee. I doubt if any of the males present were particularly attuned to these message, and maybe dimly so.... I occasionally quiz males in situations like this to gauge their level of awareness, and unless they are lying (which is possible) they most often can (barely) receive the receptivity cues, and that's about it.

Our interplay in this thread is exactly what I'm talking about. We have completely dissimilar ideas of what the concept of "different" and "foreign" are, which is deliciously ironic.

And, while I HAVE done ballet, modern and jazz, I have NEVER tap-danced. :cool:

[Ken White]

I think the fundamental problem is that I'm not communicating well what I mean. I see "different" and "foreign" as two discrete categories. To me, a "different" cultural aspect is comprehensible and understandable, while "foreign" often completely blows the mind of the receiver, or is not even picked up in the first place.I don't disagree with that; can I point out that you are the one who first used and has continued to use the word 'foreign' whereas other than quoting you I have not used it? To me, it's not germane to the discussion which IMO effectively boiled down to the fact that 'foreign' is not important to soldiers; 'different' is important to them -- and there is a difference in thought processes between east and west.Our interplay in this thread is exactly what I'm talking about. We have completely dissimilar ideas of what the concept of "different" and "foreign" are, which is deliciously ironic.Don't see any irony -- but perhaps that's because I don't agree with you that our idea of what is 'foreign' and what is 'different' are dissimilar. I think they're pretty well in sync. The ironic thing is you keep using 'foreign' -- in a sense and with a use with which I have consistently agreed -- and seem to me to be saying that since Asians and their reasoning or approach to things are not foreign to you, they are therefor not different -- yet all the while acknowledging there are differences, if generally indirectly...

IOW, I'm inclined to believe this degenerated from a discussion of terms and whether a difference in thought processes existed and if so was it important to the soldier to an argument about foreignness and females, fine esoteric concepts both but which IMO aren't germane. So yeah, I guess there's some irony in there somewhere... :wry:And, while I HAVE done ballet, modern and jazz, I have NEVER tap-danced. :cool:That's good, given the example today on 13 year old female creatures and grudges, it is not thy forté. :D

[120mm]

IThe ironic thing is you keep using 'foreign' -- in a sense and with a use with which I have consistently agreed -- and seem to me to be saying that since Asians and their reasoning or approach to things are not foreign to you, they are therefor not different -- yet all the while acknowledging there are differences, if generally indirectly...

I'm not saying they aren't different; I'm saying the differences aren't fundamental. Rather they are variations on a theme. I see human beings as being more alike than they are different. Kind of a "glass half full" thing.

On the other hand, there appears to be no end of people who comment about how fundamentally different people are, depending on their culture/national identity. I'm saying it's more accurate to say they are cosmetically different.

[Ken White]

I'm not saying they aren't different; I'm saying the differences aren't fundamental . . . I'm saying it's more accurate to say they are cosmetically different.No argument on that; People as they say are people. My point all along has simply those differences do exist and they need to be considered in military decision making because subtle and cosmetic though they may be, they can still be problematic -- reporting of numbers is a great and simple example...

Re: your earlier clarifying post Post on HTTs:The primary problem with The Army is that they suck at self-examination. Too many people at too high of levels focused on their own rice bowl. HTS isn't perfect, but at least they are outsiders, capable of seeing the problems.Forgot to mention earlier that I agree with that as well.

Who sez we were talking past each other... ;)

[William F. Owen]

...my sole point being that while it is all too easy to screw up or not understand folks, the getting to understand is pretty simple.

I live in a very complex multi-cultural society, and religiously diverse beliefs and practices, but it's pretty easy to work out how the whole place works, and who hates who, and why, once you know what each believes and why. History is usually the key and history can be learnt.

I'm still fascinated to know how we could have employed HTTs in Sierra Leone, for example, which has a good few competing ethnic and tribal groups.

[Ken White]

It is easy to understand other cultures -- if one wants to do so; it's the dummy who don't wish to or who are too lazy to do so that are problematic. Been my observation that generally the former far outnumber the latter and most suffer from over active egos...

I think the HTTS are like any other operational tool; there are times when they're appropriate and times when they aren't. They would, for example, have been of little use to the US in Central America some years ago (to provide a corollary to Sierra Leone).

[120mm]

But I found this to be funny, relevant and enlightening to the subject at hand:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v311/120mm/Slide1-1.jpg

[Beelzebubalicious]

Paula passed away recently. She was with her family and friends.

Paula asked her family, in the event of her demise, to establish a program for girls in her memory at an Afghanistan school. The family will be providing details and I'm sure would be happy for support.

[Tom Odom]

Paula passed away recently. She was with her family and friends.

Paula asked her family, in the event of her demise, to establish a program for girls in her memory at an Afghanistan school. The family will be providing details and I'm sure would be happy for support.

I am sorry to her that. My best to her family and friends.

Tom

[Ron Humphrey]

Paula passed away recently. She was with her family and friends.

Paula asked her family, in the event of her demise, to establish a program for girls in her memory at an Afghanistan school. The family will be providing details and I'm sure would be happy for support.

seems to represent the kind of person she was.

[Beelzebubalicious]

On another note, this report appeared recently in Wired magazine,

Help Wanted: 'Human Terrain' Teams for Africa (http://blog.wired.com/defense/2009/01/help-wanted-hum.html#more)

Now it looks like the human terrain teams -- or something very much like them -- are coming to Africa. Research and risk management firm Archimedes Global, Inc. recently sent out help-wanted ads for a new "socio-cultural cell" within U.S. Africa Command, the new regional military headquarters. Within two months of the contract start, the company will deploy a six-contractor team to eastern Africa.

[Stan]

Hey Eric,
On another note, this report appeared recently in Wired magazine,

Help Wanted: 'Human Terrain' Teams for Africa (http://blog.wired.com/defense/2009/01/help-wanted-hum.html#more)

Intriguing link and story, Thanks!

While I've been an advocate of soldiers studying host country culture, language and awareness (especially in Sub-Sahara) prior to getting into deep Sierra, I'm going to remain a tad skeptical at this current job ad. Taking a look at Archimedes' site and the folks charged with this latest shindig doesn't give me the warm fuzzies.

Not to toot my own horn, but we have (or at least had) well-trained and experienced CA, PSYOPS and countless other SF teams performing the very same. We've been pounding the sand demanding our soldiers be taught and learn something, but yet those that have, are merely replaced with yet another quick fix. Smells like status quo at least until the funding runs out and we find another acronym and task to replace it with.

Regards, Stan

[marct]

Hey Eric,
Intriguing link and story, Thanks!

Second that!

While I've been an advocate of soldiers studying host country culture, language and awareness (especially in Sub-Sahara) prior to getting into deep Sierra, I'm going to remain a tad skeptical at this current job ad. Taking a look at Archimedes' site and the folks charged with this latest shindig doesn't give me the warm fuzzies.

Yeah....:cool:.

Not to toot my own horn, but we have (or at least had) well-trained and experienced CA, PSYOPS and countless other SF teams performing the very same. We've been pounding the sand demanding our soldiers be taught and learn something, but yet those that have, are merely replaced with yet another quick fix. Smells like status quo at least until the funding runs out and we find another acronym and task to replace it with.

I think you're right about that, Stan. It strikes me that what is being tossed around at the conceptual level is an either/or scenario. It makes a lot of sense to have an academic style research reachback available, although hopefully operating at faster than academic speed ;), but on the ground? I think a mixed type of set up might work better - take the people with the training and experience, send in an anthropologist for ~3 months or so from the reachback group (cycle them all through), and let them work together.

[Beelzebubalicious]

I think there's a place for rigorous and objective research as a basis for understanding the culture, politics and other facets of a given society.
Anthropologists could be engaged in doing specific studies and briefing people in theater in a way that goes beyond the usual cross-cultural stuff that people get.

By the way, the Millenium Challenge Corporation is going to issue a RFP any day now for a civic participation project in Rwanda that calls for the participation of Anthropologists. For example, see this recruitment ad (http://www.devex.com/jobs/anthropologist) on www.devex.com:

"RTI International (www.rti.org) is accepting expressions of interest to fill a senior-level Anthropologist position for a three-year program funded by the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) focusing on improving political rights, civil liberties, and accountability in Rwanda.

RTI International seeks an Anthropologist with significant background in history or culture as it applies to modes of discourse, attitudes toward authority, and in assisting in the design of meaningful public participation experiences in Rwanda or similar setting."

[Rex Brynen]

(...as in Hunter S. Thompson, that is.)


Afghanistan: The New War for Hearts and Minds (http://www.mensjournal.com/new-war-for-hearts-and-minds)
Men's Journal
Wed, Jan 21, 2009

ROBERT YOUNG PELTON goes deep inside America’s new, brainier strategy in Afghanistan and finds that, on the front line, scientists and soldiers don’t always mix. An absurdist tale of modern warfare.

[Surferbeetle]

From wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Young_Pelton)

Robert Young Pelton (b. July 25, 1955, Edmonton, Canada), is an author, journalist and documentary filmmaker. A self-styled adventurer, he considers himself a "witness" to conflict, rather than a serious journalist. He has witnessed conflicts such as the siege of Grozny in Chechnya, the battle of Qala-I-Jangi in Afghanistan, the rebel campaign to take Monrovia in Liberia. He embedded himself with the CIA during the hunt for Bin Laden, and spent time with both insurgents and Blackwater security contractors during the war in Iraq.[1]

Pelton's regularly published guide The World's Most Dangerous Places, which provides practical and survival information for people who work and travel in high risk zones, was a best seller.[2] He was also host of the Discovery Travel Channel series "Robert Young Pelton's The World's Most Dangerous Places" from 1998 to 2003. Now residing in Los Angeles, California, Pelton currently writes books and produces documentaries on conflict-related subjects. He is a popular interview subject appearing as an insightful expert with ground experience or as an often humorous raconteur of his various misfortunes and safety tips on shows as diverse as Oprah, Conan O'Brien, CNN, Fox, BBC, ABC, CBS, NBC and others. Most recently he has been in negotiations with the President of Equatorial Guinea regarding the arrested coup plotters, many of whom had worked for Executive Outcomes in the mid-1990s. The story behind the coup and his efforts to free Nick du Toit and Simon Mann are documented in the May 2008 Men's Journal "How to Stage a Coup".

[Beelzebubalicious]

I just read the Pelton piece. I feel warm and fuzzy. I'm afraid this guy is going to follow the footsteps of the recently kidnapped anti-kidnap expert.

Although I think the crusade to bring culture to the military and pastures to the unpasturized is noble and good, I really do wonder how effective it can be in environments like afghanistan and iraq. Someone in the article stated that anthropologists would have been more effective back in 2001 when people would really talk. Perhaps it is too late at this point and at the point of engagement. I know there are efforts underway to improve our understanding of our adversaries and civilian cultures and that's great. It will take time to make a difference. And there are still a lot of hard realities that will always be there.

Makes me think that the focus can and should be more on the softer side, the foreign service/diplomatic side. I think there's a lot more room for social science and anthropological analysis and tools in understanding a given society/culture. Embassies employ economic and political teams which attempt to understand societies and governments from these perspectives, but the cultural aspect is more about the exchange of culture (as in the arts). I always thought it would be interesting to have a culture team in the Embassy that does research and analyzes that society from a cultural/anthropological perspective. It would also help build up the cadre of trained, educated and informed people in every country that could be called upon to advise and assist when needed.

[Cavguy]

This should be a case study in CGSC (or for LTG Caldwell) of piss poor PAO operations.

WTF, let's send the major reporter out with a 1LT and a stressed out guard unit. Good idea.

*sigh*

[William F. Owen]

The idea behind human terrain teams, or HTTs, is to put a small army of civilian social scientists (ideally anthropologists) and intel-savvy military officers into the field to give brigade commanders a better understanding of local dynamics. The teams are charged with “mapping” social structures, linkages, and priorities, just as a recon team might map physical terrain. By talking to locals the teams might help identify which village elder the commander should deal with or which tribe might be a waste of time; which valley should get a roads project and whether a new road might create a dispute between villages.

I still don't get this. FACT: This was done, successfully, in Vietnam by SF. No civilians. Is this not the type of mission SF was created for?

I just hope this is a BS article and has totally got the HTT mission wrong.

Now, don't get me wrong. The teams are charged with “mapping” social structures, linkages, and priorities, just as a recon team might map physical terrain. By talking to locals the teams might help identify which village elder the commander should deal with or which tribe might be a waste of time - is a very sound military mission, was was routinely done by the British as a matter of course. It's good military common sense. It's called Reconnaissance - and it should be done by soldiers.

Talking to a village elder and all the other stuff is real time intelligence work. Why does this require anthropologists?

[marct]

Hi Wilf,

Talking to a village elder and all the other stuff is real time intelligence work. Why does this require anthropologists?

Shirt answer is that it doesn't require an Anthropologist. The long(er) answer is that you need an Anthropologist in the loop because of potential problems in interpreting the data and, in many cases, even figuring out what questions to ask.

Wilf, the Brits had a major advantage over the US in having their soldiers do this type of work. A lot of early style ethnography was actually pioneered by serving British military officers, especially in India during the 19th century. But about the only reason that that actually worked well was because of two factors.

First, the average Brit officer in, say, 1850 or so had a classical education, including Latin and Greek. They were used to dealing with a much longer time horizon than the average US officer, and they also had several other skills that led to an almost automatic comparative attitude (especially multiple languages).

Second, British colonial officers, or officers in the various company armies, tended to deal with sepoy troops from multiple cultures. Again, that reinforces a comparative perspective when looking at phenomena.

But both of these are absent with the vast majority of US troops. While I applaud the fact that West Point remains one of the few places where students are required to read the classics, that doesn't mean that it is the same as struggling through Caesar's Gallic Wars, in Latin, at age 10, or reading Arrian at the same age.

Put simply, British officers had the cultural capital that enabled them to take a long time horizon and have a large historical database to draw on, while most US troops don't. And that time horizon and historical / comparative database are the base requirements for Anthropologists.

[William F. Owen]

Wilf, the Brits had a major advantage over the US in having their soldiers do this type of work. A lot of early style ethnography was actually pioneered by serving British military officers, especially in India during the 19th century. But about the only reason that that actually worked well was because of two factors.


Marc mate, I agree with you on one level, but..

British Officers were doing this well into the 1970's both in the Arabian Peninsular and to some extent, Ulster.

Charting tribal, social, family and even ethnic associations are all Standard practice in Small War Intelligence work. It is something that the US has done before. - Vietnam, Indian War, etc etc. - and it is not something of recent invention, or insight.

What is more, why is the US aiming to develop this skills set, with the aim of deploying no civilians?

[Van]

Wilf,
The cynical answer is that employing soldiers for this mission doesn't create lucrative, long term contracts.

A more pragmatic answer is the classic "Solutions: good, fast, cheap; pick one" (Normally pick two, but with issues of this magnitude....) We chose fast. I would argue the good solution (neither fast nor cheap) is to pick bright soldiers at the end of boot camp but before AIT and tell them that they have a unique opportunity to go to college for a full ride scholorship, and fast track to warrent rank as Athropology specialists. The cheap solution (relatively and neither fast nor as good) would be a six to nine month, intensive course in ethnographic reconnaissance and language school.

[max161]

This should be a case study in CGSC (or for LTG Caldwell) of piss poor PAO operations.

WTF, let's send the major reporter out with a 1LT and a stressed out guard unit. Good idea.

*sigh*

I would not necessarily blame the PAO in this case unless he recommended approval this embed with the LT. Where was the chain of command? Whose chain of command is this LT and his HTT in? What message was the chain of command to whom this LT belongs trying to send? I think we all read what message was received? There are a lot of issues in this article. What was that HUMINT team all about? In the hard copy edition the guy was all kitted out and wearing BDUs so either it was not a recent photo or the guy was not Army (which might explain why he did not know that the Army has THTs tactical HUMINT teams which I do not think go around snatching villagers out of bed at night). And talk about sensational journalism: Did Steve Fondacaro really give an interview for 9 hours and after 7 hours got up, walked into a door, broke his jaw, and then continued to talk for 2 more hours? Just a few thoughts.

[William F. Owen]

I would argue the good solution (neither fast nor cheap) is to pick bright soldiers at the end of boot camp but before AIT and tell them that they have a unique opportunity to go to college for a full ride scholorship, and fast track to warrent rank as Athropology specialists.

OK, but does the task require a fully trained anthropologist? Really? This is not a exercise on Anthropology. It's a military activity designed to aid on the defeating of insurgents. Why have Anthropologists?

[Van]

OK, but does the task require a fully trained anthropologist? Really? This is not a exercise on Anthropology. It's a military activity designed to aid on the defeating of insurgents. Why have Anthropologists?

Come on now,Wilf. In the Small War application, this is a subset of intelligence. Cultural norms, taboos, perceived interests, values, moralities, etc, all that Anthro stuff, shapes the commanders' options. But you're well aware of this already. Given the way you word your objection, maybe the ethnographic reconnaissance/language school is a better course of action. We don't need fully trained and qualified Special Forces operators to develop the commander's picture of the human terrain, nor do we need people with graduate degrees in anthropology, but it is a specialized discipline that we haven't developed a structured doctrine for yet.

This is not a exercise on Anthropology. It's a military activity...
On reflection, are you sure you want to stand by this position? What is the difference between a PSYOP and a marketing campaign? Both are activities designed and executed to modify the behavior of a target audience. Developing ethnograpic intelligence or anthropology; the difference is who is using it, and for what rather than the actual functions of the personnel conducting the work.

[William F. Owen]

We don't need fully trained and qualified Special Forces operators to develop the commander's picture of the human terrain, nor do we need people with graduate degrees in anthropology, but it is a specialized discipline that we haven't developed a structured doctrine for yet.
Concur, so I see this as being a function of HUMINT. Human as in the most precise meaning of HUMAN. Its about gathering information to inform a commanders decisions, so it's intelligence.
Dare I say "Human intelligence preparation of the battlefield." Seems like common sense to me, - which is what IPB should have been, but never was!

What is the difference between a PSYOP and a marketing campaign? Both are activities designed and executed to modify the behavior of a target audience.

Well I suspect we might disagree here. I see PSYOPS as being usefully limited to being things that break to enemies will to continue, or to dissuaded folks from doing something that is against your interest.

[Rex Brynen]

OK, but does the task require a fully trained anthropologist? Really? This is not a exercise on Anthropology. It's a military activity designed to aid on the defeating of insurgents. Why have Anthropologists?

Wilf, I think its fair to say in theory that anthropologists who have spent a dozen full-time years of graduate and post-graduate work on (say) kinship relations or local customary law, who have been through considerable training in research methodology, and who may have spent considerable time living and working among local populations, might know a thing or two about how local social dynamics work out on the ground that others aren't likely to pick up.

On the other hand, I agree with you that this is, in essence, an intel function. It is neither appropriate nor useful for the HTS to pretend its just a set of neutral social scientists who happened to have arms/armed escorts.

Moreover, while I can see the benefits above in theory (and, after all, the existing intel community already has people in it with social science specializations for precisely that reason), it is not at all clear to me that:


the mere fact of graduate training in the social sciences makes you an effective HTSer (indeed, I would think only a relatively small proportion of scholars would do the job well).

the current recruitment system is recruiting the right kind of people (although I'm sure there are some excellent HTSers). In fairness, people with meaningful expertise in the current geographic areas of interest aren't that common, and post 9/11 there is huge competing demand for them in the academic and (other) government agency job market.

the system benefits from all the hoopla and high profile that surrounds it, some of which seems to be self-inflicted.

the system couldn't have been better designed as an add-on to existing capacities (albeit with some effort made to assure that it offers a distinctive and valuable analytical product).

whatever the value of specialists (and I'm one), we shouldn't underestimate the overwhelming value of common sense and empathy (not necessarily sympathy, but the ability to put yourself in someone else's shoes) in undertaking analysis. Given the choice between a PhD without those, and a smart analyst or operator with them, I would take the latter in most circumstances.

[William F. Owen]

Wilf, I think its fair to say in theory that anthropologists who have spent a dozen full-time years of graduate and post-graduate work on (say) kinship relations or local customary law, who have been through considerable training in research methodology, and who may have spent considerable time living and working among local populations, might know a thing or two about how local social dynamics work out on the ground that others aren't likely to pick up.


...but where would that not be true? Does the LAPD gang unit use Anthropologists in LA to understand the dynamics of local gangs in relation to immigrant communities? Maybe it should, but that does not make the case for having civilian scientist acting as part of your formation ISTAR capability. On that I think we are agreed.

[marct]

Some good food for thought that has been rumbling around in my backbrain for a while now.

Marc mate, I agree with you on one level, but..

British Officers were doing this well into the 1970's both in the Arabian Peninsular and to some extent, Ulster.

Agreed, although I suspect that some of that happened as a result of regimental tradition (it's a guess, but....).

Charting tribal, social, family and even ethnic associations are all Standard practice in Small War Intelligence work. It is something that the US has done before. - Vietnam, Indian War, etc etc. - and it is not something of recent invention, or insight.

Again, I agree. I'd take it back further to the Lewis & Clark expedition and the ethnographic questionnaires they were required to complete on their journey (something not usually taught in Anthro courses, along with the minor fact that Albert Gallatin, who was one of the founding fathers of the American Ethnological Society, was involved in creating those questionnaires :wry:).

I'm still trying to think this through but, at the moment, I am inclined to make the following observations:



The British had a tradition of Officers being "Gentlemen" which carried with it certain assumptions about types of education, attitude, etc. (along with the ability to buy your commission ;)).
One of these assumption, the "classical education", actually mirrors a lot of the reading in the old Roman system of PME (I've got an excruciating paper on it if anyone wants to read it).
A lot of this reading is in the tradition of thought from Hecateus of Miletus, through Herodotus, Lucian and Tacitus; i.e. the same roots as a lot of cultural Anthropology.
In addition to being the ground for modern Anthropology (I know some will disagree with me, but I can certainly back that assertion up), the same tradition produced what we can broadly called "military ethnographies" such as Tacitus' Germania and Brittania, Arrian's work, and Chapter XI of the Strategikon of Maurice. They also gave rise to Jeffersonian "ethnography" (i.e. "ethnography" as for both scholarly inetrest and political-military intelligence).

So, when you say "it is not something of recent invention", I'm smiling :D! It goes back a lot farther than most people want to talk about.

Anyway, that last observation leads me to think about your and Rex's point

On the other hand, I agree with you [Wilf] that this is, in essence, an intel function. It is neither appropriate nor useful for the HTS to pretend its just a set of neutral social scientists who happened to have arms/armed escorts.

You know, I think I'm going to have to partially disagree, more as a matter of trying to clarify things (in my mind) than anything else. My concern is that ethnographic knowledge may and at times is an intel function, but that that is not the sum total of it.

One of the things that came clear to me when I was writing that horrid paper last year on ethnographic knowledge in the Romano-Byzantine military tradition was that there was a point at which the knowledge became dangerous to the State (e.g. it made revolts too easy amongst other things). This led me to thinking about the functional type of ethnographic knowledge that was operationally useful for the military which, in a really round about way, brings me back to a lot of the questions Rex notes about the HTS.

Do you need someone with a graduate degree in Anthropology (or the social science) to produce operationally relevant, working ethnographic knowledge (that was the term I used in the paper)? Nope. Heck, that type of material can be pretty much produced by almost anyone who has some training and the right mind set.

Where something like the HTS, at least in theory, plays an appropriate role would be in situations where you are going into the realm of politics and de facto cultural engineering. If you have military commanders doing this, which we do at the moment, then they will need that level of ethnographic knowledge.

The potential problem, at least as I am perceiving it right now, is that there seems to be a real disconnect with actually integrating ethnographic knowledge of any type (outside of the "don't eat with your left hand" level). Anyway, I'm still mulling all this over and waiting for the light bulb to go off....

PS. Steve wanted to be a masochist and read the paper, so here is the link (http://marctyrrell.com/uploads/TFCT.pdf) to it (pdf, ~250k).

[Rex Brynen]

Does the LAPD gang unit use Anthropologists in LA to understand the dynamics of local gangs in relation to immigrant communities?

I would be very surprised if the LAPD doesn't sometimes use consultant anthropologists/criminologists/sociologists, actually. The RCMP, CSIS, and the DoJ certainly does here.

The difference with domestic LE, however, is that the consultant base is on location all the time as a matter of course, doing much of the kind of research you might be interested in, and can be given short-term contracts. In war zones you would have to go about securing that resource in a different way.

Moreover, the LAPD will be dealing with LA gangs until the end of time (and then some, if all the post-apocalyptic science fiction movies that I so love are anything to go by).

Militaries, on the other hand, need to be able to develop area- or issue-specific surge analysis capacities to meet current operational needs, which may be very different a few years down the line. I can see this coming from contracted social scientists where in-house uniformed capacities are unable to meet this (in which case, you're exactly right--it wouldn't be part of your "regular" formation ISTAR capability).

This is all separate from how well the current HTS system is actually doing this at the moment, an issue on which I really don't have enough information to judge, but do have some concerns.

[Ken White]

Militaries, on the other hand, need to be able to develop area- or issue-specific surge analysis capacities to meet current operational needs, which may be very different a few years down the line. I can see this coming from contracted social scientists where in-house uniformed capacities are unable to meet this (in which case, you're exactly right--it wouldn't be part of your "regular" formation ISTAR capability).

This is all separate from how well the current HTS system is actually doing this at the moment, an issue on which I really don't have enough information to judge, but do have some concerns.You, Sir, are a master of understatement -- I have major concerns about it even though I acknowledge the need in the paragraph above. My perception is that the downsizing and shoving under the bus of the Foreign Area Officer program by the Army was a terrible mistake...

[120mm]

Very interesting discussion: There are three things that haven't been mentioned so far, that I think are germane to the issue.

First, everyone mentions SF, and why they aren't doing this. Frankly, for all I know, SF IS doing this, but if you are in a regular army unit, you will never ever find out, as SF keeps all this wonderful information to themselves. Which is why SF CANNOT be allowed "in the loop" for developing ethnographic information for regular Army units. I'm glad they're special, but they do nothing for me, in terms of ethnographic information.

Second, I believe one of the primary purposes of HTS, is to re-engage the academic soft sciences into the military. And while we're at it, I am sick and tired of hearing about how Anthropology is drama-queening all the attention. It's not just about them. Frankly, I'd pick a military vet with a poli sci degree over an Anthro PhD every day of the week. Whether the HTS, or whatever it morphs into is too late for this particular war is immaterial. This is prototyping for future conflict, and as such has merit.

Third, I see nowhere in the regular Army where the kind of skill-set necessary for ethnography or creative problem solving are truly encouraged. The Army would find a way to pick out those "special soldiers" after basic to put them through school to be ethnographers, and at the end of those years of development, would be considered just another warm body for SDO, and whatever #### detail they could dream up. And in the process, that sharp person would become just another acculturated and compliant soldier.

A lot of these issues could be solved by putting the DoD out of the counterinsurgency business. If you accept that counterinsurgency is a political problem, then put politicians in charge of it.

[marct]

Some really good points, 120....

First, everyone mentions SF, and why they aren't doing this. Frankly, for all I know, SF IS doing this, but if you are in a regular army unit, you will never ever find out, as SF keeps all this wonderful information to themselves. Which is why SF CANNOT be allowed "in the loop" for developing ethnographic information for regular Army units. I'm glad they're special, but they do nothing for me, in terms of ethnographic information.

Well, I have no idea if they are doing something like this, but I would be very surprised if they weren't. That said, if it doesn't get out to the regular Army units, it's irrelevant. Just out of interest, let me toss out two hypotheticals. If SF is doing something similar, would you be in favour (hypothetically) in having their material distributed? Second, if they aren't doing something like this, do you think they would be a good place to lodge such a program IFF the material was distributed properly?

Second, I believe one of the primary purposes of HTS, is to re-engage the academic soft sciences into the military. And while we're at it, I am sick and tired of hearing about how Anthropology is drama-queening all the attention. It's not just about them. Frankly, I'd pick a military vet with a poli sci degree over an Anthro PhD every day of the week. Whether the HTS, or whatever it morphs into is too late for this particular war is immaterial. This is prototyping for future conflict, and as such has merit.

Several good observations here...

1. Yes, re-engaging with the social sciences and, especially, the qualitative side was part of the purpose.

2. But it's FUN!!!!!! :eek: (writes he in a whiny tone of voice)
http://la.indymedia.org/uploads/2005/11/authentic_drama_queen.jpg
NB: This picture is purely for illustrative purposes and is NOT meant to be a representation of any Anthropologist living, dead, or somewhere in between.

3. I can see why you would prefer a PoliSci person with a military background and how they could certainly be useful. Personally, I think it's more a combination of attitude and skill set rather than any particular degree per se.

4. You're quite correct that it is protyping, whether for future conflicts or for current ones in the future. That said, and given the often infuriating constraints on getting programs through and deployed, I would like to see a lot of thought going into the exact roles of such teams.

Third, I see nowhere in the regular Army where the kind of skill-set necessary for ethnography or creative problem solving are truly encouraged. The Army would find a way to pick out those "special soldiers" after basic to put them through school to be ethnographers, and at the end of those years of development, would be considered just another warm body for SDO, and whatever #### detail they could dream up. And in the process, that sharp person would become just another acculturated and compliant soldier.

Probably true :(. The history of the FAO program would certainly indicate some type of marginalization would happen.

A lot of these issues could be solved by putting the DoD out of the counterinsurgency business. If you accept that counterinsurgency is a political problem, then put politicians in charge of it.

Ummm, are you sure you want to do that :eek:? Much as I would love to see some politicians preaching the values of solidarity and socialism in the Swat Valley (http://www.memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD221009), I suspect that they would be even more useless that ...., sheesh, anyone I can think of!

[Ken White]

First, everyone mentions SF, and why they aren't doing this. Frankly, for all I know, SF IS doing this, but if you are in a regular army unit, you will never ever find out, as SF keeps all this wonderful information to themselves. Which is why SF CANNOT be allowed "in the loop" for developing ethnographic information for regular Army units...They don't keep it to themselves -- with some dumbass exceptions; most will willingly share -- an equal or greater problem is that some dumbass regular army units don't listen....And in the process, that sharp person would become just another acculturated and compliant soldier.Not everyone's all that compliant. I spent 45 years in it fighting compliance almost all that time. I know a lot of guys who wouldn't succumb. You've been around the system a while -- are you compliant?A lot of these issues could be solved by putting the DoD out of the counterinsurgency business. If you accept that counterinsurgency is a political problem, then put politicians in charge of it.We did that in Viet Nam, it was called CORDS and it worked. Worked very well, in fact. DoD didn't like that, the Generals didn't like that and Congress didn't like that. DoD didn't because their money was being spent by USAID. The Generals didn't because COIN is tedious, messy, dirty, lengthy and not predominately a military effort, it messed up the tidy Army in many ways. Congress didn't like it because it was expensive and required too much clout be given the Executive branch. Practicality and effectiveness were not items of concern.

So we decided not to do that. Until we had to do that and everyone had forgotten how. That's with a State Department and and Army with some continuity in charge -- and now you want to put politicians who roll over at two, four and six year intervals in charge...:eek:

[William F. Owen]

First, everyone mentions SF, and why they aren't doing this. Frankly, for all I know, SF IS doing this, but if you are in a regular army unit, you will never ever find out, as SF keeps all this wonderful information to themselves. Which is why SF CANNOT be allowed "in the loop" for developing ethnographic information for regular Army units. I'm glad they're special, but they do nothing for me, in terms of ethnographic information.

So what you are saying is that SF is not fit for purpose and the Army lacks the command authority to fix the problem? This is a mission that USSF have done and have done successfully.


Second, I believe one of the primary purposes of HTS, is to re-engage the academic soft sciences into the military.

This is prototyping for future conflict, and as such has merit.


Why do you want academic soft sciences in the field? Didn't need them before. Their engagement gets them money, so I guess they're happy.

How do you know what has merit in future conflict? What you do know, is discernible from past conflict. HTTs did not figure in any of the previous COIN conflicts. From all I have read, I see HTTs being a targeting and information gathering asset. Ethnography is information and it is put to military use, which should, when required, mean the use of lethal force.
That is not something civilians should be doing.

A lot of these issues could be solved by putting the DoD out of the counterinsurgency business. If you accept that counterinsurgency is a political problem, then put politicians in charge of it.

Well all war is a political problem and politicians are in charge of it. That's pure Clausewitz. Any Army that sees COIN as a distinct and separate form of warfare is guilty of gross stupidity. COIN is warfare. Normal Warfare practices apply, and are adapted accordingly.

[120mm]

They don't keep it to themselves -- with some dumbass exceptions; most will willingly share -- an equal or greater problem is that some dumbass regular army units don't listen.

I get the dumbass regular army thing; however, I only get info from SF guys over beer, once they realize that you're "okay". That is a two-edged blade.

Not everyone's all that compliant. I spent 45 years in it fighting compliance almost all that time. I know a lot of guys who wouldn't succumb. You've been around the system a while -- are you compliant?

I'm also irrelevant. I see a trend with an inverse relationship between compliancy and relevancy. But that is just basic large group dynamics, the more I think about it.

We did that in Viet Nam, it was called CORDS and it worked. Worked very well, in fact. DoD didn't like that, the Generals didn't like that and Congress didn't like that. DoD didn't because their money was being spent by USAID. The Generals didn't because COIN is tedious, messy, dirty, lengthy and not predominately a military effort, it messed up the tidy Army in many ways. Congress didn't like it because it was expensive and required too much clout be given the Executive branch. Practicality and effectiveness were not items of concern.

So we decided not to do that. Until we had to do that and everyone had forgotten how. That's with a State Department and and Army with some continuity in charge -- and now you want to put politicians who roll over at two, four and six year intervals in charge...:eek:

That is the rub, isn't it?

[120mm]

Why do you want academic soft sciences in the field? Didn't need them before. Their engagement gets them money, so I guess they're happy.

But prior to 1969 or so, academic soft sciences WERE major contributors to military efforts. Pigeon-guided bombs, anyone?

How do you know what has merit in future conflict? What you do know, is discernible from past conflict. HTTs did not figure in any of the previous COIN conflicts. From all I have read, I see HTTs being a targeting and information gathering asset. Ethnography is information and it is put to military use, which should, when required, mean the use of lethal force.
That is not something civilians should be doing.

We embed civilian journalists in military units, don't we? And I think it is short-sighted to view HTTs as targeting assets. Where intel weenies decide which doors to kick down, HTTs should be advising commanders on why they shouldn't kick down the door in the first place.

The military commander is pre-loaded to go after that weapons cache; maybe we need someone who is politically astute to explain to the military types that one military cache will not win or lose the war. But kicking down doors MAY lose it. And, frankly, HTTs become more of a POLAD than anything else, pushed down to the lower levels.

HTTs are also useful in teaching lower level soldiers on what to look for, beyond the "don't stare at their women and don't shake with the left hand" thing.

[William F. Owen]

We embed civilian journalists in military units, don't we? And I think it is short-sighted to view HTTs as targeting assets. Where intel weenies decide which doors to kick down, HTTs should be advising commanders on why they shouldn't kick down the door in the first place.

Journalists are tourists. No one pretends they contribute anything.
To kick or not kick is not really the problem. That comes down to good behaviour, and common sense.

... but HTTs are working for the military. That means that have to have some military utility. They must be useful. The military has a defined mission and that is what the HTTs have to support. The military is not there to enable the HTTs to gather information of Ethnographic interest.
Surely their job is to furnish information in support of the mission? Isn't that an S2 function?

Is it a civil affairs function?

[marct]

Hi Wilf,

To kick or not kick is not really the problem. That comes down to good behaviour, and common sense.

Both of which are rare and, also, culturally defined ;).

... but HTTs are working for the military. That means that have to have some military utility. They must be useful. The military has a defined mission and that is what the HTTs have to support. The military is not there to enable the HTTs to gather information of Ethnographic interest.
Surely their job is to furnish information in support of the mission? Isn't that an S2 function?

Is it a civil affairs function?

I think you, and a lot of people, are caught up in a terminology (and perception) problem here. The first part deals with the concept of "mission". First off, all missions are nested under and, in theory, subservient to a policy "mission". What may be the most immediately effective way to achieve a specific mission may actually lead to an increased likeliness of a higher order mission failing. This seems to be the niche in which the HTS was originally conceived of to fill - figuring out when the "normal" actions on a mission would increase the likelihood of failure for a higher order mission. That isn't really either an S2 or CA function.

Second, the "military utility" of an HTT is, in theory, both preventative as well as supportive in nature. Again, in theory, it should cover the spectrum from really low level missions (e.g. door kicking) to the highest order they can influence (e.g. which local power structures to work with). This just doesn't fit in nicely with the standard definitions of who does what, when and how, and it has certainly led to confusion about the role of the HTTs and the HTS.

[120mm]

I think it is probably a good time to point out, that as currently configured, HTS teams' primary mission is to provide overlap of ethnographic information between rotations.

Originally, HTS was supposed to be a computer system, but it failed, miserably. The teams were conceived as an analog way to pass ethnographic information from one rotation to another.

Apparently, the system has grown bigger than that, but it's conception was a reaction to the Army's inability to properly do a battle handoff with the inhabitants of their "battle space".

[marct]

You know, it's a totally weird evolution. If you go back to the earliest discussions, the original concept, apparently, was to provide some base level cultural training to deployed troops with an ethnographic library "back-up".

I wonder what a generation is in terms of its mission?

[Ken White]

I get the dumbass regular army thing; however, I only get info from SF guys over beer, once they realize that you're "okay". That is a two-edged blade.You missed the point. Dumbasses on both sides are the problem. I've seen SF teams get wrapped up in a green blanket and mystique and get really dumb as well as RA Cdrs tell the Teams to get a haircut. It is a two edged blade; both sides are at fault and it is abysmally stupid.I'm also irrelevant. I see a trend with an inverse relationship between compliancy and relevancy. But that is just basic large group dynamics, the more I think about it.No question but there are more non-compliant folks in the sense you meant than compliant ones, I believe...That is the rub, isn't it?Not to me, I wouldn't put a politician in charge of anything.:D

[ODB]

a dumbass. There is a time and a place to act in the ways so many complain about. When an Army BCT is targeting an ODA based on SIGINT and said ODA sends up a picture of one of it's members to the BCT S2, then said member goes into the TOC to brief the S2, the S2 realizes it's his target, makes for a funny story. Unfortunately in reality it is not funny. Or how about the time a conventional GO decided no one would leave a FOB in civilian clothes and vehicles. Intel dried up immediately because those he was complaining about stopped doing their job to comply. Same GO within a week came back begging for them to get back to work. Or the time an ODA thought they didn't need battle space approval for missions, then get into a skirmish and have no QRF support because no one knows they were even out conducting operations. I can go on and on, as we all can about the dumbasses on both sides, but the bottom line is it comes down to individuals. There is a common ground we all should be working towards to complete, unfortunately when individual agendas get in the way we end up with things like those stated above. No one side is more guilty than the other it just depends on the individuals involved. I have said before that I believe now than any other time in history are many of these issues going away and that the relationship between SOF and CF have never been better. Finally is everyone starting to understand what it is each other does, the big problem is when others want to do the jobs of each other and not their own job. There are many who "get it", unfortunately after 7 years there are still too many who do not. Too many have the I'm "special" attitude, why are they "special", because they are "Special Forces" who work for "Special Operations Command". That's two "specials", too bad they forget about the 3rd one, the individual!

As far as information sharing, there is a bigger picture out there that we all have our piece to paint. Whether we like it or not, all of us in the Army are compartmentalized for various reasons. There are different authorities that allow each of us to do different things, not everyone needs to know everything. I have heartburn when a BCT tells me they have their list of 300locals that I cannot talk to, what? That lasted all of 1/2 a day, when did they get into my business?

Additionally ethnography (had to look it up), but when I did I found it to be one word that sums up what I do. When one looks at techniques:

Direct, first-hand observation of daily behavior. This can include participant observation.

Conversation with different levels of formality. This can involve small talk to long interviews.

The genealogical method. This is a set of procedures by which ethnographers discover and record connections of kinship, descent and marriage using diagrams and symbols.

Detailed work with key consultants about particular areas of community life.

In-depth interviewing.

Discovery of local beliefs and perceptions.

Problem-oriented research.

Longitudinal research. This is continuous long-term study of an area or site.

Team research.

Case studies.

Sounds like what SF teams do daily.....

[marct]

Hi ODB,

Additionally ethnography (had to look it up),

LOL - from the Greek (like a lot of big academic words) ethnos - "people" and "graphos" - writing. Literally writing about a "People".

but when I did I found it to be one word that sums up what I do. When one looks at techniques:

Sounds like what SF teams do daily.....

Yup. Never said you folks didn't do it, and I'd love to buy you a few rounds sometime and chat with you about how you do do it. Maybe write an ethnography of SF ethnographers :D.

[ODB]

That is the million dollar question. We all know things are being done, but where those reports end up is the question. Additionally when they are passed around it's up to individuals whether they continue to distribute or file away. IMO the information is out there, but individuals with their own agendas hold it up or decide that because of the source they don't need it and develop (recreate the wheel) their own products. This is what we need to get over! I'm just one individual but it starts with individuals and if others start to come on board then we can make things happen the way they are suppose to. The whole networking thing, who knows maybe someday I'll be in some distant land with one of the very people on here and we'll both think back to these discussions and do things they way they should be done.

I'm always up for a few good rounds and some meeting of the minds. Best way to learn IMO, next to experiences.

[marct]

I'm always up for a few good rounds and some meeting of the minds. Best way to learn IMO, next to experiences.

Works for me :D.

You're right about the information compartmentalization, and it's not only in the military - we (Anthropologists) do it as well.

[William F. Owen]

Hi Wilf,
Both of which are rare and, also, culturally defined ;).

Agreed, but that doesn't change anything! :D

First off, all missions are nested under and, in theory, subservient to a policy "mission". What may be the most immediately effective way to achieve a specific mission may actually lead to an increased likeliness of a higher order mission failing.

Well I think I am pretty well versed in the difference between, task, mission, plan, and even strategy. I see all as being different things, but we do not have a universal set of definitions here.

That isn't really either an S2 or CA function. - Then it needs to be challenged and held to greater rigour than I had previously suggested. Seems like HTTs should work for the State Department then :)

This just doesn't fit in nicely with the standard definitions of who does what, when and how, and it has certainly led to confusion about the role of the HTTs and the HTS.
Again, this would seem to indicate a lack of rigour.

The role of HTTs reminds me of that of Wellington's cavalry - who thought their job was to "add tone to what would otherwise be a vulgar brawl."

[jcustis]

I would have to offer, that at least in my personal experience right at this moment, ODAs can at times have very specific agendas, like the mentoring and development of CT or "I-SWAT" teams that puts that effort at odds with the larger business of doing those things you mentioned ODB. Again, it is my current observation here in N. Iraq; results elsewhere may vary.

What I will also offer is the rant that I think it is totally presumtuous for a HTT to draft a report on the goings-on in my TF's AO, without ever setting one foot on the ground, talking with one single local national (to say nothing about taling with sheikhs, muktars, and men-on-the-stree), or perusing the conditions at any local market. So then how can that HTT presume to write a report about tribal and ethnic tensions on an electoral process, when we already know what their executive summary says? This same report smells exactly as if they simply read intentions reports and intelligence summaries and then slapped their own shade of lipstick on the baboon's ass. It remains a baboon's ass, however.

The problem lies in the fact that the folks who are tasked with employing aspects of HTT support just don't frigging know how to do it, and at time don't want to be bothered...Right as I got into country, the non-kinetic effects manager of our higher headquarters was concerned about the pending arrival of a human terrain team to his command, and he frankly did not know what to do with them, in part because he did not have the exposure, training, or both. I pointed him in the direction of this Council and the data repository of the Journal, in the hope that he would get enough read-in information to avoid getting steam-rolled by any agenda. Heck, he already had a huge wall chart of reconstruction project information that was in various states of disarray. He "got it" but he had neither the staff or time to manage the volume of the effort as effectively as he probably could have. And then a HTT gets tossed into the mix?

I was a huge fan of the PRT concept when I first read about much of it here within this very board. In pratical terms, there is anecdotal information that many battalion commanders find the PRT and embedded PRT efforts as a distraction, waste of time, and often very counter to their understanding of the commander's intent that was received from their higher headquarters. You know what they say about there not being any "I" in team, and I have already dealt with two PRT guys who have impressed me as being almost egocentric to the point that they could not possibly hear and understand what we were saying in response to their ideas and commentary. Couple that with this looming sense of zero movement on about anything that really needs to get done, and it is downright frustrating.

To cite just one example, we had a supporting PRT lead show up and try to pitch his development ideas to my boss, but he continued to harp on the red-tape he had to go through (some 17 steps with DoS) to get a project implemented via his channels. He wanted, however, to support our Task Force's efforts by assisting us with employing our funds to spin up the same sort of project. To all this, my boss told him basically thanks, but no thanks. Why should he utilize his money for something that should be a matter led by State in the first place?...and if it was hard because of the 17 steps, then maybe it just wan't meant to be performed by his TF either.

In just this past year or so, I have begun to rage against the degree with which we are outsourcing so much capability, and the PRTs and HTTs are starting to frustrate me, right along with the Law ENforcement Professional program, which at least for my TF, has turned out to be a bust and is about three years too late.

[120mm]

Agreed, but that doesn't change anything! :D

- Then it needs to be challenged and held to greater rigour than I had previously suggested. Seems like HTTs should work for the State Department then :)

I would suggest that the Army should work for DoS, at least in COIN.


IWhat I will also offer is the rant that I think it is totally presumtuous for a HTT to draft a report on the goings-on in my TF's AO, without ever setting one foot on the ground, talking with one single local national (to say nothing about taling with sheikhs, muktars, and men-on-the-stree), or perusing the conditions at any local market. So then how can that HTT presume to write a report about tribal and ethnic tensions on an electoral process, when we already know what their executive summary says? This same report smells exactly as if they simply read intentions reports and intelligence summaries and then slapped their own shade of lipstick on the baboon's ass. It remains a baboon's ass, however.

I cannot imagine how an HTT can continue to collect their prodigious salaries and never leave the wire. Did the commander not let them out of the gate, or did the HTT not leave based on their own judgement?

The problem lies in the fact that the folks who are tasked with employing aspects of HTT support just don't frigging know how to do it, and at time don't want to be bothered...Right as I got into country, the non-kinetic effects manager of our higher headquarters was concerned about the pending arrival of a human terrain team to his command, and he frankly did not know what to do with them, in part because he did not have the exposure, training, or both. I pointed him in the direction of this Council and the data repository of the Journal, in the hope that he would get enough read-in information to avoid getting steam-rolled by any agenda. Heck, he already had a huge wall chart of reconstruction project information that was in various states of disarray. He "got it" but he had neither the staff or time to manage the volume of the effort as effectively as he probably could have. And then a HTT gets tossed into the mix?

I wonder why he couldn't form a council of the various actors to cause them to coordinate and self-direct. He sounds like a micro-managing type who got what he deserved, frankly. Way too many folks in the military who manage/direct assets without knowing how to lead or to just let others do their jobs.

To me, a staff officer or commander would be well-served to look at product, first, and then share that vision with the actors, who can then be convinced/coerced/massaged into getting the commander's product.

BTW - the staff officer or commander have to expect that the actor gets his/hers, too, in the process of helping each other out.

[Stan]

I cannot imagine how an HTT can continue to collect their prodigious salaries and never leave the wire. Did the commander not let them out of the gate, or did the HTT not leave based on their own judgment?


That issue is no longer an "issue". They will be promoted to the prestigious grade of GS-12 and promptly dumped outside the wire (assuming they stay on board) :wry:

HTS Program Managers Spared, Laugh On Way to Bank (http://www.inteldaily.com/news/173/ARTICLE/9681/2009-02-11.html)

By John Stanton

Filed under > Commentary

(The Intelligence Daily) -- “I will bet that there is more to this than SOFA issue! It would be interesting to know the true reason this has happened. I can imagine that there are some unhappy campers in the program now.”

On February 9, 2009, Human Terrain System (HTS) program manager Steve Fondacaro informed HTS employees that they were being converted to Term Government Employees. The catalyst for the drastic change was, according to Fondacaro, the new Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with the Iraqi Government. Yet, sources believe there is something fishy about the SOFA cover, particularly since their treatment by HTS program management (Steve Fondacaro, Steve Rotkoff—Deputy Program Manager, and Montgomery McFate-Sapone-Senior Social Scientist) over the past year has been anything but stellar. Further, BAE SYSTEMS was not notified by HTS program management but, according to sources, by HTS employees who had gotten word of the changes afoot through the HTS grapevine.

[marct]

That issue is no longer an "issue". They will be promoted to the prestigious grade of GS-12 and promptly dumped outside the wire (assuming they stay on board) :wry:

Too true, Stan! Take a look at John's latest report (http://cryptome.info/0001/hts-bailout.htm). This part in particular caught my eye:

"As of 8:00AM Monday morning, 9 February, the US federal government made a move to make all Human Terrain Team jobs federal positions. BAE was never notified in advance and received notification at about the same time as employees. This is a major pay cut [for us] and you would not believe how much. I was making six figures (USD) with the opportunity to make much more when I got to Iraq. Now I drop to five figures and with my cap as a government employee I will not make much more. But a social scientist with absolutely no experience will still be making the six figure amount! We will now all be labeled as Intelligence Analysts and that includes analysts, research managers, social scientists and team leaders. Many of us can't afford to quit because of financial obligations. Social Scientists in the program are torn now because they can't take a position that says Intelligence Analyst as a job description."

That last sentence, if true, will be a real problem. One other thing is that this quote seems to imply that there will be different pay grades for social scientists and other team members. If THAT is true, it is a kiss of death as far as team building is concerned :(.

[Stan]

Hey Marc !
The things one can google these days :cool: I ran across Implications of Space and Time (nice job BTW) and the US. Army's Professional Writing Collection.

You may have very well provided the first complete set of definitions for AO that, to this day, I never spent much time thinking about.

Then the Army comes (came) up with The Trouble with Strategic Communication(s) (http://www.army.mil/professionalwriting/volumes/volume6/september_2008/9_08_2_pf.html) :rolleyes:

Human Terrain Teams (HTTs) have recently been employed in Afghanistan at the brigade level to support a focus on the information environment in planning with very positive initial success. ... The education pipeline, however, is not overflowing with trained information experts and most brigades will likely never see a social scientist assigned to their staff.

Not quite sure why I think this para means absolutely nothing, but yet, says it it all.

[Ken White]

ways to rid themselves of a program that is drawing flak while never admitting any mistakes on their part.

The Armed forces of the US are masters of the various techniques... ;)

[marct]

The things one can google these days :cool: I ran across Implications of Space and Time (nice job BTW) and the US. Army's Professional Writing Collection.

You may have very well provided the first complete set of definitions for AO that, to this day, I never spent much time thinking about.

Hey Stan,

Thanks - I enjoyed writing it ;) (if any masochists want to read it, it's here (http://marctyrrell.com/2009/01/10/some-implications-of-space-and-time/)). I've got to admit that the assumptions they operate on are really bad blinders :cool:.

The education pipeline, however, is not overflowing with trained information experts and most brigades will likely never see a social scientist assigned to their staff.

You know, that might not be a bad thing :D. Seriously, though, I would rather see social scientists interacting with planners, trainers and simulators (oh yeah, and the policy folks too!), than foisting us off on an unsuspecting BCT. Okay, I'll admit, I'd love to do fieldwork with one, but that gets us back to the question about foisting social scientists off on military personnel in a war zone...

[Ron Humphrey]

Hey Stan,

Thanks - I enjoyed writing it ;) (if any masochists want to read it, it's here (http://marctyrrell.com/2009/01/10/some-implications-of-space-and-time/)). I've got to admit that the assumptions they operate on are really bad blinders :cool:.

Read earlier after Stan posted about it and it didn't hurt as much as I thought it might:wry:

Think your on to something though with exactly how and or where integration takes place. If someone specializes in things which happen over long periods of time then aside from the fact they might recognize something not exactly sure how well they'll ever not be somewhat of a difficulty for those who have deal with the "here and now, right now" day to day action.:confused:

[marct]

Hi Ron,

Read earlier after Stan posted about it and it didn't hurt as much as I thought it might:wry:

Drat, I'm going to have to maqke those posts more academic or my rep will be RUINED!!!!!! :p

Think your on to something though with exactly how and or where integration takes place. If someone specializes in things which happen over long periods of time then aside from the fact they might recognize something not exactly sure how well they'll ever not be somewhat of a difficulty for those who have deal with the "here and now, right now" day to day action.:confused:

It is tricky. I tend to think in centuries / millenia, and that gets really tricky for my students to understand. On the whole, I know it is possible - I've been able to do it - but it is tricky.

[120mm]

I am looking more and more like a freaking genius for taking my current gig.

BTW, things are just rockin' in Kabul, so far...

[Stan]

I am looking more and more like a freaking genius for taking my current gig.

BTW, things are just rockin' in Kabul, so far...

Hey Drew !
Say, you're not hangin' out with Anthropologists at the local bars, are you ? :eek:

Stay safe and keep your powder dry !

Regards, Stan

[Jedburgh]

Military Review, Mar-Apr 09: All Our Eggs in a Broken Basket: How the Human Terrain System is Undermining Sustainable Military Cultural Competence (http://usacac.army.mil/CAC2/MilitaryReview/Archives/English/MilitaryReview_20090430_art010.pdf)
Field-experienced warfighters and other experts in operational art have identified a range of weaknesses in military cultural training, education, and intelligence. Each “culture gap” has been painstakingly codified in military journals and official publications, most notably in Field Manual (FM) 3-24, Counterinsurgency (COIN). Finding an effective and lasting solution to these shortcomings has framed the latest phase of an ongoing debate over how to meet operational cultural requirements.

One approach argues for comprehensive change. This method would take all the criticism of military cultural training and intelligence analysis to heart, applying recent doctrine to long-term knowledge and cultural terrain analysis programs. Forcing the services to view the cultural terrain as a co-equal element of military terrain—without abandoning core warfighting capabilities—would ensure the kind of all-inclusive focus on culture that the Army and Marine Corps applied to maneuver warfare theory in the 1990s.

The other side of the debate, represented by the advocates of the Human
Terrain System (HTS), calls for an immediate solution in the form of nonorganic personnel, new equipment, and the direct application of external academic support. HTS essentially adds a quick-fix layer of social science expertise and contracted reachback capability to combatant staffs. This “build a new empire” proposal is based on the assumption that staffs are generally incapable of solving complex cultural problems on their own.....

[120mm]

The thesis of this paper offers a false choice: Having HTS does not negatively impact the Army's ability to fix it's cultural awareness problem one iota. In fact, smart Army leaders should be able to integrate HTS into their cultural awareness improvement plans.

[marct]

I suspect that there is a confusion going on as to the levels (and types) of cultural knowledge used by the various programs - HTS included.

[jcustis]

I came across this on a totally unrelated site dedicated to the process of becoming a Marine Corps officer. Good reading that shows the knuckle-draggers are thinking. It also shows, I would argue, that we are seeing a new breed of hero to some degree. Bhatia died and that makes it somewhat more poignant, but still heroic:

Found this excellent story at MarineCorpsTimes.com about another academic who was killed while serving with the HTT.

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2009/03/ap_dangerousman2_031509w/
--------------

After seven nights sleeping on the ground, and seven days without a hot shower, Master Sgt. Rachael Ridenour was beat.

But when the Black Hawk helicopter touched down at Forward Operating Base Salerno, Afghanistan, Ridenour and teammate Tom Garcia shouldered their packs and headed straight for the plywood hut with plywood furniture that served as the Human Terrain team's office. It was time to meet their new colleague.

They expected a jetlagged and lost-looking newbie. But the man in the button-down Oxford shirt who rose from behind a computer to shake their hands talked in overdrive. He used vocabulary that made clear he was no soldier. In the two days he’d spent waiting for them to return from their mission, Michael Bhatia told them, he’d already begun two research projects.

PART ONE
• 1 man’s odyssey from campus to combat

Heading back to the barracks, Ridenour and Garcia assessed the new guy.

“He needs to hurry up and get tired or it’s going to be a long year keeping up with him,” she said.

[William F. Owen]

Purely for information, am I to understand that the following are indicative of the normall HTT mission, and can anyone tell me why they do not fall under the normal G2 staff and Provost Marshall responsibilities?
Garcia — was working to make himself an expert on the theft of goods from military convoys, interviewing drivers and others to figure out what was stolen, why and where.
Ridenour — was working to become the team’s expert on the local economy, tracking the price Afghan locals paid for cooking oil, flour and other staples.
...and...
Meanwhile, Bhatia was zeroing in on his own line of research — gauging the insurgency by tracking attacks not on the military, but on local leaders who were combatants’ rivals for power.

Additionally, from whom did these people receive their tasking? Someone other than G2?

[Ken White]

but since I haven't been there and am woefully out of date, I could be wrong so I'll let someone who's more current answer.

[Meinertzhagen]

While I agree that answering these questions is a part of the core tasks of a G-2/S-2 section, the tactical (Div. and below) Military Intelligence corps is simply not aligned to collect and analyze the information to provide accurate answers. In Afghanistan, the CJTF-101 CJ2 and perhaps even the Brigade S-2s (depending on the Brigade) are almost entirely threat focused. Even within the focus on the enemy, they are largely oriented toward personality targeting and other of what I term distracters, such as foreign fighters and "the border". While the Division CJ-2 operates a small "Non-Lethal Analysis" section, I would be surprised if a single person in that shop ever talked to an Afghan other than at the Bagram Bazaar.

This isn't fundamentally a criticism of the CJ2, as they generally respond to the demands of their command and must work within the trained competencies of the personnel assigned as analysts and collectors and the MTOW. However, I am strongly critical of the general orientation of the MI Corps itself, looking largely away from the tactical fight at the Company level and below. The Division CJ2 section has hundreds of personnel on its Joint Manning Document, most of whom will never impact even the Battalion fight.
The most experienced HUMINT collectors are filling the CJ2X bureaucracy, managing Division and above requirements often meaningless to the actioning units and shuffling paperwork. Tens of all source analysts are dedicated to simply doubling the efforts of Battalion and Brigade analysts, only operating with less information and exposure to the fight.

All of this amounts to a large section of smart, talented and experienced personnel whom through their isolation in windowless rooms at Bagram will simply never understand the battlespace about whom they claim to be able to produce "intelligence." (sorry if I sound bitter) Thus leaving a massive void to be filled. The HTT is manned and missioned to be among the people, conducting the research on the ground where the vast majority of MI personnel will never go. Smart Battalions and Brigades have of course recognized this and have made the necessary adjustments to compensate without a HTT. Until Battalions and below are resourced with the personnel and training to answer these questions themselves or there is a realignment in the priorities of work among collectors and analysts, the void will remain for the HTT to fill.

[Ken White]

My perception was that possibly (or more likely probably) the Bn / Bde S2 crews were understaffed (as likely was the 4 while while the 1 and 3 were probably overstaffed... :rolleyes:) and that aside from that adverse impactor, two other things hit. You confirmed that one is excessively large and perhaps misemployed higher level staffs and I sense that another is an insistence by the chain of command on focusing on the 'kinetic' * slash 'real warfighting' aspects as opposed to the human factors -- which is what we're supposed to be all about...

Is that sensing correct in your view?

* I'm beginning to dislike 'kinetic' almost as much as I disliked 'target servicing' and 'H&I Fires.'

[120mm]

Purely for information, am I to understand that the following are indicative of the normall HTT mission, and can anyone tell me why they do not fall under the normal G2 staff and Provost Marshall responsibilities?


...and...


Additionally, from whom did these people receive their tasking? Someone other than G2?


These don't ordinarily sound like an HTT "core" mission, but they certainly would be peripheral to judging the Human Terrain "Map". Understand that the reporter could be completely off, but it sounds like this particular team go off into G2 territory, as you point out.

HTTs should co-exist, but not receive any "tasking" from G2. By my understanding, the HTT Leader should go directly to the commander to mutually work out his/her boundaries, and what kind of product he can/is tasked to produce.

If I were a Brigade Commander, I would have my HTT working on ways to accomplish my Brigade mission without applying military force/applying minimum military force. Kind of like a POLAD and staff. I'd also like them playing devil's advocate on my kinetic ops, having them research and lay out the consequences of those ops within the community at large.

In addition to their core mission of mapping who is related to whom, in what ways and how.

[William F. Owen]

In addition to their core mission of mapping who is related to whom, in what ways and how.

Well that's insightful in many ways because if we assume (and I am assuming because the practice does not support my assumption) that there is a Human Terrain to map, then the implication is that like a cartographic survey, specialist skills are required - BUT - that should be the limit of their employment.

Seems to me that, if the article is accurate, - and I do not assume it is, - then there are some serious question marks over what HTTs do and more critically, why experience military personnel with relevant and usable military skills (military police) and being farmed out to them.

[120mm]

Seems to me that, if the article is accurate, - and I do not assume it is, - then there are some serious question marks over what HTTs do and more critically, why experience military personnel with relevant and usable military skills (military police) and being farmed out to them.

I think the answer is because "experienced military personnel" will ignore any information that doesn't apply directly to them. Or see it only in ways that fit their own, rather narrow paradigm.

It's been my experience, in the care and feeding of American military personnel that they will a) stay in their lane and b) slap down anyone who appears to be out of their lane. This prevents anything approaching creativity and thought from happening.

This, I think, is a weakness of the military mind. Academics have roughly similar weaknesses, but in a different way. I think they'd make a good devil's advocate tool for a commander smart enough to use them as such.

And I don't think Human Terrain is a good term at all. More likely that Human Weather Map would be a better term.

[120mm]

Just thought I'd post that the last couple weeks I've been working in the vicinity of a highly effective HTT in Afghanistan. Frankly, they need to clone these guys, and send them with every Army Brigade.

They are severely depleted in strength, however, and no hiring of new HTT members in sight.

And no, they are not targeting the enemy, and yes, they work quite well with the BDE POLAD. CA and SPECOPs assets are basically doing "not much" in the Human Terrain category in the AO. At least relevant to this BDE.

Maybe the HTS is the answer to a real problem, hmmm?

[Jedburgh]

Commander's Guide: Employing a Human Terrain Team in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom (https://forums.bcks.army.mil/secure/CommunityBrowser.aspx?id=762524&lang=en-US)

AKO Log-In and BCKS registration required to access the link.

[William F. Owen]

Just reading this (http://www.amazon.com/Military-Intelligence-Palestine-1914-1918-Studies/dp/0714646776) - thanks to finding a cheap-copy, and a recommendation from Jedburgh.

It contains an extract from the Middle-East 1918 Intelligence Handbook,

The Arab Bureau was really a Tribal Department where all the information about tribes was recorded, and which also compiled and issued various analyses of tribes, genealogical tables, tribal maps, personalities and who's who and so on...

...so basically given that this is provably a military G2 area, and, as I have said, always has been, so why the HTT route?

...and as one reviewed notes here (http://www.meforum.org/1270/british-military-intelligence-in-the-palestine), HUMINT can be massively over played.

[George L. Singleton]

I got an interesting letter this morning over a list I'm on from the Sheiks of the al-Tajy North Region endorsing the actions of the HTT in their area.

I just got permission to post the letter, so here it is. BTW, the names of HTT members have been blanked out and the English is somewhat poor.

Hang on...

Hah, got it! Here's the letter (http://smallwarsjournal.com/docs/user/shiekendorsement.pdf).

Isn't publishing the three shieks names and titles setting them up to be murdered by the terrorists?

[Van]

During WW II, Margaret Mead wrote a proposal for a two year training program to make soldiers into "regional ethnogeographic specialists". Does anyone know where I could locate an e-copy of it?

Thanks.
Van

[120mm]

Just reading this (http://www.amazon.com/Military-Intelligence-Palestine-1914-1918-Studies/dp/0714646776) - thanks to finding a cheap-copy, and a recommendation from Jedburgh.

It contains an extract from the Middle-East 1918 Intelligence Handbook,

The Arab Bureau was really a Tribal Department where all the information about tribes was recorded, and which also compiled and issued various analyses of tribes, genealogical tables, tribal maps, personalities and who's who and so on...

...so basically given that this is provably a military G2 area, and, as I have said, always has been, so why the HTT route?

...and as one reviewed notes here (http://www.meforum.org/1270/british-military-intelligence-in-the-palestine), HUMINT can be massively over played.

I'd respond to that by stating that the military (G2, CA, SF) are focussing on other things, and have abdicated that mission. So the HTT occupies the vacuum.

Our local HTT does a pretty good job of evaluating the things that don't normally figure into the G2 "loop". They evaluate how ops affect public opinion and work to integrate US/Afghani "soft" issues, such as engagement with not only local leaders, but also some of the rank and file citizenry.

I recently attended an "Afghan Night" where the local leaders/citizens were able to mix fairly freely with ISAF soldiers in a secure environment. This event was conceptualized, researched and executed by the local HTT. In the 8th year of US presence here, it was the first time done, and was wildly popular with both the Afghans and the ISAF personnel.

The so-called "G2 channels" in the US army are primarily concerned with finding doors to kick in and people to shoot/arrest. HTT should be concerned with advising the Commander what the consequences are IF they kick in the door and arrest those people.

[120mm]

As an addendum, one of the problems with US G2, is that it has its own branch. As a non-MI officer who has spent 10 out of 26 years in an MI billet, I have found that good MI officers are fairly rare. And by "good" I mean the kind of well-grounded, outside the box thinkers who really understand their craft.

The best intelligence officers I've ever met were generally not MI branch, or were branch transfer types. Of course, the vagaries of the evaluation system and branch loyalty has tended to be rough on the careers of detailed-branch officers, and the current policy of excluding non-MI officers from MI billets has just about guaranteed something less than mediocrity within G2.

[120mm]

Isn't publishing the three shieks names and titles setting them up to be murdered by the terrorists?

Not really. The bad guys know who they are and what they're doing.

[William F. Owen]

The so-called "G2 channels" in the US army are primarily concerned with finding doors to kick in and people to shoot/arrest. HTT should be concerned with advising the Commander what the consequences are IF they kick in the door and arrest those people.

120 mate. I do get it. My "so why the HTT route" is rhetorical.

From my perspective, the US using HTTs is addressing a problem that should not exist, IF someone had

thought through the problem, from a real staff functions perspective
understood the real history and enduring conditions of "small wars."

Clearly no one did and I think FM3-24 may not have dealt with it - long time since I bothered to look at it.

Point being, now you have HTTs there is never going to be a fix to the problem, and thus the problem will get worse. For example, making the differentiation, as you have articulated it, blows huge holes in the conceptual teaching of MI.

I am not saying HTTs are not good and brave men. They assuredly are, but that should not be seen as justifying their existence.

[Ken White]

calls for repairing or discarding things that are not broken. In the event something is slightly broken, the preferred option is to refer it to a consultant or specialist who will (a) tell you what you knew all along and (b) offer you a 'plan' to 'fix' the problem -- realizing of course that said consultant has no vested interest in your success or failure. This invariably involves throwing money at all problems and a consultant or specialist who laughs all the way to the Bank while the former minor problem exacerbates and morphsd into a larger and more complex problem.

The US Army training process is an excellent example of this...

Thus, for the topic at hand, failure to be prepared to conduct warfare in all its permutations caused us to lose focus generally, the Intel folks to get enamored of gadgets instead of their job, and our various communities to fight for more dollars by doing whatever seemed likely to attract the most money. Note that latter is NOT the same thing as doing what was obvious to a fifth Grade Student what was probably needed...

So, Yeah, you and 120mm are both correct. The HTT are needed and they do fill a vacuum caused by improper focus. :mad:

(Thank you both for allowing my morning rant!)

[120mm]

Wilf,

Unfortunately, I do not believe there is a possible fix to the G2 problem. Heck, the entire staff officer system is a band-aid for incompetent commanders, if you look at it a certain way.

Your implication that the system even considers that there IS a problem, and if so, that it is desirable or even possible to effect a solution is giving the staff development/training system too much credit.

Note how the fragmentation and super-specialization of US staffs has occured over the last 10 years alone.

We've gone from having a commander, a couple advisors, and runners/liaison officers, to discrete numbered staffs, (1-4, then 5) to a system that now has 9? staff sections.

I expect, within the next decade to encounter a Field Grade Officer who identifies him/herself as the Battalion S-1,238,976 (which has primary staff responsibility for tracking the zodiac sign of red headed left handers born during a blue moon within the battalion.) That section, of course, will have 10 people in it.

[Ken White]

Good comments.

I've watched the 'Generalist' model not do all that well in the US Army for years and could never put my finger on a fix other than to do away with DOPMA / OPM 21 and realize that everybody of broadly similar background can't do everything well. I knew the Army realized that but always figured the Congressionally imposed 'fairness' and 'objectivity' laws forced the issue. Couldn't figure a way to fix it without undoing laws and such -- always difficult.

Talking to my Son the other night and he hit me with a blindingly obvious point that I should've picked up years ago but did not. Staffs. Staffs are the problem. As you say most are far too large and not at all well trained. Son pointed out that the Germans then and now also use the Generalist as Commander approach but their systems work far better than ours.

The difference -- their General Staff system and small very competent staffs; that and the fact that they do not arbitrarily move people constantly and don't have 'up or out.'

Yeah, I know, they lost two Wars -- but not because of performance at Division and below. That's where you need real tactical and technical competence; echelons above that are politically dominated

[jcustis]

I expect, within the next decade to encounter a Field Grade Officer who identifies him/herself as the Battalion S-1,238,976 (which has primary staff responsibility for tracking the zodiac sign of red headed left handers born during a blue moon within the battalion.) That section, of course, will have 10 people in it.

For that reason alone, it is good to be able to greet someone and say, "hey, nice to meet you...I'm the XO." That way, they already know you are the proverbial one-legged man, and that your pain is real. :D

[William F. Owen]

Wilf,

Unfortunately, I do not believe there is a possible fix to the G2 problem. Heck, the entire staff officer system is a band-aid for incompetent commanders, if you look at it a certain way.


120, you are so singing my song! I hear you. The staff system is porked, and your comments are spot on the money. If the timings in Battalion Logs are accurate the UK now takes 4 times longer than it did to plan and execute an attack than it did in 1944!! - when there were only 3 staff posts up to the formation level I, O and G!

[William F. Owen]

Talking to my Son the other night and he hit me with a blindingly obvious point that I should've picked up years ago but did not. Staffs. Staffs are the problem. As you say most are far too large and not at all well trained. Son pointed out that the Germans then and now also use the Generalist as Commander approach but their systems work far better than ours.

The difference -- their General Staff system and small very competent staffs; that and the fact that they do not arbitrarily move people constantly and don't have 'up or out.'


Yep, staffs are getting bigger for no good reason for sure. (net centric anyone?) The IDF copied the UK staff system, not the German, but even in 48,67,73 and 82, Bn Staffs were rarely more than 3-4 officers. Even at the Brigade level their were rarely more than 10 - based on folks I've talked to.

[jmm99]

from Wilf
If the timings in Battalion Logs are accurate the UK now takes 4 times longer than it did to plan and execute an attack than it did in 1944!! - when there were only 3 staff posts up to the formation level I, O and G!

Going back to 1944, 1/117 had the CO (LTC), XO (MAJ) and four staff officers: S1 (CPT; also HHC commander); S2 (1LT); S3 (CPT); and S4 (1LT). In a staged photo of the Siegfried Breakthrough sandtable (mid-Nov 1944 phase), pictured are the CO and the five company commanders. Apparently, that was then and now is now.

[marct]

During WW II, Margaret Mead wrote a proposal for a two year training program to make soldiers into "regional ethnogeographic specialists". Does anyone know where I could locate an e-copy of it?

Thanks.
Van

David Price talks about it in Anthropological Intelligence (google books (http://books.google.ca/books?id=gtRATdFSxuEC&pg=PA79&lpg=PA79&dq=%22margaret+mead%22+%22regional+ethnogeographic +specialists%22&source=bl&ots=wpLjmRYHl6&sig=YL0-64ielut2eUcJhyc4JDBE2R8&hl=en&ei=8IYRSvnLKZ2uMdOthbkG&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2)). The source is listed as Box M25, MM. Sorry, I don't have a paper copy to get the rest of the reference material.

[IntelTrooper]

As an addendum, one of the problems with US G2, is that it has its own branch. As a non-MI officer who has spent 10 out of 26 years in an MI billet, I have found that good MI officers are fairly rare. And by "good" I mean the kind of well-grounded, outside the box thinkers who really understand their craft.

The best intelligence officers I've ever met were generally not MI branch, or were branch transfer types. Of course, the vagaries of the evaluation system and branch loyalty has tended to be rough on the careers of detailed-branch officers, and the current policy of excluding non-MI officers from MI billets has just about guaranteed something less than mediocrity within G2.
I'm sorry I didn't see this post until just now. This pretty well sums up my experience working with MI officers. It's a tragedy because the job is so important. I must say, you are a very perceptive person. :)

[davidbfpo]

A rare example of the UK trying the HTT approach, with one reservist officer: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6349141.ece

davidbfpo

[William F. Owen]

A rare example of the UK trying the HTT approach, with one reservist officer: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6349141.ece


Another history free leap forward. OK Good stuff, - and at least he is military - but the British Army always did this stuff from 1840-1960. It was a normal military intelligence function, and in fact it was MOSTLY what colonial MI did.

...talk about lessons not learned. :mad:

[120mm]

I'm sorry I didn't see this post until just now. This pretty well sums up my experience working with MI officers. It's a tragedy because the job is so important. I must say, you are a very perceptive person. :)

I'd accept that compliment, if it didn't take 7 of those 10 years as an Intel Officer, and nearly 20 of the last 26.5 years in my military career to finally figure it out. Jack isn't "that" perceptive, just well-scarred...

As truth in advertising is relatively important, last Monday I accepted a position as an HTS Team Lead. So hopefully, we will see how this all works out.

[marct]

As truth in advertising is relatively important, last Monday I accepted a position as an HTS Team Lead. So hopefully, we will see how this all works out.

You got it? Finally! I was wondering what was going on with that!

[Ken White]

last Monday I accepted a position as an HTS Team Lead. So hopefully, we will see how this all works out.it works out as well for you as I'm sure it will for the units you support.

[Steve the Planner]

120 mm. Congrats on the assignment. My Mom, who was a computer programmer, always taught me that life is problems and the fun is solving them. I'm sure you will have plenty of the kind of fun that our acquired tastes will enjoy.

I'm still scratching my head about all this ethnographic mapping stuff.

Prior to the demise of the old foreign service (1960's), each embassy had a mapping attache whose job it was to scurry around and collect maps, census, ethnic stuff and send it home---to a State geography department that knew what to do with it. Compile it for future reference in the event it was needed (war? foreign assistance program design? trade negotiation?).

In Iraq, the embassy was blind (and the other two monkeys). It knew less about the country and its people than most geographers in the US could pick up from a night of internet searching.

Now, State's excellent geography office is limited only to monitoring international boundaries, and couldn't tell you where or how many districts exist in Kirkuk even six years into a war where Kirkuk remains a big issue. There is nobody there at State studying this stuff in Iraq or any other country. US AID's contractors can't help you either. NGA has great physical and terrain mapping, but can't tell anyone how many people are in any area (basic census data), let alone fine-grained stuff about those people.

I spent a lot of time last year trying to get the mil system to integrate basic demographic and property tracking data from civilian sources (Min of Planning/CoSIT), and Land Records---the stuff we all use in the civilian world in the States was all available in Iraq)---but could never find anyone interested. Note: I have the complete Iraqi census records (including all the tribal and ethnic data (by nahia) dating to the 1930s sitting on my civilian hard-drive and nobody ever asked for it (One day, I'll get around to assembling and publishing it, but now, I only look at it for spot references).

But without the basic knowledge of a country and it's people on the front end (before war), how can the US expect to establish credible foreign policy (of which war is only a piece).

While it is true that the military needs it NOW, and nobody else has it unless HTS brings it to them, the reality is that HTS is a short-term fix, as others have said, and much that it does will have limited effect and will disappear soon as the game stops.

How do we create a fix that will allow national and sub-national ethnographic, civilian economic and infrastructure, and political administrative tracking and reporting in a manner that folks can no it pre-emptively, rather than something 120mm has to try to track down in the field after it is needed and the bullets are flying?

Steve

[marct]

Hi Steve,

I'm still scratching my head about all this ethnographic mapping stuff.

One of the big problems with "ethnographic mapping" has always been the tendency of people to assume that it is static. I suspect that some of this comes out of the 19th - early 20th century habit of colonial administrators and anthropologists to put the maps out in a "snapshot" setting; basically an "at this point in time" picture. That made a lot of sense when it was happening, and most of the theoretical models they were using required it, but what is forgotten is that those models required it because it was nigh on impossible, at the time, to get decent historical depth.

One of the truly humongous problems with the static maps produced was that people looking at them tended to essentialize the groups that were put on the map - basically "freezing" the groups in both time and space. Consider, by way of example, how people outside the US would think about the US if the only maps they ever saw were of the 13 colonies or, conversely, of the current boundaries.

This habit of essentializing the mapped groups also played in to a sub-conscious desire to construct a lot of these groups as "traditional" or "pristine" cultures; groups that "have always" been "here" and "like this". Big, BIG mistake!

Let me just give you one example of why dynamic maps can be useful. In a lot of situations, groups migrate from one area to another - frequently under pressure of other groups. The experience of this type of migration is often caught in cultural stories (myths, legends, etc.) that constructs concepts of "ownership" and, often, resentment that can be maintained for 100's of years. So, if we had maps that were dynamic over time, we could infer from movement patterns where certain types of resentments would exist and then test those inferences by looking at current folk "histories".

As a case in point, I'm reading Kilcullen's Accidental Geurillas right now, and he has a great vignette about Damadola in the Bajaur Agency (p. 227-232). One of the key points he makes is from the actions by the British in the area in 1897 where the village was destroyed by the British and, also, later Predator strikes against it in 2006 and 2008. If there was a time sequence set of maps that marked "Western" assualts against villages, it would probably correlate heavily with potential support for the Taliban.

I spent a lot of time last year trying to get the mil system to integrate basic demographic and property tracking data from civilian sources (Min of Planning/CoSIT), and Land Records---the stuff we all use in the civilian world in the States was all available in Iraq)---but could never find anyone interested. Note: I have the complete Iraqi census records (including all the tribal and ethnic data (by nahia) dating to the 1930s sitting on my civilian hard-drive and nobody ever asked for it (One day, I'll get around to assembling and publishing it, but now, I only look at it for spot references).

Unbelievable! You know, that is the type of data that graduate students (and profs!) would kill for. If you ever want to make it available, I know a lot of people who would be interested ;).

But without the basic knowledge of a country and it's people on the front end (before war), how can the US expect to establish credible foreign policy (of which war is only a piece).

In short, and being cynical, by adopting a "wogs don't matter" attitude. The fact that such an attitude will backfire on the politicians that adopt it doesn't really matter; if they can use it to manipulate the eloctorate at home, then its feasible.

While it is true that the military needs it NOW, and nobody else has it unless HTS brings it to them, the reality is that HTS is a short-term fix, as others have said, and much that it does will have limited effect and will disappear soon as the game stops.

Honestly, the HTS is not the only source, nor should it be. The HTS should have been an in theatre, high level interpretive group. As currently constituted, there are some serious drawbacks to the program, not the least of which being that many commanders just don't know what to do with them :wry:!

How do we create a fix that will allow national and sub-national ethnographic, civilian economic and infrastructure, and political administrative tracking and reporting in a manner that folks can no it pre-emptively, rather than something 120mm has to try to track down in the field after it is needed and the bullets are flying?

Some of that is already happening, rather quietly, but it carries its own problems (e.g. the risk of alienating friendy or neutral groups, the risk of the US being perceived as acting unilaterally in the international arena, etc.). Again, Kilcullen deals with some of the risks (cf Chapter 5) associated with this activity, and I think he is quite correct in identifying the political process in DC as the main problem area.

In the purely military context, there is a set of institutional problems that also go with it. One of these problems is the fight over the identity of a warfighter - the "War is/is not armed social work" argument. A second institutional problem is that if an institution has a set of capabilities, there is a tendency to want to use it (airpower in COIN debates anyone?). So, if the politicians in DC believe that the military has the capability to use this type of data to achieve political ends, it may lead to a situation where the military becomes the preffered institution for dealing with "situations" vs., say, State or USAID. That feeds into the growing international perception of the US as an imperialist power that is out of control; basically a "rogue state" in the international system which, in turn, makes it that much more difficult to construct coalitions for operations. For me at least, it brings to mind the old saying that those whom the Gods would destroy, they first drive mad.

These extrapolations may seem odd in light of the basic point which was about the HTS and the military use of ethnographic data but, I assure you, they aren't as crazy as they seem ;). Last November, I put together a paper tracking the use of the ethnographic knowledge in Greek-Roman-Byzantine military PME (available here (http://marctyrrell.com/uploads/TFCT.pdf) for masochists).

One of the things that became pretty clear was that there was a serious problem with political stability tied in with the adoption of detailed ethnographic knowledge by military forces; basically, it destabilized the entire Roman political system by increasing the likelihood of local revolts. This destabilization was so bad that Diocletian had to withdraw detailed ethnographic knowledge from the military and place it in the hands of what later became the Skrinion Barbaron ("Office of Barbarians", sort of similar to the old OSS). This, in turn, had its own problems - it solved a large part of the political stability problem by somewhat reducing the probability of a successfull regional revolt, but it also led directly to later disasterous military defeats (e.g. Adrianople).

Well, I'm going to stop rambling and get back to writing :wry:.

[tribeguy]

I agree with you on this. Having had some direct visibility on the issue, an MI officer's bandwidth is mostly taken up by having to deal with the myriad of administrative issues. They definitely want to do a good job, but for them to be able to think outside of the box, they have to be able to escape from it in the first place. Also, there is the tendency to discount anything that is outside of the classified world as not being true nor actionable.

[slapout9]

120 mm. Congrats on the assignment. My Mom, who was a computer programmer, always taught me that life is problems and the fun is solving them. I'm sure you will have plenty of the kind of fun that our acquired tastes will enjoy.

I'm still scratching my head about all this ethnographic mapping stuff.

Prior to the demise of the old foreign service (1960's), each embassy had a mapping attache whose job it was to scurry around and collect maps, census, ethnic stuff and send it home---to a State geography department that knew what to do with it. Compile it for future reference in the event it was needed (war? foreign assistance program design? trade negotiation?).

In Iraq, the embassy was blind (and the other two monkeys). It knew less about the country and its people than most geographers in the US could pick up from a night of internet searching.

Now, State's excellent geography office is limited only to monitoring international boundaries, and couldn't tell you where or how many districts exist in Kirkuk even six years into a war where Kirkuk remains a big issue. There is nobody there at State studying this stuff in Iraq or any other country. US AID's contractors can't help you either. NGA has great physical and terrain mapping, but can't tell anyone how many people are in any area (basic census data), let alone fine-grained stuff about those people.

I spent a lot of time last year trying to get the mil system to integrate basic demographic and property tracking data from civilian sources (Min of Planning/CoSIT), and Land Records---the stuff we all use in the civilian world in the States was all available in Iraq)---but could never find anyone interested. Note: I have the complete Iraqi census records (including all the tribal and ethnic data (by nahia) dating to the 1930s sitting on my civilian hard-drive and nobody ever asked for it (One day, I'll get around to assembling and publishing it, but now, I only look at it for spot references).

But without the basic knowledge of a country and it's people on the front end (before war), how can the US expect to establish credible foreign policy (of which war is only a piece).

While it is true that the military needs it NOW, and nobody else has it unless HTS brings it to them, the reality is that HTS is a short-term fix, as others have said, and much that it does will have limited effect and will disappear soon as the game stops.

How do we create a fix that will allow national and sub-national ethnographic, civilian economic and infrastructure, and political administrative tracking and reporting in a manner that folks can no it pre-emptively, rather than something 120mm has to try to track down in the field after it is needed and the bullets are flying?

Steve


Does Iraq have anything like the US Postal Zip Code System?

[Kivlonic]

Could any one tell me if a component of HTS work directly with or for PRT's.

[marct]

Could any one tell me if a component of HTS work directly with or for PRT's.

To the best of my knowledge, the answer is officially "No", but unofficially "Maybe, depending on circumstances".

[Kivlonic]

Reason I ask is I'm researching the role "ethnographic mapping" in stabilization, security, transition and reconstruction (SSTR) operations in Iraq. Any insight in how PRT's develop operational information, i.e how do they determine the most productive reconstruction efforts - the who, where, and what of development, and what role HTT or HTS like programs might play? Also are is there any plans to transform PRT's in regards to the SOFA agreement.

[marct]

Hi Kivlonic,

Reason I ask is I'm researching the role "ethnographic mapping" in stabilization, security, transition and reconstruction (SSTR) operations in Iraq.

There is a pretty serious difference between ethnographic mapping and ethnographic knowledge. If you are limiting yourself to mapping, then you are dealing with a very small sub-set of ethnographic knowledge.

Any insight in how PRT's develop operational information, i.e how do they determine the most productive reconstruction efforts - the who, where, and what of development, and what role HTT or HTS like programs might play? Also are is there any plans to transform PRT's in regards to the SOFA agreement.

Part of the reason I mentioned the distinction between mapping and knowledge, is that the who, what and where is quite different between the two. For example, what makes perfect sense to someone on a PRT using mapping only may well make absolutely no sense to someone on the ground - a situation that has happened a number of times I'm afraid :wry:.

Having said that, i also need to point out that I haven't been on a PRT or one of the HTTs, so my actual first hand knowledge of how they operate is extremely limited.

From what I have heard, however, there does not appear to be any uniform use of either ethnographic mapping or ethnographic knowledge by PRTs - it seems to vary wildly, and to be driven more by personal choice and foibles. The same appears to be true of HTTs - they appear to vary wildly but, in general, they appear to influence CERP fund expenditures rather more than PRTs. As to other programs similar to the HTS or HTTs, I don't have enough information on how they operate.

If I were you, i would try to arrange to interview some of the people who have been on PRTs and HTTs.

[Steve the Planner]

Marct has it right:

"From what I have heard, however, there does not appear to be any uniform use of either ethnographic mapping or ethnographic knowledge by PRTs - it seems to vary wildly, and to be driven more by personal choice and foibles."

Understanding PRTs, and to a great extent, HTTs in Iraq is to understand a haphazard experiment---a lot of trial and error, and a lot of mistakes, relearning, and lost lessons.

I was assigned as Senior Urban Planning Adviser, PRT Salah ad Din, co-located with MND-North at Camp Speicher. One of my specific tasks was to implement civilian GIS systems, which I worked on in partnership with another Senior Adviser, MND-N/MNC-I Terrain, NGA, USAID/RTI, and Iraq's Ministry of Planning and MoD (DMA).

In Septemebr 2008, I was seconded to the UN's Disputed Internal Boundaries (DIBS) team as the cart/demo expert.

What exactly are you trying to understand?

Steve

[omarali50]

Oh, I don't know... If they were all in the same place at the same time, there are some great possibilities :D.

but if the gas spreads, it may also kill some innocents.
Philip Roth had the opposite joke in one of his books: Some Nixon's advisor suggests using poison gas against anti-war protesters, but then gets the thought that this being Washington, if the gas spreads it may also kill some guilty people...(an army general then objects that gas is not a good idea because it does not give the individual soldier the sense of participation that comes from shooting someone)...

[Kivlonic]

Steve,
What exactly are you trying to understand?

Broadly, How do PRT's analyze the population they're working with -what methodology do they use?

Thanks.

[Steve the Planner]

Kivlonic:

Bear in mind that the military-led PRTs in Afghanistan and the State Department-led ones in Iraq are materially different.

From my experience in Iraq, it was a very haphazard affair with sometimes profound schisms between the military and State. Each PRT was a mini-embassy the activities and results of which were determined by the local PRT itself, usually on a piecemeal basis, so there was no uniformity.

Against that backdrop, there was a lot of reliance on military maps and data which, in practice, proved to contain little relevant details for reconstruction planning. Mil maps (all from NGA) are optimized for geophysical targeting and manuevers---every rock is mapped---but usually contains material errors in political/administrative/economic/infrastructure boundaries that would be relevant for reconstruction planning. Cadestral mapping (property boundaries) are usually ignored even though, as in Iraq, they directly link to land records containing a wealth of critical information that never got used.

Moreover, NGA maps are typically classified documents, and particularly the electronic versions (GIS shapefiles and meta data). Every soldier has a toughbook with GIS on it, but few PRTs could even open that data on their State laptops, nor were PRTs, with a mix of uncleared civilians and local nationals, an open environment for digital mapping data. No digital product could be provided to Iraqi provincial governments except in paper form, and with an UNCLAS label.

So, in early 2008, the provinces were using old, hand-drawn "shiek" maps, sometimes from the early 1950's, and the PRTs were either working with Iraqis on their maps, or toting military maps around with inaccurate provincial, district and sub-district data.

I was one of two planning Subject Matter Experts originally assigned to Salah ad Din Province in December 2007, and we were uniquely charged with mapping and system assessments. The first PRT Team Leader was very supportive, but left after three months. The next was cold to it, but later got on board.

To accomplish our work, we literally became embeds to the Division, and miltary construction battalions, and, therefore, had a unique opportunity to travel extensively, and collect information from many sources. In the end, once we completed Northern Iraq with huge help from MND-North and NGA, we were seconded to the UN where we worked exclusively to address the boundary, population and minority issues for the Disputed Boundaries Team.

Problem, from scratch, is that PRTs operate under a transitional authority under State, and were targeted at province-by-province activities. From experience, State's substantial geographic resources were never used/committed to PRTs the way they were in Eastern Europe---PRTs were just experimental/exploratory missions outside serious State departmental commitment.

In summary, no traditional planning, mapping, or demographic tools were ever used on a systematic basis by PRTs. Just a lot of chasing immediate needs and "low hanging fruit;" it was never a seriously planned and implemented endeavor. Bear in mind, too, that a lot of PRTs, unlike the military, had profound movement limitations so they might only get in a few quick trips off the base to the provincial headquarters a few times a week; not much to see or know.

US Institute of Peace (USIP) has an online archive of "after-action" interviews that explain a lot of what PRTs did, and why and how they did it. It makes sense to survey them all to get the complete and highly varied picture.

As for the military (and PRTs), I often hear that traditional planning, mapping and demographic data doesn't work, but what they are really saying is that the data and accuracy of the information they have been relying on is so poor that it is useless and counter-productive. Especially in a post-conflict area, everything is likely to change all the time, so the 1950's-1980's data that underlies their products is probably pretty useless.

Back to actual mapping:

It took an act of God, and a huge commitment by NGA/MNC-I to get a declassified GIS civilian mapping base layer cleared for Iraqi ministerial and provincial uses, but, thanks to those huge efforts, it got released in October 2008. Step One.

Step two, which is one reconstruction program the US did right, was to get provincial and local governments equipped and trained on GIS.

By October 2008, provincial and local governments had access to a baseline civilian GIS system, to which CAD drawings and other engineering data could then be transcribed. Still, PRTs had no access to GIS, CAD or any other systems, and few PRTs understood what mapping and geographic data is about or how to use it.

Next, was to improve the base layer to correct huge boundary discrepancies, and to reconcile that data to ancient and modern population and public service data. PRTs were, by and large, unaware of any of this, and did not use traditional planning and resource allocation methods.

Having said that, in 2008, the military and NGA were hugely cooperative in trying to build MND-level mapping and data systems to bring modern planning systems on line, and individual Subject Matter Experts in the PRTs were clamoring for the common base line information needed for their professional work. But the PRT system, and PRT leadership in general, never did understand this stuff.

Through the UN, we spent a lot of time with the Ministry of Planning, and using UN field offices, MND-N, MNC-I Mapping, NGA, and PRT SMEs in relevant provinces, assembled a huge data base of historical and current political/administrative/demographic boundaries and data, and data sources, that could have been converted to a viable GIS framework similar to what we use in most modern planning and public information processes.

But, my tour as 13-month appointee ended in January 2009, and I came home. Left the data with NGA and MNC-I Terrain, but the folks I left it with rotated out shortly afterwards, too.

Two things I learned as deep lessons: (1) the US Civilian Reconstruction side does not understand foundational modern planning and public administration tools, and does not use them; and, (2) the military has huge need for traditional GIS, mapping, infrastructure, demographic data, but has no system to create it on a routine and reliable basis.

That's my short answer.

Steve

[Surferbeetle]

Two things I learned as deep lessons: (1) the US Civilian Reconstruction side does not understand foundational modern planning and public administration tools, and does not use them; and, (2) the military has huge need for traditional GIS, mapping, infrastructure, demographic data, but has no system to create it on a routine and reliable basis.

Steve,

Thank you for expertly and succinctly stating the facts.

Regards,

Steve

[Steve the Planner]

Kivlonic:

Looking back at your prior question about using Ethnographics as a decision tool, there are mixed results.

PRTs were usually headed by "diplomats" charged with establishing and maintaining direct relations with the local official leaders.

In Northern Iraq in 2008, that, necessarily meant Kurds as a result of the Sunni Election Boycott.

Thus, in most provinces in the North, PRTs worked very closely with Kurdish elected officials, which was also very easy since Kurdish custom and affinity was generally pro-western and pro-US.

Something about "the money flows to the folks that are around you when you give it out" that created an inherent bias toward pro-Kurdish projects.

As a practical matter, however, a lot of PRT-based US largess, and most of the big waste, flowed through embassy programattic---we have to spend $50 million for schools or lose it; each PRT has 14 days to submit requests for these funds, and they must be committed to spend within 30 days after approval. The PRTs in the hard-pressed provinces usually could assemble a project or two, but some poor southern provinces didn't even have a PRT, so they got nothing.

The big PRTs (Salah ad Din had some 75 people, and a permanent Project Officer to chase the program funds), would file a blanket request for 23 schools, get the funds, then commit them randomly, even if the local province didn't want or need the schools. One infamous incident occurred last year in Samarra where the PRT obtained funds to build a new 6 classroom school in this major reconstruction town. When the Corps of Engineers showed up to build it, a serious conflict arose because, to build the new 6 classroom school they would have to knock down the current crowded 12 classroom school. Oooops!

As a practical matter, the PRTs' routine structure as a mini-embassy assigned to serve the elected officials usually created, implicitly and explicitly, a substantial bias towards Kurds in Northern Iraq, and at the expense of others, including the majority Sunnis in places like Ninewa and Salah ad Din.

This is one of the jump balls that is still bouncing after the Jan 2009 election. The PRT's implicit Kurdish bias, now resolved by elections in which Sunnis heavily participated, leaves a lot of unanswered questions that will remain for the history books.

Meanwhile, the provincial technocrats (the national ministry staffs assigned to local provinces) had their own tussles, province by province, for funds flowing out of the national ministries, with substantial biases based on the particular group that controlled that ministry.

From my experience, the military tried to play an "honest broker" for needs it saw throughout the North, which sometimes caused schisms with the Kurd-tied PRTs (especially re: Kirkuk and Ninewa).

MG Hertling, now up for a well deserved third star, initiated helicopter diplomacy to bring provincial officials and national ministries up to the site of a problem, and push and cajole Iraqis to create and implement solutions.

Specifically, unlike the PRTs, the military was out among the minorities, refugees, and big problems. The PRTs had very little movement and visibility to, for example, small Christian and Yazidi towns, and their unique, and sometimes unfathomable, situation. Hertling would put provincial and ministerial folks on the ground at the source of the problem.

More than anything, I believe Gen Hertling's efforts at helicopter diplomacy, and direct Iraqi engagement forced major and enduring improvements in the region which would never have been achieved by the PRTs---especially as relates to ethnographic distributions of services and projects.

Of course, he was notorious for being miserly with US funds if Iraqi funds were available, and probably won the award for least CERP funds ever distributed in a post-conflict setting. Still, we always joked that he deserved a third star for that::::I guess we were right.

From my UN perch, though, we particularly studied and tracked ethnic and minority issues, with international experts on the team who brought deep understandings and history to every issue. There were days in Iraq, where I was so disheartened from research on ethnographic issues like the constantly assaulted Christians, or the successive oral histories of Turkmen butchery, teh Turkmen/Kurdish eradications in Kirkuk, and documenting the remainders of the Anfal, that I just wanted to hide my head in shame for my fellow humans. But we researched and documented as much as possible, and there were big days like when our team got minority set-asides in the 2009 elections.

One critical dimension for the UN was the analysis of allocation of resources, services and projects to minority needs. What you often found, however (with exceptions like Samarra where major international funding and focus was applied), was that even if resources were allocated equitably, they were not allocated appropriately. The minority communities often were severely damaged, and under-resourced, but, at best, got the same allocations as wealthy and undamaged majority communities. And for many, like communities in Diyala, they were too kinetic to begin reconstruction. They just could never catch up to "reconstruction."

As is evident from the above re: minorities documentation, sometimes going back to a BUA and just hearing about regular war fighting was a relief. It gives the appearance of propriety against a backdrop of years of successive insanity to man against man, as is played out in the ethnic and minority histories in these areas.

Not much of a clear answer, but that's what I know.

Steve

PS- In civilian life, I am a mapping, planning and boundaries expert for nasty little sub-population issues like school redistrictings, and physical allocation of public infrastructure and services. Iraq really made what used to be compelling almost a bore by contrast.

[Surferbeetle]

PS- In civilian life, I am a mapping, planning and boundaries expert for nasty little sub-population issues like school redistrictings, and physical allocation of public infrastructure and services. Iraq really made what used to be compelling almost a bore by contrast.

Steve

Day job is a civil engineer which allows me to play with GIS (Arcview 9.3) and AutoCAD (Civil 3D) while leaning upon our GIS and drafting guru's in order to get the hard work done.

Back to your points. The USG needs to get deadly serious about applied geography, our current failure to systematically train and resource the force on this issue is symptomatic of the deeper failure of understanding how to work with a local populace towards success by engaging with them through their language and culture...I believe it was the New Yorker that made a recent point about the importance of internalizing that inhabitants of foreign countries are not playthings...make a commitment and see it through..

Regards,

Steve

[Steve the Planner]

Steve:

I spent the better part of a year trying to get this across, and got to the top ranks in the right places. Lots of nodding heads, but it just never got resources.

NGA does geophysical mapping.

HTT does anthropology.

CAs do the folks in front of them.

DoD does military stuff.

Intel does spooky stuff.

Nobody does traditional applied geography, political/admin boundaries/resource allocation, or aggregate or sub-population demographics.

Lots of piecemeal stuff, no systemic framework.

All said and done, the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.

And it ain't likely to change.

Steve

[Ken White]

The USG needs to get deadly serious about applied geography, our current failure to systematically train and resource the force on this issue is symptomatic of the deeper failure of understanding how to work with a local populace towards success by engaging with them through their language and culture...I believe it was the New Yorker that made a recent point about the importance of internalizing that inhabitants of foreign countries are not playthings...make a commitment and see it through...Step 1 in doing that is to restore Geography, History and 'Social Science' plus Civics to school curriculums. The near elimination of those subjects and physical education has done two generations of Americans a great disservice. Lot of cultural sensitivity but no cultural knowledge to speak of, excess of self esteem but little self respect because they know they know not...

Note that the current crop of Flag Officers is from the first of those two generations. :wry:

[Ken White]

I spent the better part of a year trying to get this across, and got to the top ranks in the right places. Lots of nodding heads, but it just never got resources...Lots of piecemeal stuff, no systemic framework.

All said and done, the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.Again, change the educational process -- the over emphasis on 'specialization' -- an educators dream because it makes their job easier in most cases. They find it easier to school a Planner than they do to school a Manager who can plan in addition to doing a host of other things. Not picking on planning, the same thing can be said of many fields.

The Army used to produce good generalists who after 20 plus years made good Generals. Currently all have acquired 'secondary specialties' at which they will often spend more time -- and thus develop more intangible loyalty to -- than their primary role of commanding troops in combat and they are not really generalists, they are dual track specialist and their primary reason for existence is subsumed by bureaucratic requirements.

Specialists are needed, no question but in typical American fashion, we have just overdone it. One would think Management courses would teach integration of specialty products and of course they do but most are properly civil society and market oriented. One would also think the War Colleges would teach integration and multi spectrum, multi agency operations in the governmental operations sense. They may, don't know, haven't been to one.

Whatever, your comment is valid and that inability of left and right hands to keep track of each has always been present to a minor degree but in its current almost total form really appeared at the tail end of Viet Nam and it got progressively worse during my civil service time. That trend caused me to retire from my second career earlier than planned because I tired of putting Band aids on PPPP. :eek:

FWIW, it is not restricted to the Armed Forces or the Federal Government. I saw it in State and local government in the last three states in which we've lived, I saw it at Hughes Aircraft where I worked briefly and I see evidence of it daily. We just returned from a trip -- road construction in and around Atlanta is ample evidence... :D

Particularly the idea of charging a toll for to be built, elevated HOV lanes... :rolleyes:

A lot of it goes back to the self esteem bit -- if one has a bunch, one does not take advice from subordinates much less ask for any as one is omniscent. I've never seen so many people with great self esteem and NO self confidence. If they had any, they'd beg for advice from anyone and they'd experiment. Can't do that nowadays, demeaning to ask and a failed experiment is seen as a death knell... :(

[jmm99]

never disappeared. But, if they have in your local school district, send your kids to HCH - Home of the Bulldogs (p 9 of Student Handbook (http://www.hancock.k12.mi.us/uploads/handbook_2009-10.pdf)) - we can use the extra students:

The following is a list of HCH graduation requirements beginning with the class of 2011:

8 credits English
8 credits Mathematics (Algebra I, Geometry, Algebra II)
6 credits Science (Physical Science, Biology, Chemistry or Physics)
6 credits Social Studies (Western Civilization, US Hist., Gov’t./Econ.)
2 credits Visual, Performing, Applied Arts
2 credits PE / Health
2 credits Computer Science
10 credits Electives

Total: 44 credits

2 credits = 1 full year of a course (so, 4 years of English) - required courses in ()s. We (back in 50s) had 4 yrs of PE or participation in organized school athletics.

Probably a dinosaur, but that's the way we are up here. No presently active or retired flag officers that I know of (O-6 and down) - more than a few SNCOs, however.

[Steve the Planner]

Ken:

I think you are very right about education, but I see positive signs like my 16 year old's International Baccalaureate program where they really are teaching them deep generalism first and foremost.

I grew up in that shadow of the delusion that all the world's problems were basically being solved. The good news for her generation is that we have left them plenty of problems to solve.

On the management side, the problem is that we are where we are, in large part, because of the lack of a comprehensive view and understanding---just stovepipes, silos (and, OK, Steve, pipelines), but, as I learned first hand, there really is no integrated thinking or understanding about these regions, sub-regions, and the people, economics and systems that are driving this stuff.

In 2007, I ran into an early DoD HTTer, and he was interested in a Systems Dynamics model for regional growth in the Minneapolis/St. Paul Metro Area. It was hard to explain that the spaghetti bowl of causal loops and linkages in the model were not buttons to be pushed and levers to be pulled, but just linkages and relationships to weigh, and open-ended interactions wyet to play out.

Since then, I've seen a lot of people trying to reduce social sciences to buttons and levers, but with no consideration of the real linkages and consequences.

Planning is about choices and consequences, not yes or no, and sometimes, like going down the road of rebuilding tribal systems through warlords, the consequences will adversely affect another, perhaps, more desirable goal. It is, therefore, best to first establish a reasonable systems map before you set off to pull levers withy potentially unknown results.

But, that's me....

Steve

[Ken White]

Good points also. You are right that the Education system is starting to get rid of some of the 60s to 80s idiocy and the future looks better on that score. Much better (now if we can just tune down the PC aspect...).

Unfortunately, the two generations that were adversely affected are, respectively, just finishing and just starting their day in the Sun. Of the two, the former was and is the more dangerous or less competent, Gen X is a bit smarter. It'll be a while yet before those improvements started in the 90s take hold and Gen Y runs things.

So we'll bumble about for a bit longer but we'll survive that. ;)

Ponies everywhere...:cool:

[Steve the Planner]

Ken:

We've been talking about how to bring the breadth of social sciences to the table, and the need for better education---fundamental geography, history, and actually knowing things about the things behind the things we are trying to accomplish.

In that context, I've been re-reading a September 5, 2009 Newsweek Article by now-retired Ambassador Ryan Crocker, and looking at the breadth of his experience and knowledge re: Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the current lessons he offers on Afghanistan:

"Americans tend to want to identify a problem, fix it, and then move on. Sometimes this works. Often it does not. Of course, imposing ourselves on hostile or chaotic societies is no solution either. The perceived arrogance and ignorance of overbearing powers can create new narratives of humiliation that will feed calls for vengeance centuries from now. What's needed in dealing with this world is a combination of understanding, persistence, and strategic patience to a degree that Americans, traditionally, have found hard to muster."

http://www.newsweek.com/id/214988/page/1

As they say, he has forgotten more than most "experts" have learned about this region. More than anything, this article speaks directly to your educational comments.

Let's hope that somewhere in current generations, there are some young grad students like Ambassador Crocker and Rory Stewart setting off to walk across a region and really learn it's ways and byways. We are sure to need them later.

Steve

PS- I had the unforgettable opportunity to sit with him in Baghdad. The same as watching General Petreaus out for a walk around the lake at Al Faw---two physically unassuming men bravely, competently, and relatively quietly, carrying the weight of the World on their shoulders. And Tom Ricks says "Dave Does Dull"????

[marct]

Hi Steve,

We've been talking about how to bring the breadth of social sciences to the table, and the need for better education---fundamental geography, history, and actually knowing things about the things behind the things we are trying to accomplish.

In general, I would agree, but I would also add in some others: mathematics, languages and some form of the study of culture at the minimum. The crucial one, however, would be in applied epistemology or "how to think about what you are thinking about". Without that, we are stuck with factoids....

Let's hope that somewhere in current generations, there are some young grad students like Ambassador Crocker and Rory Stewart setting off to walk across a region and really learn it's ways and byways. We are sure to need them later.

Funny you should mention that, I have one right now :D. The problem is getting the funds for them to do their research and all of the structural problems with it as well (e.g. ethics boards [IRBs], supervisory and university approval, field access, etc.). Tricky, that...

[Steve the Planner]

Marct:

Right---How to think about things.

I assume that's what you are trying to inculcate through Interdisciplinary Studies.

First get some subject area background(s). Next, what does it mean, and how can you discover that?

A constant task in a world that's driven by stovepipes, administrative and political imperatives, and very narrow cognitive lenses.

Steve

[Steve the Planner]

Marct:

I hope someone goes for a walk through Turkmenistan and westward. Some day, some time, our world might have much to be revealed there.

I spent a lot of time studying Khanaqin and the surrounding areas. Passes and population movements that go back to the dawn of time, and the Silk Road.

But that northern leg intrigues me the most. Ah, Samarkand...

Steve

[Dayuhan]

Let's hope that somewhere in current generations, there are some young grad students like Ambassador Crocker and Rory Stewart setting off to walk across a region and really learn it's ways and byways. We are sure to need them later.


I have to wonder if the graduate students that periodically and cluelessly stumble across my own chosen remote region of the developing world will someday be looked to as experts on our ways and byways.

The horror, the horror...

[William F. Owen]

NGA does geophysical mapping.

HTT does anthropology.

CAs do the folks in front of them.

DoD does military stuff.

Intel does spooky stuff.



Kind of implies that actually a lot of folks have no idea what they are doing in terms of overall purpose. Very brave and very committed, no doubt, but why five separate functions to do what the British did with two for 250 years? - and it worked.

I will not say that making "Anthropology" part of so-called COIN, or thinking in terms of "Human Terrain" were acts of gross stupidity, but I do believe them to extremely misguided, and now part of the problem.

[Backwards Observer]

From Wressley Of The Foreign Office (1888) by Rudyard Kipling:

If men had not this delusion as to the ultra-importance of their own particular employments, I suppose that they would sit down and kill themselves. But their weakness is wearisome, particularly when the listener knows that he himself commits exactly the same sin.
Even the secretariat believes that it does good when it asks an over-driven Executive Officer to take census of wheat-weevils through a district of five thousand square miles.

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Wressley_of_the_Foreign_Office

[Steve the Planner]

Backwards Observer:

Love the quote. Not to appear to overly reliant on prior hard-learned lessons of just the British, I bet the Russians learned or re-learned a lot, too.

William:

The big problem, as I see it, is the inter-reliance on uncoordinated and unverified components. NGA, for example, obtained some vague notion of Iraq's provincial structure in 1992---pretty inaccurate, but as good as it got then. This data was transcribed to the UN. Most sources then cited and relied on either the UN or NGA data, and it became memorialized as gospel.

Then, when it came time to create district and sub-district lines for these supposed provinces, somebody else (God knows who) created another set of lines that they thought looked OK, and in turn pushed them into the NGA/UN data sets---another gospel source.

Problem one: As with Afghanistan, provincial, district and sub-district lines in conflict areas are, in fact, a locally dynamic factor, as national and local actors vie for increased status, or seek to diminish an opponent's status. Unlike the US, where political/administrative lines are stable and consistent, these political/administrative boundaries are, in fact, highly dynamic parts of the conflict. Not stable, not set in stone, and, in many instances, highly contested.

Problem two: Factual basis of boundary changes is a source and evidence of conflict. Tracking native legislative history of formal governmental boundary line changes in conflict areas is, in effect, a forensic analysis of the gamesmanship preceding conflict. Some official did wrestle the controls to formally challenge another official's fiefdom by actually adopting a governmental change. Is the formally adopted present structure, therefore, a cause of the conflict which, if enforced, perpetuates it? How do we reconcile these boundary disputes and key conflict elements if we don't recognize them?

Problem three: Facts disagree with figures. If you obtain copies of the prior Iraqi census data, and attempt to reconcile it with more recent projections, you must follow the flow of changing boundaries and governmental relationships or you are just missing the point. In 1976, for example, Sadaam substantially restructured Baghdad, Kirkuk (Tameem), Diyala, Irbil and Ninewa Provinces by transferring districts, quaddas, and lesser units from one area to another. Thus, the census records for Ninewa (previously Mosul Province), may or may not include any number of different configurations (including the de facto later separation of Kurdish areas). What I routinely see in all US and derivative map sources, is, for example, an inaccurate arrangement of provincial and lesser units, which, in fact, means that US maps sources are incorrect, and cannot be reconciled with Iraqi census data, or other related political/admin civilian data. It doesn't take any speculation to know that profound mapping errors directly correlate to inaccurate collateral data, such as census and pop figures. Garbage in/Garbage Out.

So the question is, when is the US going to understand this? How can you hope to master the people, land and resources of an area when you don't even know where and what it is?

Geophysical accuracy, like remote drone-based intel, does not tell you what is going on down there, what the nature of conflict is, or how to plan and implement effective solutions. For that, the US needs to integrate a reliable and real-time data source with actionable information, which, to date, it does not have.

Steve

[Steve the Planner]

PS:

Against the context of egregiously deficient overall civilian mapping errors, and inaccurate/irreconcilable data, the inception of piecemeal anthropological studies, as currently applied, only adds to the confusion, blinding decision-makers from reasonable understandings of the relationship between more important levels of societal interaction across the conflict space.

Nice to know stuff, but no relevant context to incorporate it into.

Lost balls in tall grass. Unfortunately, as Defense Secretary Gates notes, the only way to know about the place is by being on the ground---but you have to know what you are looking for. Sending an accountant into the kitchen of a restaurant may give you a good handle on cost control but it is not going to improve the quality of the food.

[marct]

One of the truly frustrating things, for me at least, is the compartmentalization of "Anthropology" along extremely narrow lines. Some of us use the older definition of the discipline, which is much wider - The Science of Man [Humanity]. I'll admit, it has gone out of vogue with a lot of my more "post-modern" colleagues but, hey, I've always defined myself as a "pre-modernist". Back when I was teaching Intro to Anth, I would use one of the "modern" text books and, as a way of contrasting it, I would use a "textbook" written for the "intelligent layman" back in 1885 by Daniel Wilson (available here (http://marctyrrell.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/wilson-anthropology-1885.pdf) if anyone is interested).

[Steve the Planner]

Marct:

Same with planning.

If you are in the US, Canada or Europe, lights safely turn on in your house, garbage gets picked up, and roads function because of planning.

But most people never see it.

But their views come from perceptions of planning failures, conflict, and bureaucracy. Negative stuff.

What are you gonna do?

Steve

[Van]

... the older definition of the discipline, ...- The Science of Man [Humanity]. ..."post-modern" colleagues but, hey, I've always defined myself as a "pre-modernist"...

What the U.S. DoD wants and urgently needs is the nineteenth century ethnographers, rather than the twenty-first century, post-modernist cultural anthropologists. The XXIst Cent. folks are (mostly) so busy arguing how the mating habits of the Carjackistani indigenous peoples are a proof of the Neo-Post-Feminist-Gender-Roles relationship to Marxist revolutionary philosophy and ethnocentric hegemony when considered with a heuristic model, that they are unwilling to make themselves useful.

They appear a lot more concerned with what is "in vogue" than what is practical.

Keep fighting the good fight Marc!

[Steve the Planner]

Van:

I think what you are really talking about in earlier days is classical Geographers that were out mapping the world, its land, people and infrastructure. More the people/place side of Geology which, at that time, was scouring the rocks of the globe to find minerals and resources.

Even geography, in later years, evolved its own schools of Marxist Geographers, Economic Geographers, Demographers, etc... (Tower of Babel)

I agree with your point however, that what the military needs, is a consolidated source for the people, land and infrastructure information (classical people, place, thing geography) that drives the conflict zone. It is a product that has not been produced, to date in the areas that matter.

Prior to the 1960's when the State Department began to dissolve (budget cuts), every embassy had a geographic officer whose job was to scour his AO for maps, studies, reports, census data, tribal and religious affiliations, and send them home for consolidated study. It just doesn't happen any more, but the info is still needed for the same reasons.

Steve

[Van]

Steve,
I was being very specific, and thinking of colonial England of the Victorian era. Usually, "Victorian" is used as a derogatory term, but the ethnographers of the colonies often performed strategic intelligence collection, while aiming at an FRS (Fellow of the Royal Society) or FRGS (...Geographical Society).

I'm still trying (not very hard right now, but it is on my 'to-do' list) to get a copy of Margaret Mead's proposal for regional ethnogeographical specialist training (saw a reference to it in Anthropological Intelligence (http://www.amazon.com/review/R3MUZPPR2KS0DW/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm)). She outlined a two year course of training, and from the reference, it sounded exactly like what we need. And as important as regional specialists are, we must plan on guessing wrong about which regions matter, and keep a lesson plan for how to train soldiers to become ethnographers.

I say 'soldiers' because in the social sciences, American academia goes out of its way to present itself as anti-military. So they can go do something primative and ethnic with themselves while we train reliable people to use their tools the way we need them to. To quote Roberto J. Gonzalez in American Counterinsurgency: Human Science and the Human Terrain (http://www.amazon.com/review/R190FPMYGPR3QX/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm), "If at times my words carry traces of bitterness, it is unintentional", but from where I sit, the social scientists started the hostility (c.f. "Anthropological Intelligence"; discusses WW I era contention and hostility).

[Steve the Planner]

Oh, yeah. Margaret Mead's Training Manuals.

In Iraq, we used Amazon to track down the old British ag studies from the 1950s.

With the UN DIBS Team, we had folks going back and forth to the Cambridge Library for the British Colonial Records, although they are available on disk for about $3,000.

Maybe Amazon would get you Margaret Mead?

Steve

[Van]

I've tried Amazon, Google Books, and other web searches. As far as I can tell, I need to write to an institutional collection that holds the original.

The British Royal Society appears to have a lot of their stuff on line, might be worth checking for anthro material.

[Steve the Planner]

As I recall, there was like an East-West Institute in Hawaii, very sociological.

Maybe inter-library loan through an institution like East-West.

Steve

[marct]

Hi Guys,

(sorry, I'm on and off with my day jobs...)

I was being very specific, and thinking of colonial England of the Victorian era. Usually, "Victorian" is used as a derogatory term, but the ethnographers of the colonies often performed strategic intelligence collection, while aiming at an FRS (Fellow of the Royal Society) or FRGS (...Geographical Society).

Back when I was teaching Anthro theory, I used to "request and require" that my students actually read Victorian Era work. Some of it is off, some is weirdly biased to our present views, and some of it is freakin' brilliant stuff. Despite the wide range of material, what is crucial about the era is the generalist or renaissance breadth of data collected and methods used.

I'm still trying (not very hard right now, but it is on my 'to-do' list) to get a copy of Margaret Mead's proposal for regional ethnogeographical specialist training (saw a reference to it in Anthropological Intelligence (http://www.amazon.com/review/R3MUZPPR2KS0DW/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm)). She outlined a two year course of training, and from the reference, it sounded exactly like what we need. And as important as regional specialists are, we must plan on guessing wrong about which regions matter, and keep a lesson plan for how to train soldiers to become ethnographers.

If you've got the reference and where it is located, I can try and get a copy for you - shoot me an email....

I say 'soldiers' because in the social sciences, American academia goes out of its way to present itself as anti-military. So they can go do something primative and ethnic with themselves while we train reliable people to use their tools the way we need them to. To quote Roberto J. Gonzalez in American Counterinsurgency: Human Science and the Human Terrain (http://www.amazon.com/review/R190FPMYGPR3QX/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm), "If at times my words carry traces of bitterness, it is unintentional", but from where I sit, the social scientists started the hostility (c.f. "Anthropological Intelligence"; discusses WW I era contention and hostility).

Hmm, I'll reserve comments on first causes until we can sit down and chat over beers :cool:. You are certainly right that there is a fairly strong anti-military bias in North American anthropology and many other academic disciplines. I should point out, however, that that is often coupled with a fairly extreme political bias as well and the two are often confused by everyone including the academics :wry:.

Cheers,

Marc

[Van]

Hmm, I'll reserve comments on first causes until we can sit down and chat over beers .:cool:

Next time you're on Oahu, the first one is on me.

The citation from Anthropological Intelligence:

Mead, Margaret. 1943. "On the Use of Living Sources in Regional Studies: General Considerations." Suggested materials for training of Regional Specialists Army Program, prepared in collaboration with the Council on Intercultural Relations, n.d., MM, Box 25

MM= Margaret Mead Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Damn college professors! You offer to help and force me to figure out the answer. I hadn't chased down the "mm" acronym before.:wry:

But if you know of a PDF or other soft copy, that would be excellent.

Thanks!

[marct]

I'll see what I can find. No promises, but it's worth a shot.

Cheers,

Marc

[Van]

Library of Congress has been amazingly (for a gov't agency) helpful. A copy of the Margaret Mead document is on the way. I'll be receiving it as a hardcopy, but will be more than willing to share for academic purposes.

[Surferbeetle]

I was being very specific, and thinking of colonial England of the Victorian era. Usually, "Victorian" is used as a derogatory term, but the ethnographers of the colonies often performed strategic intelligence collection, while aiming at an FRS (Fellow of the Royal Society) or FRGS (...Geographical Society).

I'm still trying (not very hard right now, but it is on my 'to-do' list) to get a copy of Margaret Mead's proposal for regional ethnogeographical specialist training (saw a reference to it in Anthropological Intelligence (http://www.amazon.com/review/R3MUZPPR2KS0DW/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm)). She outlined a two year course of training, and from the reference, it sounded exactly like what we need. And as important as regional specialists are, we must plan on guessing wrong about which regions matter, and keep a lesson plan for how to train soldiers to become ethnographers.

Van,

Maybe it starts early...Mrs B., my sixth grade home teacher, was very committed to her geography and she made it fun...:wry: Here are three references that might be of use to you:


I have no financial interest in Biblio (http://www.biblio.com/), however I appreciate their offerings and customer service. Here (http://www.biblio.com/search.php?author=Mead%2C+Margaret&format=&title=&keyisbn=&program=1002) are their current Margaret Mead offerings.



The East-West Center (http://www.eastwestcenter.org/research/) Library at UH-Manoa was always an enjoyable place, when I lived on Oahu.



As an overview of the importance of geography/history The Wealth and Poverty of Nations (http://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Poverty-Nations-Some-Rich/dp/0393318885) by David S. Landes is a fantastic read.

[marct]

Hi Van,

Library of Congress has been amazingly (for a gov't agency) helpful. A copy of the Margaret Mead document is on the way. I'll be receiving it as a hardcopy, but will be more than willing to share for academic purposes.

I'd definitely like a copy!

Cheers,

Marc

[Kivlonic]

Van,
Any way you could post the Margaret Mead doc, I really like a copy to.
Kivlonic

[Van]

Marc & Kivlonic,
The document is copyrighted material, and I don't have a copy yet. Let me see the paper and the copyright date before I go making promises. If you assure me there is academic purpose, I don't have a problem.

[marct]

Hi Van,

Marc & Kivlonic,
The document is copyrighted material, and I don't have a copy yet. Let me see the paper and the copyright date before I go making promises. If you assure me there is academic purpose, I don't have a problem.

No worries on that score from my end - I am an academic, and one of my research areas is anthropology and the military.

Cheers,

Marc

[Billy Ruffian]

Library of Congress has been amazingly (for a gov't agency) helpful. A copy of the Margaret Mead document is on the way. I'll be receiving it as a hardcopy, but will be more than willing to share for academic purposes.

The practitioners of the Librarian's craft are always helpful or else we execute them at our Free Mason/Library meetings.

[Steve the Planner]

Or, like the uber-librarian, Mao, they schedule us for re-education.

Steve

Disclosure: Married to a librarian.

[slapout9]

The practitioners of the Librarian's craft are always helpful or else we execute them at our Free Mason/Library meetings.

J. Edgar Hoover was a Librarian at the Library Of Congress (I think) the original FBI Intelligence system was based on the card catalog and the Dewey Decimal System.....then they went to computers and have been going down hill ever since:wry:

[Steve the Planner]

Sometimes, organizing information on a systematic basis creates its own insights and connections.

I was just looking back to an issue for the on-going Iraqi drought. Seems like the best reports and recommendations assemble and organize the work of expert, rather thanbeing the work of the experts themselves.

Rory Stewart's group estimates that there are 5,000 foreign Afghan experts in Kabul these days. Wonder how to orchestrate them?

Ain't it grand.

Steve

[marct]

Hi Steve,

Sometimes, organizing information on a systematic basis creates its own insights and connections.

And other times it creates its own reality where none existed before ;).

I'm putting the finishing touches on a presentation that goes into this, but we just had an interesting short article show up that illustrates it nicely (see here (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2009/10/widening-the-spectrum-of-insur/)). Still thinking about that one, but there are some extremely interesting points coming out of it.

Cheers,

Marc

[Rex Brynen]

Panel Criticizes Military’s Use of Embedded Anthropologists (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/04/arts/04anthro.html?ref=global-home)

By PATRICIA COHEN
New York Times
Published: December 3, 2009

A two-year-old Pentagon program that assigns social scientists to work with military units in Iraq and Afghanistan has come under sharp criticism from a panel of anthropologists who argue that the undertaking is dangerous, unethical and unscholarly.

The committee, which released the report on Thursday at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association, the discipline’s largest professional group, has been studying the program since its inception in 2007.

The panel concluded that the Pentagon program, called the Human Terrain System, has two conflicting goals: counterinsurgency and research. Collecting data in the context of war, where coercion and offensive tactics are always potentially present, “can no longer be considered a legitimate professional exercise of anthropology,” the report says.

The full 73 page report of the AAA Commission on the Engagement of Anthropology with the US Security and Intelligence Communities can be found here (http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/arts/04anthro-report.pdf).

[davidbfpo]

I am sure anthropology was around in the World Wars and since 1945, did anthropology have no relevant use then? I suspect not, the subject has not changed, just the people. This type of comment annoys me.

[Van]

David,
Read Anthropological Intelligence (http://www.amazon.com/Anthropological-Intelligence-Deployment-American-Anthropology/dp/0822342375/) by David H. Price. He does a good job of explaining the history of the antipathy between the military and academic anthropologists, and how it goes back to WW I, based on events going back to the 19th Century British Empire.

[Steve the Planner]

Perhaps I'm the odd duck in this bunch, but I spent a lot of time studying the inherent conflict issues in Northern Iraq from a number of different socio-economic, demographic, ethnic, religious and historical perspectives, and I just believe that whatever HTS was doing, it missed the mark by such a wide margin that the question has to go far beyond simple ethical and competence issues---all too often, the work and advice was just the poor quality you would expect from taking some anthropologists and throwing them, based on short visits, a handful of first hand interviews, and, all too often, as the report indicates, asking these folks to speculate on answers far beyond their capabilities and competence. Too often, the results were GIGO, and, in many instances missed both the right questions, and the meaningful answers to those questions.

Lately, I have been reading a lot of Gertrude Bell's works to try to peel back the myth that she and the wily First Sea Lord invented Iraq in the post-WWI Treaties. Personally, the more I study that myth, the more it looks like the rest of the mythologies from that era, especially related to Bell and Lawrence.

Instead, what I increasingly see is that Bell was a good observer of social, political and administrative patterns, and an agressive researcher and observer. But, when you break up the boundaries of Iraq that she supposedly "made up," all were pretty self-defined, self-defining, or undefined, both before and after her mythical whimsy in 1920.

The southern boundary between Kuwait and the Ottoman Empire pre-dated 1920.

The Iranian Border to the West was, according to Bell even, defined by the pre-existing Iranian boundary which, after the war, Russian troops were guarding at the time of British occupancy. The British Colonial instruction, upon contact with russians, was don't go there.

The Eastern Border was never a border, but a well-defined historical corridor between Baghdad and Jerusalem/Jordan. The Hashemite Empire, to the East, was not a drug-induced fantasy of Lawrence and Bell, but a substantial fact on the ground, born of ancient routes and connections, including access for the substantial Baghdad Jewish population and Jerusalem. In fact, the desert boundaries between Saudi Arabia, to the southeast, and Iraq weren't established until decades after Bell's death, and, quite frankly, nobody cared because they were just open desert.

The northern boundary, which I'm still studying, appears to be a wash of conflicting boundaries, all related to ancient Central Asia moving from loose confederations to the highly-defined physical boundaries of modern nation-states, along with, at that time, the background conflicts and ethnic purges of the Ottomans (and, by occupation, the Brits) in that region---the genocides went far beyond just the Armenians (who had played footsy with the russians, but extended to the Kurds and Turkmen). One could argue that, to a great extend, the Northern Boundary (beyond Mosul Province) was, while grounded in pre-existing Ottoman provincial boundaries, an unwilling division of problems by all parties.

I'm still hunting down the long run history of Turkmen and Kurds (including their Persian and Afghan links), but the only conclusion so far is that it is very complicated.

In one Bell report, she explains how, as the British occupied the Ottoman Empire's three Iraqi southern provinces (Mosul, Baghdad and Basrah), the Ottomans took all their maps and records and hit the road, leaving few if any records. The Treaty of Sevres maps show intricate details of villayets (provinces) and districts.

In fact, though, the Brits turned to the locals, who were already hard-wired by the previous Ottoman systems of sub-districts, districts and provinces (villayets)---so the British Colonial officers suggest that they worked out the sub-provincial structure, but, I believe that the reality is that they were primarily just relying on the locals to re-bound the ancient nahias, qaddas and villayets that were both well-known and logical.

There was, in fact, a great map-maker in Iraq---Sadaam. Especially in 1976,he took a meet-axe to the ancient and well-settled provincial boundary systems, carving up Irbil among Ninewa and Tamim. Butchering Tamim and Baghdad province, and leaving everyone confused and in disarray (his purpose). Behind that, he did similar violence to the integrity of district boundaries in places like Sinjar.

Last, after manufacturing, from the whole cloth, his new maps of Iraq, he proceeded to change the facts on the ground to match his maps. Bulldozing tens of thousands of homes, hundreds of villages, and, if they were lucky, resettling the populations (the less fortunate just disappeared).

In Bell's time, most of these "places" like Tikrit were little more than cattle stops at the time she went through (not that they di not have authentic ancient histories), as most of Iraq was before the huge urbanization trends (another big sphere of underlying social destabilization continuing today).

We built the econ, market and infrastructure maps in 2008 through MND-North and NGA (the stock in trade info of any Bell Era mapmaker), so it was a gap that, incredibly, no one had gotten around to it in five years of occupancy... just a lot of tribal touchy-feely stuff that Bell and Lawrence would have looked at as useless.

I've been gradually grinding through the reams of old census data I came home with last December, but the stories told by all the numbers define the patterns and flows of all this stuff played out over the social, political and physical landscape.

So we stand here today in 2009, and these maps and that bloody mapmaker are the key and continuing conflict drivers in much of Iraq's disputed areas today and into the future.

The US missed this entire sphere of what was driving much of the conflict and confusion in Iraq, and still doesn't know it today.

Of course, these field anthropologists missed a lot.

Sorry for the negativity, but, from what I have seen, and continue to study, the HTS system provided little useful real analysis.

[Beelzebubalicious]

It was an AAA panel so definitely not un-biased. I haven't read the report but I wonder where their data comes from. The question to me is not whether they provided rigorous scientific analysis and advice (not really possible) but whether they were able to further understanding and help commanders make better decisions. Lastly, it's like those USG IG audits. Hard not to find a lot of fault. Much harder to think in context and evaluate practical effectiveness.

I'll take a look and see, but I wouldn't give much credence to a report written by the AAA on this subject.

[Rex Brynen]

I'll take a look and see, but I wouldn't give much credence to a report written by the AAA on this subject.

It is a rather thoughtful report in many respects, IMHO.

As is evident from the report, part of the tension between the AAA and the HTS arises from portrayals of the latter as "anthropology" when much of what the HTTs do meets neither the methodological nor ethical expectations of the scholarly field. In this regard, it is hard to think who can speak more authoritatively on the issue than the AAA.

The value of the HTS and the larger normative questions concerned are not issues that the report attempts to address, other than in passing.

[Steve the Planner]

The report looks like what I saw a lot of from disconnected civilians dropped on a FOB without a whole lot of movement/access resources, clearly defined missions, or good translators.

They didn't see much, couldn't go out much, generated a lot of powerpoints, though, surfed the net, and sent a lot of emails home. Always billed overtime.

One of my PRT colleagues at a faraway satellite in Northen Iraq was visited upon by a CIA team. He said he was surprised by their questions; suggested they really didn't understand what was going on or what to ask.

If a CIA team couldn't effectively engage the problem, how could you expect a "windshield" anthropologist, often with little contact or support from the military, to reach it?

As just a dumbass technocrat, I would look at the quality and character of translations and just scratch my head. I read one report requesting urgent repairs for electrical generators that demonstrated the problem. The provincial DGs were asking for funding for enclosures to protect their generators from dust and heat. The translator turned ity into "porches" which the US civilian funders thought was something unnecessary for the Iraqi's to sit out on while watching the generator.

The sadder mistranslation stories, which most of you know first hand, suggest that even if you were told the right answer, you may not have gotten it.

More often, too, we got two answers---the first at a meeting with others present, and the second later in private (180 degree difference).

You have to be pretty good to punch through all of that as a visiting civilian.

Like the AAA report indicates, there were buck sergeants on their second tour whho knew more than most of the reports they got.

More important, the HTS after-action comments sound pretty reminsicent of the PRT de-briefs done by USIP. A tremendous amount of wasted human resources, there at great very great costs (not just monitary).

[Van]

The AAA's positions and leaders are so rabidly anti-military and anti-U.S. government, that any report by them will be a hatchet job. They may have made valid criticisms, but their own extremism ruins their credibility.

Note that in the executive summary the AAA stresses HTS as a de facto intelligence asset. For the most vocal members of AAA, this is like stating that HTS requires its members to violate babies, drink human blood, and oppose gay rights. In the AAA's world, the Intelligence Community is the standard of evil.

The AAA sees an opening to attack the U.S. military by claiming special expertise and insisting that they are the only ones with the real authority to be the arbitors of what right and wrong are for HTS. The phenomenal arrogance of this position is beyond rational discussion.

Look at their sources: the Open Anthropology blog, (now Zero Anthropology) authored by a guy who openly celebrated the murder of Paula Lloyd; American Counterinsurgency by a guy who passes judgement on current programs based on his opinions of things that happened decades ago and insists that anything an insurgent does is morally justified; and "anonymous sources" (as easily some nutjob in his mom's basement as someone with genuine information).

And on the lighter side, Small Wars Journal was cited as a source for the report... :wry:

[marct]

Well, after slogging through the entire report, I do want to make a few "rebuttal" comments, Van :D......

The AAA's positions and leaders are so rabidly anti-military and anti-U.S. government, that any report by them will be a hatchet job. They may have made valid criticisms, but their own extremism ruins their credibility.

First off, the report wasn't written by the AAAs leaders. When you look at the list of authors, several jump out who would be very hard to call "rabidly anti-military", i.e. Kerry Fosher (MCIA) and Laura McNamara (http://est.sandia.gov/staff/laura.html) (Sandia). There are, of course, several noted "anti-military", or at least anti-HTS people on the committe (e.g. David Price).

Note that in the executive summary the AAA stresses HTS as a de facto intelligence asset. For the most vocal members of AAA, this is like stating that HTS requires its members to violate babies, drink human blood, and oppose gay rights. In the AAA's world, the Intelligence Community is the standard of evil.

Unfortunate, but true. It is reflective of a general misunderstanding both of what "intelligence" means in a military context and what Boas was opposing (which was covert intelligence gathering under the cover of being an Anthropologist). The report itself does deal with the first issue in a fairly decent manner.

The AAA sees an opening to attack the U.S. military by claiming special expertise and insisting that they are the only ones with the real authority to be the arbitors of what right and wrong are for HTS. The phenomenal arrogance of this position is beyond rational discussion.

As a professional association, the AAA has an obligation to be concerned with how its profession is being constructed and construed in public debates. Arguing otherwise would be to argue that the AMA should say nothing about how medicine should be practiced. I'll also point out that organizations are not capable of action - they are vehicles (and covers) for people taking action, so ascribing a motive to an organization is tricky at best.

As an organization, the AAA has a limited control over the practice of its discipline, much less control than, say, the APA or the AMA. One of the really interesting discussions in the report is in the conclusion: "Is it Anthropology"? to which they basically argue that it isn't.

Look at their sources: the Open Anthropology blog, (now Zero Anthropology) authored by a guy who openly celebrated the murder of Paula Lloyd; American Counterinsurgency by a guy who passes judgement on current programs based on his opinions of things that happened decades ago and insists that anything an insurgent does is morally justified; and "anonymous sources" (as easily some nutjob in his mom's basement as someone with genuine information).

And on the lighter side, Small Wars Journal was cited as a source for the report... :wry:

And a whole bunch of other ones too such as Military Review, Foreign Policy, etc. and, yes, us :D.

Personally, I thought it was quite a decent report given the constraints of their data (see section 3. Sources of Information on the Program). It is also crucial to remember that the audience for the report was the membership of the AAA and other Anthropologists, so of course it will use our disciplinary frameworks and language.

I need to think about it for a few more days before I put anything solid together on it, though.

Cheers,

Marc

[Steve the Planner]

Van:

The AAA sees an opening to attack the U.S. military by claiming special expertise and insisting that they are the only ones with the real authority to be the arbitors of what right and wrong are for HTS. The phenomenal arrogance of this position is beyond rational discussion.

I did not read the AAA report as an attack on the military, per se, or its' legitimate interest in collecting or using relevant background research, including kinship and cultural connections.

They draw the line, however on calling this anthropology, and trying to key the type and quality of HTS field work it into a relationship with their professional sphere and legitimate academic arena.

As a geographer, and demographer by training, I found nothing in their report that remotely suggested any negativity about the use of mapping, demographics, etc... Notwithstanding, my experience with "windshield" anthropology (informal and often inaccurate/misleading) of the kind they reviewed, is the same---it lacks a professional standard for reliable decision-making,and sucks up valuable resources and "headspace" that should be directed to more technical amd fact-based analysis.

As a professional civilian planner, and member of the American Planning Association, and its professional association---the American Institute of Certified Planners, we have very specific professional standards, and an adopted Ethics standard which, in part, requires professional approaches to analysis and opinions provided.

Although few professional civilian planners are engaged in Iraq or Afghanistan, either on the civilian or military side, I could certainly understand a circumstance where, as with HTS/AAA, one group was claiming a planning study was done in a professional manner, while an actual AICP provided a contrary position based on actual standards that contradicted the first---and that became a professional dispute as os the HTS/AAA matter.

In Iraq, Research Triangle Institute (RTI), through LGP/USAID, worked in support of development of Provincial Development Plans in 2007. Some of the work was of very poor quality, attributable to ground conditions and a lack of relevant facts, but where those conditions allowed (such as in the KRG areas), the work was remarkably good and in conformance with the professional standards expected of a planner anywhere in the World: Step 1: Background Assessment of Current Conditions, including Populations to Be Served; Status of Current Systems, Services and Conditions; and Structure of Governance and Government Capacity; Step 2: Identify Intended Goals/Visions; Step 3: Based on 1 and 2, Identify Factors which need to be addressed; Step 4: Identify a Plan, Process, Schedule, and Preliminary Budgetary Requirements Needed. Behind every step was the highest level possible of public engagement (sometimes very little, and sometimes a great deal, dependent on the province's condition).

Notwithstanding that later conditions allowed for substantial refinement, and, sometimes, complete re-write, I still believe that those 2007 PDS snapshots developed by RTI/USAID were significant documents prepared in complete adherence to APA/AICP professional standards. And based on the best information available to an uncleared civilian effort.

In part, my regret, however, was that that civilian process in 2007 was not, in most instances, informed by the best available information and condition assessments that could have been obtained had the US Military understood and supported the activity. It would, in my opinion, have avoided substantial delays in civilian reconstruction, and avoided wasting billions of US tax payer dollars, and have provided the substantial opportunity for synchronization of US and Iraqi efforts.

But that is not a criticism of RTI/USAID, but, in substantial part, a criticism of the military's need to substantially change it's civilian engagement process, CMO capabilities, and HTS program---they missed the human terrain that mattered, and it was all in the professional technical space of technical evaluation and planning. Traditional APA/AICP standards and methodology should have been used, and not disputed "windshield" anthropology---but they sucked all of the air out of the room (and budgets and staffing), and the military remained, in many instances, blind to other more obvious and straight-forward Ways Forward.

All that aside, I have comparitively reviewed the work of routine US contractors like Berger/USAID/DoD for "windshield" planning at the outset of the War and throughout. Oftentimes, you wonder why that type of product was actually paid for, and shake my head when, in some instances, it was actually used.

I'll take legitimate professional APA/AICP approaches like RTI used anyday.

Steve

[Surferbeetle]

From the January 18, 2010, Vol. 15, No. 17 Weekly Standard, Getting to Know You: (http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/getting-know-you) The U.S. military maps the human terrain of Afghanistan BY Claudia Anderson

They are also reminders that human terrain is always complex and elusive terrain, lacking the stable definition of a mountain pass or valley floor. The Human Terrain Teams and other innovations by which the U.S. armed forces are lessening their ignorance of the Afghan people are no doubt imperfect, even crude, instruments for meeting the challenges of a war where the enemy is at home and we come from far away, geographically and culturally. Regardless of the magnitude of the challenge, the HTTs and the rest will be judged by their success on the ground. Still, it is not too soon to recognize the energy and imagination with which the armed forces are working to apply their lessons learned.

Rounding out the morning was Professor Michael Bishop, expert in something called Geographic Information Science. He showed a rapt audience how using remote sensing and computer maps of Afghanistan they can display numerous physical features of the country—soil quality, vegetation, water, snow, cloud cover, and many more—at high resolution at the click of a mouse. This capability has myriad applications, from the design of irrigation systems to prediction of floods to the location of safe construction sites. It will be made available via a “reachback” system now being developed to allow HTTs to consult distant experts and databases by email.


During their time in Omaha, HTT trainees have classes in the history and politics of Afghanistan in the 20th century, Pashtun society and culture, women in Afghanistan, religion in Afghanistan, the Afghan Army and its evolving structure, the globalization of religious extremism, medicine in Afghanistan, and the role of drugs in international terrorism. Six of their ten instructors are Afghans. It’s during their longer stay at Fort Leavenworth that they receive basic survival training and concentrate on social science methods and analysis. Some are sent to participate in exercises at a simulated Afghan village in Death Valley.

[Steve the Planner]

"Does Iraq have anything like the US Postal Zip Code System? "

Yes, it does.

The most astounding thing for many folks is that it has the same types of property tax registration system as the US, too. State, County, Tax Map and Parcel. All keyed to the adopted administrative boundary maps.

Seeing those in early 2008 reminded me that, if they hadn't had one like ours, there would have to be one pretty similar. But there was.

And it all keys into the Land Records and cadestral maps, and census maps. How many goats and internet cafes per census block?

A beautiful system for data mining on a property/person specific basis.

On of the things the Embassy DOT Attaches was working on last year was the formal naming system for roads/place names needed for international road mapping and directional signage systems/standards.

In and around the census, you will see the formalization of many of these things with some pretty worthwhile tweaks.

After international naming standards are adopted/applied, a lot of the changeable/multiple names for places will go the way they did in the US when the railroads came through.

Steve

[Steve the Planner]

PS- As one provincial census counter explained, the consequences of an error in the Saddam Era could be pretty significant, so everything was always accurately counted and reported higher (to Minisitry of Planning Census staff).

They had also been substantially uptrained by the UN pre-2003, so the census folks were pretty good.

The first "real" census, as you will often see it referred to, was 1957. This is the first one done with surveyed maps (British field surveys). The district, subdistrict/nahia/blocks are all numbered by hierarchical systems keyed into each higher admin. unit.

Basic governance structure stuff set forth in administrative decrees and reflected in the census detail sets. (A lot of folks have seen the summary tables, but not the detailed reports---or the DG field notes). Really good work.

They also break the Ethnic and Religious data down accordingly to blocks.

In Baghdad, I spent a lot of time with the folks who managed the pre-2003 administrative/intel maps. They really had a phenomenal amount of information on property ownerships, uses, infrastructure systems, cattle breeding stations, agricultural rail sidings, graves (by ethnicity)---you name it. The operating manual for pre-war Iraq. Another very good operational information resource. (And they have english symbology, since they were started by the Brits in the 50s).

Nothing about Iraq should have been a mystery to anyone---it was all there all the time -other than the mass graves and, of course, the WMD.

Steve

[Steve the Planner]

Attached (hopefully) is an pdf of the CoSIT spreadsheet showing the approved admin structure c. 2003 (immediately pre-invasion).

[slapout9]

"Does Iraq have anything like the US Postal Zip Code System? "

Yes, it does.

The most astounding thing for many folks is that it has the same types of property tax registration system as the US, too. State, County, Tax Map and Parcel. All keyed to the adopted administrative boundary maps.

Seeing those in early 2008 reminded me that, if they hadn't had one like ours, there would have to be one pretty similar. But there was.

And it all keys into the Land Records and cadestral maps, and census maps. How many goats and internet cafes per census block?

A beautiful system for data mining on a property/person specific basis.

On of the things the Embassy DOT Attaches was working on last year was the formal naming system for roads/place names needed for international road mapping and directional signage systems/standards.

In and around the census, you will see the formalization of many of these things with some pretty worthwhile tweaks.

After international naming standards are adopted/applied, a lot of the changeable/multiple names for places will go the way they did in the US when the railroads came through.

Steve


Some fantastic Intelligence sources there.

[Steve the Planner]

But what I kept finding is that knowledge is a cascading function.

The more you learn, the more you can figure out more pieces you don't know, and then fill in those blanks.

(So much of these places rely on oral traditions).

The more you already know, the more locals feel like you actually care, and aren't stupid. Oftentimes, that can lead to even more info dumps, and more stories told.

One pre-2003 map showed a huge and complete cattle operation at and above Balad (cattle breeding centers, slaughterhouses, everything), so we found some old sources about the huge operation which was nowhere evident.

Provincial folks told us about it to, but only vaguely knew the details or location (they were off by plus or minus 5 miles).

Then we all figured it out and found it using new and old mapping and site visits. The operation had been suspended after the war. The owner fled against threats. The facilities were stripped or dismantled.

Now, we knew where the veteranarian, bredding centers, coops and grain systems needed to focus.

Bottom line. An old map I found later (1886, as I recall) identified Balad by its historical name Istabalat (Cattle station/stables), where all the caravans would stop on the Silk Road to switch horses/camels, etc...

The owner was the same rich family that owned Al Warka Bank and Balad Canning Factory. These were all part and parcel of government cattle,poultry, etc... systems that were sold off after the Baaths realized that privatization had certain virtues over collectivization (plus they needed cash).

The folks who worked the spread all lived locally and took the cattle home (why you see so many cattle in and around Balad).

Balad means "town," like Balad Ruz, Town of Wheat. But Balad, the town, is actually a contraction from Istabalat, a place name/functional description that dates to the way old days. So the local pronunciation "belet" is no fluke.

Who knew?

Oh, is this stuff the intelligence somebody was looking for?

[slapout9]

Who knew?

Oh, is this stuff the intelligence somebody was looking for?

Don't know if anybody was looking for it, but that is all critical ASCOPE information IMO. Back in my day I used a ZIP code based system to find criminals or contacts that could kead me to them.:wry:

Does A'stan have anything similar?

[Steve the Planner]

Trouble with Afghanistan, as I understand it, is that there are a lot of different Afghanistans, so what might exist in one place might not in other.

Still, if you understand basic geography and human settlement/economic patterns, a lot gets explained.

For some reason, I used to read all those stupid field reports, and talk to folks who worked that area. I know that kind of stuff is usually just dumped as paperweights somewhere, but sometimes having actual reports from folks who have been there is sometimes useful.

In Iraq, I found the two best background resources for spot problems to be: (1) SF/MITT folks and (2) Iraqi contractors/translators/local nationals.

One guy was a contractor, always in and out of the finance office at Spiecher for one project or another that he was getting paid for. I always waylaid him for lunch and smoke to talk about what businesses used to exist where. He struck me as the kind of guy that had cased a lot of places and always had his eyes open. I did get a lot of good clues from him for what I was looking for---before he got carted away for bid fraud (oh, well).

In Baghdad though, I could always find Kurds who, like my contractor friend, had been around a lot of the North for one reason or another. Like MG Flynn's new strategy, its just about digging in every nook and cranny for what you are looking for. Somebody has been there before.

I had a friend who, as Sheriff, tried following all the known bad families, since that was where all the crime came from. Apparently, though, that wasn't PC. Something about profiling??!!

Steve

[slapout9]

I had a friend who, as Sheriff, tried following all the known bad families, since that was where all the crime came from. Apparently, though, that wasn't PC. Something about profiling??!!

Steve

Profiling........sounds like the Sheriff was doing good Police Work.

[Steve the Planner]

Right. That was the problem:

"Slow down, kid. You'll make the rest of us look bad!"

[Steve the Planner]

marct:

State-of-the-art crisis mapping is/should not be static.

UN's refugee records are a great way to follow some of the motion. Refugee records and various registrations (schools, food registrations, NGO (Mercy Corps, etc...) are great ways to track the dynamics, but nobody on the Mil intel side, to my knowledge understands civilian registrations, data systems and tracking.

Same, too, with political/adminstrative maps. Westerners have little conception as to how dynamic and substantive they are as proof and symptoms of discontent/conflict. I started out as a tank commander on the "Internal" German Border---during the prior periods, the political boundaries changed as routinely as in Iraq; in fact, you can't track the data across spatial geography unless you know where was where, when.

Who reports to who, where, why, when? How did those change over time, and why?

On the UN Disputed Boundaries Team, we got a chuckle out of the first seating of the Iraqi Kirkuk Boundary Committee. Their first question (logically) was: Which Kirkuk are we studying? (Gareth Stansfield from our team published a lot of the Kirkuk issues in Summer 2009).

Problem, too, comes when (as the AAA raised), when the opponent press starts blurring lines between reconstruction, PRTs and Drones/Death Squads.

Getting good civilian information requires either personal contacts or organizational trust. Very important.

Steve

PS- I have most of the tribal, religious, ethnic data back to the 1930's on a hard drive collecting dust in my office. Nobody in Iraq had any use for it.

[slapout9]

Right. That was the problem:

"Slow down, kid. You'll make the rest of us look bad!"


Yep! I am familiar with concept;)

[Outlaw 7]

It should be noted that the concept of HTTs was pitched to the JIEDDO Task Force rep in Bagdah in 2006, but it was pitched along the lines of the SF Area Studies for ODA teams that would be deploying into a specific country.

BUT it was pitched with the concept of tying it into the MI flow on info collection to be used to verify information being collected on the interrogation side as there was in 2005/2006 no effective way of verifying information provided by detainees.

The presentation was forwarded to the JIEDDO Task Force and the Lincoln Group rep Andrea Jackson. What occurred out of that presentation was not what was presented which I initially think was the tie of the Lincoln Group to academia.

Who became the future Program Director--it was in fact the very same JIEDDO officer that the presentation was made to and the Lincoln Group eventually pulled out or was forced out and the program became an academic program with a total wall between them and MI as they refused to be tasked initially nor did they want to be tasked by MI via RFIs. There was a true need to tie them to the interrogation process in order to confirm or deny statements being made by detainees as it was virtually impossible in the 2005/2006 period to check anything in the way of tribal or community issues unless a specific HCT was sent out to specifically check something which naturally never happened.

The presentation made intially to JIEDDO was in fact along the lines of the old SF area studies program and when one see's today how HT is handled in assessments and IRs there is little to no difference to the former FAO area studies---so it begs the question why can not the FAOs that use to this work step up and tie into the troops on the ground thus eliminating the need for an extremley costly program that is in fact faltering and which has not become a Program of Record.

[Steve the Planner]

Outlaw:

You really packed a mouthful in.

What was intended versus what was created.

Mission creep.

Transition from challenged project to formal program status.

Bottom line for me is that if this COIN stuff has legs in these ill-defined wars with no military solution, it needs to know more, and be more engaged on more levels than some other solution for some other problem.

I have no idea what military intelligence should or should not do as a program, but I have apretty good idea of what it needs to do (and not do) in major aspects of this application.

I first heard about HT in the context of geography---doing background people, place, thing studies to make up the recent knowledge deficit in those areas.

Then, in application, it seems to have morphed into anthropology, and field based tribal studies in support of local targeting and tactics. So everybody is doing tribal and religious mapping and papers, but nobody is assembling the background stuff that I thought was the basis for the knowledge gap.

So, I don't know how it became what it became. I do know, as MG Flynn indicates, that it has not filled the gaps adequately, and, collaterally (since US civilians were relying on the military for their work) left the whole effort unsupported in so many ways.

I'm still of the dumb-ass opinion that if the focus is on creating programs and fusion cells, it misses the point. There needs tyo be an analytical core or information resource available to set a Common Operating Picture (on a continuous learning basis), provides actionable guidance in response to challenges faced, and collects, synthesizes and uses the knowledge flow coming and going between commanders and the field.

The wiki definition of social sciences is:

"anthropology, archaeology, communication studies, cultural studies, demography, economics, history, human geography, international development, international relations, linguistics, media studies, music therapy, philology, political science and social psychology."

The fact that anthropology is the first alphabetically does not suggest to me that it is of great moment. Most of what is needed, it seems to me, can be divided into two categories:

1. Observable/Measurable Social Sciences: Geography (including basic infrastructure, systems, markets etc..), Demographics (people, counts, types (ethnicity/religion/tribe), etc..., Development & Economics, History, and Politics (political/admin systems, processes and players, really); and,

2. Interpretative Social Sciences: Anthropology, cultural studies, psychology.

Not having enough of one or the other can pose serious problems, but US terrain/imagery, while impressive and technically capable, does not encompass an end state solution for many of the important applications.Making leaps from religious or tribal data to basic economic and geographic issues is not always reasonable or productive.

As an old tank commander, I just wanted a map with terrain features. As a civilian-mil implementer, it is better for a local to draw a napkin sketch of the governance or economic system which I can later reconcile geo-spatially, and consolidate with the other napkins to, maybe, bring insight to other alternatives.

Something about intelligence theory is basic. The more you know and learn, the more you can know and apply.

Professionally, I would rather use data (scrounged and verified by any sources) to cross-check against field verification and systemic consistency (smell test)) in sets, and update those sets with field changes on as real-time a basis as possible. Then, use that knowledge base to fill in gaps for people while they fill mine. If it isn't engaged and actionable, its just another contract..

Question is: What is needed?

[wm]

Something about intelligence theory is basic. The more you know and learn, the more you can know and apply.

Professionally, I would rather use data (scrounged and verified by any sources) to cross-check against field verification and systemic consistency (smell test)) in sets, and update those sets with field changes on as real-time a basis as possible. Then, use that knowledge base to fill in gaps for people while they fill mine. If it isn't engaged and actionable, its just another contract..

Question is: What is needed?

You are correct with the last question--what is needed. We answer that question by knowing what the mission is IMHO and that brings us around to the discussion of the MG Flynn CNAS report (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=9412&highlight=Flynn).

The breakdown occurs in my opinion when one moves from position "the more one knows, the more one can know" (which is fine) to the position "the more one can know, the more one must know."

I'm not at all convinced that simply because we can know, for example, that the soil 10 feet below the surface at UTM grid LC 1234554321 consists of a specific form of clay that we usually need to know that. If I am planning to build another Burj Kahlifa I might need that knowledge, but I doubt it is important if I'm trying to decide where to erect my TACSAT antenna.

[Steve the Planner]

No doubt that, on application, overkill obscures, like notifying someone that a Nigerian with a bomb is coming, but burying it in a big info dump.

A map, or any geo-spatial product should be composed for the user's purpose--not too much or too little. But the other layers still have meaning and purpose---just not to you then.

If somebody back home has a reasonably good hydro-geology assessment for well-drilling purposes that shows where and how much volume is appropriate in a certain aquifer, or soil types are a relevant condition for building or planting, it is the first level.

If I was on a military patrol, I might only be interested in the immediate situational items, but you might want more if it is for civ/mil.

On a patrol basis, it might also be nice to know for the first two or three rounds, where the routes are between market locations, which may also be used for poppies. And which is a public school versus a madrassa. Later, you might not want that on your map, but it still might be relevant (example: when are the routes used, by whom? Where do they connect to? Is the route abandoned, intermittent, only used at night?)

How is that kind of information compiled, made available, fed? Is there broader meaning in the aggregate of a lot of little pieces sometimes?

Steve

[davidbfpo]

Unable to clarify if the Reachback Center's unclassified product 'My Cousins Enemy is My Friend A Study of Pashtun Tribes' is known here, but hat tip to Patrick Porter's blog: http://offshorebalancer.wordpress.com for drawing attention to it (Pub. Sept '09): http://www.scribd.com/doc/19595786/My-Cousins-Enemy-is-My-Friend-A-Study-of-Pashtun-Tribes-

Military officers and policymakers, in their search for solutions to problems in Afghanistan, have considered empowering “the tribes” as one possible way to reduce rates of violence. In this report, the HTS Afghanistan RRC warns that the desire for “tribal engagement” in Afghanistan, executed along the lines of the recent “Surge” strategy in Iraq, is based on an erroneous understanding of the human terrain. In fact, the way people in rural Afghanistan organize themselves is so different from rural Iraqi culture that calling them both “tribes” is deceptive. “Tribes” in Afghanistan do not act as unified groups, as they have recently in Iraq. For the most part they are not hierarchical, meaning there is no “chief” with whom to negotiate (and from whom to expect results). They are notorious for changing the form of their social organization when they are pressured by internal dissension or external forces. Whereas in some other countries tribes are structured like trees, “tribes” in Afghanistan are like jellyfish.1


Instead of “tribal engagement” in Afghanistan, the HTS Afghanistan RRC advocates for “local knowledge, cultural understanding, and local contacts,” in the words of David Kilcullen.2 There are no shortcuts. What this means in practical terms is a need to focus on ground truth, looking at local groups and their conflicts, rather than arriving with preconceived notions of how people should or might, given the proper incentives, organize themselves tribally. Most of Afghanistan has not been “tribal” in the last few centuries, and the areas that might have been (majority-Pashtun areas that make up parts of Regional Commands South and East) have changed drastically over the past 30 years.

Pashtuns may choose to organize themselves along many different forms of identity, and may be conscious of belonging to more than one form of community simultaneously. Pashtuns’ motivations for choosing how to identify and organize politically— including whether or not to support the Afghan government or the insurgency—are flexible and pragmatic. “Tribe” is only one potential choice of identity among many, and not necessarily the one that guides people’s decision-making.

I am sure it is of relevance.

[Rex Brynen]

“Culture as a Weapon System” (http://www.merip.org/mer/mer255/davis.html)

Rochelle Davis

Middle East Report 255, Summer 2010


At the fourth Culture Summit of the US Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) in April 2010, Maj. Gen. David Hogg, head of the Adviser Forces in Afghanistan, proposed that the US military think of “culture as a weapon system.”[1] The military, Hogg asserted, needs to learn the culture of the lands where it is deployed and use that knowledge to fight its enemies along with more conventional armaments. This conceptual and perhaps literal “weaponization of culture” continues a trend that began with the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.[2] Endorsed at the highest level by Gen. David Petraeus, head of Central Command, the Pentagon unit in charge of the greater Middle East, the idea of culture as a weapon grows out of the “‘gentler’ approach” to America’s post-September 11 wars adopted after the departure of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.[3] This approach is best articulated in the Counterinsurgency Field Manual, that Petraeus oversaw and that the Army released in December 2006.

In the Field Manual, this peculiarly military application of culture uses cultural anthropologists’ definitions of culture as the behaviors, beliefs, material goods and values of a group of people that are learned and shared.[4] The weaponization of culture posits that culture can be a crucial element of military intelligence, used to influence others, to attack their weak spots and, more benignly, to understand the others the military is trying to help. While scholars and military analysts have shown how “culture” was enlisted to play a role in the Vietnam war,[5] today’s wars are the first in which culture has been so clearly articulated. Maj. Gen. John Custer, commander of the Army’s Intelligence Center of Excellence, describes this shift as “a tectonic change in military operations.”[6]

...

[marct]

Thanks for posting the link, Rex. It does nicely encapsulate some of the problem areas I've been working with :wry:.

[Rex Brynen]

Culture as a Tool of War: US Military Approaches to Occupation in Iraq (http://www.mei.edu/Events/Calendar/tabid/504/vw/3/ItemID/275/d/20100727/Default.aspx)

featuring:

Rochelle Davis
Center for Contemporary Arab Studies
Georgetown University


Tuesday, July 27, 2010
12pm-1pm
Middle East Institute
1761 N St. NW
Washington DC 20036


The Middle East Institute is proud to host Rochelle Davis, professor of Anthropology at the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, to discuss US military conceptions of culture and the war in Iraq.

Since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the proposal of a new counterinsurgency doctrine in late 2006, culture has been named as a key to the success and failure of US military operations. Nevertheless, cultural training material has provided erroneous information about Iraq and Iraqis and has fundamentally shaped US troops' attitudes about Iraqis. More recently, all four branches of the US Military have established new culture-centered institutions which are producing significantly different material, suggesting a fundamental shift in their approach to cultural training.

Davis' research, based on analysis of cultural training material and interviews with US troops and Iraqi civilians, suggests that military decision makers, current policy makers, and troops on the ground face fundamental challenges when approaching the role of culture as it relates to tactics of war.

[M.L.]

an·thro·pol·o·gy (ăn’thrə-pŏl’ə-jē) n.

The scientific study of the origin, the behavior, and the physical, social, and cultural development of humans.
[Source: http://www.answers.com/topic/anthropology]

I’ll confess: This is a rant. I hate the term “Human Terrain.” If you are unfamiliar with this term, it refers to a U.S. Army program which uses social science and social scientists to help commanders understand the social dynamics of local populations. This kind of understanding is particularly valuable when conducting counterinsurgency operations because winning the support of the local population is the most important objective. This is in contrast to more conventional warfare in which seizing (actual) terrain is the more important objective.

I can only assume the Army uses this phrase to help the cognitively challenged segments of the officer corps who might look at you with a blank stare if you used the word Anthropology, or the words Social Science, or similar phrases. “You see, CPT Schmedlab, we used to seize key terrain, but now the people are the terrain, get it?”

My problem with this term is twofold. First, it assumes the majority of officers are absolute idiots who can’t understand a concept unless one can relate it to something familiar in existing military jargon. If this is the case, the Army needs to reassess the quality of the officers it is recruiting. Second, the term itself is misleading. Humans are not terrain. They are not even like terrain.

Terrain is static. It doesn’t move. It doesn’t have families or choices or feelings or culture. Humans, on the other hand, have all these things and more. Human socio-cultural systems are incredibly complex, which is why we need to increase our institutional knowledge of social sciences. Comparing social systems to dirt and rocks, to use some jargon, “ain’t gettin’ it.”

Of course, this isn’t the first time the Army has done this. I remember “Non-Lethal Fires.” WHAT?! The only way fires can be non-lethal is if you miss your target. Of course, this was intended to convey information operations intended to influence certain actors within the populace. Actually, the term is still floating around. I guess we can now fire some non-lethal fires into some human terrain. Or, we could just say “influence the local populace.”

In short, humans are not rocks. But whoever came up with the term “Human Terrain” most certainly is.

I will now step off my soapbox.

[Brett Patron]

Folks spend more time complaining about terms for new, hairy, or hard to define terms, and spend less time actually defining things.

Human Terrain is adequate. What the concept lacks is advocacy and folks actually finding a way to best integrate it into operations.

THAT is what Human Terrain (or whatever the uncomfortable would prefer to call it) really needs.

BJP

[120mm]

The phrase "Human Terrain" was actually a working title, and the folks at FMSO who came up with it attempted to rename it using weather terms, but by that time, the now discredited used car salesman Steve Fondacaro and Mitzie McFate had already codified it.

And you're wrong. It's not "Anthropology". In fact, the Anthropology field has been trying to simultaneously "own" the Human Terrain program, while demonifying it.

It's not really about Anthro, or Social Science. It's about filling in the blanks that the Intel community has discarded in their "taxonomizing" and "Taylorizing" of Intel by applying scientific/academic rigor to qualitative data versus quantitative data. Don't feel bad, though, HTS itself has no clue as to what it's supposed to be doing, so you are not alone.

In fact, precious few Anthro types are involved in HTS and of those, precious fewer are worth a crap. Those with the most useful skill set in HTS are the Political Scientists, Economists and Historians.

I am no lover of buzz words or acronym-mania, but prior to ranting, it might help to know something about the subject . HTS is not about Anthropology; Anthropologists just seem to think everything is about them.

[M.L.]

...my basic argument is not that Human Terrain is anthropology. In my opening paragraph I describe HT as "...a U.S. Army program which uses social science and social scientists to help commanders understand the social dynamics of local populations."

I didn't say HT was anthropology. My post is about what HT is NOT rather than was HT is.

Obviously, there are more social sciences involved than just anthropology. however, I use the big scary word anthropology to illustrate the larger point that there are words (some scary, some hairy) which describe what human terrain people are doing. We should use those words. Why? Because human terrain is misleading. Humans are not anything like terrain, with the possible exception that they both exist here on planet earth. You can't gain an understanding of the local populace the same way you would gain an understanding of terrain.

Perhaps my problem is that I didn't propose an alternative name. So, here you are:

Name: Human Sociocultural Systems Teams.
Purpose: To assist Army commanders by gaining knowledge about local populations which includes values, beliefs, normative behaviors, practices, and interactions that shape the choices and behavior of people within the area of operations.

[120mm]

The reason why Anthropology is such a "big scary word" is that Anthropology and Anthropologists have by and large allowed their field of study to be co-opted by nut-cases and megalomaniacs who have subsequently made Anthropology fundamentally worthless for all but the most arcane navel-peerers.

I cannot think of a worse field of study to draw candidates for socio-cultural anything from.

BTW, if you think the Human Terrain people are doing "Anthropology" or anything like it, I have a bridge in Brooklyn for sale. It's a concept, frankly, that briefed well, but has not panned out. There are damned few halfway decent products out there by HTS, and both volume and quality of products are disappointing, to say the least.

Human Atmospherics is another name of a competitive/complementary program that does similar work downrange that is somewhat better named, yet is both more descriptive, as well as having a basis in historical military cultural information gathering. DIA's Stability Operations Information Centers do similar work as well.

[William F. Owen]

It's not really about Anthro, or Social Science. It's about filling in the blanks that the Intel community has discarded in their "taxonomizing" and "Taylorizing" of Intel by applying scientific/academic rigor to qualitative data versus quantitative data.
Concur. Intelligence work done well does not need "Human Terrain" or Anthropologists. Some thing done badly needs to be done well, not done a different way.

[Steve the Planner]

Your use of the term "taylorizing" is particularly significant.

In grad school (many moons ago), I was addressing the weaknesses of "Industrial Policy" delusions while routinely taking the Amtrack through the wasteland of Taylor's early 20th C. industrial paradigm, south of Philadelphia.

My sad impression of HT comes from 2001 when it appeared that they were, as you said, trying to reconstruct complex "systems dynamics" causal loop diagrams into "on/off" switches to drive the public/civilian side of the equation, with predictable failed results.

Ultimately, it comes down to relevant intelligence---useful wisdom and understanding---played out on a reiterative basis on a dynamic and interactive field.

The social, physical and cultural sciences play a role---a role.

What always impressed me in Gertrude Bell's original source works was her acute eye and understanding of political, administrative, geographic, economic, physical and force details (within the limits of the knowable to a Brit trekster at that time), and had little to do with anthropology. She was a cunning Intel operative.

Steve

[Jedburgh]

Purpose: To assist Army commanders by gaining knowledge about local populations which includes values, beliefs, normative behaviors, practices, and interactions that shape the choices and behavior of people within the area of operations.
That's an intel function. Unfortunately, MI appears to be progressing more and more towards competence on the use of systems instead of the development of substantive knowledge and critical thinking which is essential to analysis. Add in the low ratio of language training for intel professionals (and continuing waivers for MOSs that used to require languages), and we have a quality problem that is rooted in training, not personnel. So, instead of fixing the problem at the root - by revising and improving the training of intelligence analysts and HUMINT personnel, we have HTS.

I concur with 120mm that HTS products are generally low quality (especially the RRC products) partly because of the aversion of HTS with being associated with intelligence. They certainly could do with a decent class on report writing. And lately, HTS has become more closely associated with Civil Affairs - but I don't see that improving their product in any substantive way.

[Global Scout]

Jedburgh, that's a polite way of saying the system is broke. I love my analysts, but the bottom line is they can't tell me what I need to know. I get better intell from the operators, intell analysts narrow their view to classified traffic, and disregard everything else. I think you're right, it is a training problem, but also a cultural problem, because the mold has been set and it will be hard to change.

[Ethereal]

Heard much about 'em, but have not seen much of substance from them in multiple tours to both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Seems like a money pit to me.

E

[Tom OC]

I come from the field of criminology via anthropology, and as primarily an academic, I can safely say there are lots of stupid things that the social sciences do which make it hard to "translate" into actionable or practical application. One is the tendency to typologize or come up with names for things. This is usually either an exercise in semantics or some kind of ego trip in which the academic hopes the name will catch on and they will be forever cited in the literature because, after all, most literature reviews go like this: "Jones et al. remark that there are three types... whereas Smith holds the following four types exist...." Two is the deliberate fascination with theory building, an exercise devoted mainly to the development of "puzzles" for other academics to work on; i.e., providing the "stuff" or starting points for theses and dissertations. Most of this theory-testing only produces R-squares of .20 or .30 at best, which means a large percentage of known factors remain unknown. That's what makes social science a soft science, I suppose. We aren't dealing with close tolerances or things with 999.99% certainty like chemistry. Yet, there are some good practical applications derived from the occasional theoretical insight. Most of these are obtained by luck or serendipity rather than by design. Some are substantive, and the better ones involve being a polymath rather than toiling in the theory-practice divide.

[marct]

Hi Tom,

Long time, no chat ;)!

I come from the field of criminology via anthropology, and as primarily an academic, I can safely say there are lots of stupid things that the social sciences do which make it hard to "translate" into actionable or practical application.

Too frakin' true! Not the least of which, IMKO, is the artificial, status-driven distintcions between "applied" and "Theoretical" (the capitalization shows which one is usually considered more important :wry:).

One is the tendency to typologize or come up with names for things. This is usually either an exercise in semantics or some kind of ego trip in which the academic hopes the name will catch on and they will be forever cited in the literature because, after all, most literature reviews go like this: "Jones et al. remark that there are three types... whereas Smith holds the following four types exist...."

Again, spot on, although I will quibble with you on the semantics issue. I think most academics don't take semantics seriously except as a game, which is something I deplore.

Two is the deliberate fascination with theory building, an exercise devoted mainly to the development of "puzzles" for other academics to work on; i.e., providing the "stuff" or starting points for theses and dissertations. Most of this theory-testing only produces R-squares of .20 or .30 at best, which means a large percentage of known factors remain unknown. That's what makes social science a soft science, I suppose. We aren't dealing with close tolerances or things with 999.99% certainty like chemistry.

Yup. There's also so much energy put into turf wars that even if you could get an R-square of, say, 50-60% in an area, you will get hammered if you cross disciplines to do it: THAT's applied work :eek:!

Yet, there are some good practical applications derived from the occasional theoretical insight. Most of these are obtained by luck or serendipity rather than by design. Some are substantive, and the better ones involve being a polymath rather than toiling in the theory-practice divide.

Personally, I've often found that the best insights come when you do some insanely radical discipline crossing as well. For example, my choir is now prepping Schutz's musicalishe exequiens (1637), and some of the structures really only "make sense", in the sense of evoking a particular emotion via words and music, if you know something about the battlefield weaponry and tactics and the historical situation of the prince whose funeral it was written for.

Cheers,

Marc

[M.L.]

Most of this theory-testing only produces R-squares of .20 or .30 at best, which means a large percentage of known factors remain unknown. That's what makes social science a soft science, I suppose. We aren't dealing with close tolerances or things with 999.99% certainty like chemistry.

Tom,

If memory serves, R-square values are a numeric expression of the probability that a given model will predict future behavior. Perhaps the problem is social scientists are trying to predict behavior. This seems somewhat difficult to accomplish in a social system where the agents have a choice, emotions, subjective rationalities, cultural forces, etc...

By way of contrast, in the "hard" sciences atoms (above the quantum level), molecules, etc... obey predictable laws. Thus, it would seem models which predict the behavior of agents (that themselves must follow predictable laws) would result in very high R-square values.

I don't mean to assert that there isn't a significant amount of stupidity in the social sciences (there is in every discipline). Rather, I would suggest less that reliable predictive models in social systems says more about the system in question and the approach to understanding it than it does about the scientists.

Often, the answer you get depends on the question you ask. Perhaps we are asking the wrong questions? I would argue the failings in social science are related to our attempt to study it as if it were a hard science; that is to say reductionist, analytical, linear thinking.

For example, if you are doing any type of research you must state your independent and dependent variables. However, social systems are not composed of independent and dependent variables, and applying such a construct is doomed to fail. The construct asks the wrong question, i.e. "What are the cause and effect relationships?" There are few cause and effect relationships in social systems because people have choices.

Social systems are composed of interdependent variables. Therefore, we cannot study one or two in isolation, but we must study the system as a whole to understand the interdependency of the variables and the emergent properties of the system.

Additionally, classical sciences attempts to remove context from the equation in order to isolate the cause and effect relationships between variables. However, context is everything in a social system. To study a social system without context is to invite failure. Results of context-free experimentation will not be useful in the "real world" because context exerts a heavy influence on behavior.

In short, social systems can't be studied like physical or chemical systems, yet this is what we are doing. As long as we continue to do so, we are unlikely to have much success.

[marct]

Hi M.L.,

Well, I'll let Tom handle the "hard" (hah! Stats is hard?!?!) side but, from what I remember, R-squared is a CYA fudge factor applied to an apparent (presumed?) [pseudo-]causal relationship. You know the type "X causes Y with .27% rsq validity; of course, Y causes X with .23% rsq validity" :wry:.

If memory serves, R-square values are a numeric expression of the probability that a given model will predict future behavior. Perhaps the problem is social scientists are trying to predict behavior. This seems somewhat difficult to accomplish in a social system where the agents have a choice, emotions, subjective rationalities, cultural forces, etc...

It this belief that in order to be a "science" something must be quantified using the simplest form of mathematics (statistics). Sure, we're trying to predict behaviour, but the people who rely on simplistic models a la Quettelet are committing an ID10T error: Markov chains, probability "sprays", Chaos and Catastrophe theory are better languages for some of what we study for exactly the reasons you list. Then again, most of us got into the social sciences to escape from math.... :cool:

By way of contrast, in the "hard" sciences atoms (above the quantum level), molecules, etc... obey predictable laws. Thus, it would seem models which predict the behavior of agents (that themselves must follow predictable laws) would result in very high R-square values.

Well, yeah. Then again, almost everyone seems to forget that "prediction" is based on probability, and it can't account for a "new" event (Taleb's Black Swans). I've always suspected that this is one of the reasons why people who get heavily involved in the philosophy of science and, especially, cosmology get heavily into some very "odd" head spaces that are right outside of the common understanding of causation.

I don't mean to assert that there isn't a significant amount of stupidity in the social sciences (there is in every discipline). Rather, I would suggest less that reliable predictive models in social systems says more about the system in question and the approach to understanding it than it does about the scientists.

Often, the answer you get depends on the question you ask. Perhaps we are asking the wrong questions? I would argue the failings in social science are related to our attempt to study it as if it were a hard science; that is to say reductionist, analytical, linear thinking.

Totally agree with that :D! It's one of the reasons I use both music and dance to try to grok what I study. That, BTW, is one of the lesser advertised / discussed components of Anthropology ("groking" I mean). There's little written about it, barring a chapter by Rhoda Metreaux from the '50's, and we only seem to talk about it after the third drink.

So, what happens if you don't "ask questions" but, rather, set your mind in "neutral" and just "perceive"? That's what a good fieldworker does (or should do) when confronted with something which they have no good predictive model for. When I was doing my grad work, we used to have a joke (well several...) about the differences between Anthropologists and Sociologist:
An Anthropologist and a Sociologist walk into a bar and see a good looking women at the bar. The Sociologist walks up to the bar next to one of the women, orders a beer and, looking out the side of his eye, carefully slides a paper in front of the woman which reads "Would you like to XXXX? Yes ___ No ___"; gets slapped and slinks off to watch the game on TV. The Anthropologist shakes his head, goes over to the other side of the woman, orders a Scotch and mumbles "Men!". Five minutes later, he and the woman leave the bar.
For example, if you are doing any type of research you must state your independent and dependent variables. However, social systems are not composed of independent and dependent variables, and applying such a construct is doomed to fail. The construct asks the wrong question, i.e. "What are the cause and effect relationships?" There are few cause and effect relationships in social systems because people have choices.

Social systems are composed of interdependent variables. Therefore, we cannot study one or two in isolation, but we must study the system as a whole to understand the interdependency of the variables and the emergent properties of the system.

Well, now here's an interesting question: why do you assume variables exist :D? I would argue that patterns and forms exist in people's minds and exert a sense of "rightness" on individuals, but "variables"? That, I suspect, is highly debatable. Now, I could stop playing silly semantics, but I think that this is, really, an important semantic distinction. All too often, "variables" are proxy variables - my favorite one has always been church attendance as a proxy for religious belief: it fails, in Canada at least, because church attendance or, rather, the spike in the late 1980's - early '90's, was related to a general pattern expectation that it was good / safe for the children. It also fails in a whole slew of other areas as well....

So, I've always held that what we should be looking at is a) a pattern of behaviour and b) the "explanation" or "meaning structure" ascribed to that behaviour by those who perform it is a much better, and more useful, unit of analysis and theory construction.

In short, social systems can't be studied like physical or chemical systems, yet this is what we are doing. As long as we continue to do so, we are unlikely to have much success.

Totally agree.

Cheers,

Marc

[M.L.]

Well, now here's an interesting question: why do you assume variables exist :D? I would argue that patterns and forms exist in people's minds and exert a sense of "rightness" on individuals, but "variables"? That, I suspect, is highly debatable. Now, I could stop playing silly semantics, but I think that this is, really, an important semantic distinction. All too often, "variables" are proxy variables - my favorite one has always been church attendance as a proxy for religious belief: it fails, in Canada at least, because church attendance or, rather, the spike in the late 1980's - early '90's, was related to a general pattern expectation that it was good / safe for the children. It also fails in a whole slew of other areas as well....

You make a great point. This goes back to asking the right questions, the relationship of context to behavior, and the complex mental models inside thinking, feeling humans within a socioculutral system.

I'm reminded of the "Pepsi Challenge" in which (in classical scientific reductionist analytical style) subjects were given a blind taste test of Coke and Pepsi. The majority of subjects preferred the taste of Pepsi.

Of course, Coke continued to dominate the market. Execs at Pepsi puzzled over how they could be losing market share if their product tasted better. The answer, of course, is that in real life people don't drink soda without labels; in real life people drink from a bottle with Coke or Pepsi displayed prominently.

Subsequent studies discovered that when the subjects were given taste tests with product labels, i.e. they knew whether they were drinking Coke or Pepsi, they preferred Coke, not Pepsi. Furthermore (and this is the really fun part), researchers monitored the brain activity of these tests, and found that Coke actually produced increased activity in the pleasure centers of the brain when subjects could see the label, whereas Pepsi produced more when the labels were concealed.

People didn't just irrationally believe Coke tasted better. Seeing the label actually changed the activity level of the brain. To them, Coke really did taste better.

This has got to be incredibly frustrating to a scientist. However, if you accept that context, emotion, and subjective perceptions are all part of the sociocultural fabric, it may not allow you to predict behavior, but it will at least lead you to accept that there are vast unknowns out there, and that any attempt to understand or influence a sociocultural system should proceed from that basic premise.

[120mm]

People didn't just irrationally believe Coke tasted better. Seeing the label actually changed the activity level of the brain. To them, Coke really did taste better.

This has got to be incredibly frustrating to a scientist. However, if you accept that context, emotion, and subjective perceptions are all part of the sociocultural fabric, it may not allow you to predict behavior, but it will at least lead you to accept that there are vast unknowns out there, and that any attempt to understand or influence a sociocultural system should proceed from that basic premise.

This is brilliant, btw. However, I do not agree that these are "unknowns" or at least that they are "unknowable".

They are probably unknowable from a purely rational scientific POV, but they are certainly knowable or at least recognizable on a viscerally conscious level. The problem with traditional "science" is that it limits the range of intelligence one can apply to a problem.

Liking something better because you can see the label certainly makes sense on a gut level. Just like hamburgers taste better when eaten right side up. (at least to me...)

[M.L.]

This is brilliant, btw. However, I do not agree that these are "unknowns" or at least that they are "unknowable".

They are probably unknowable from a purely rational scientific POV, but they are certainly knowable or at least recognizable on a viscerally conscious level. The problem with traditional "science" is that it limits the range of intelligence one can apply to a problem.

Liking something better because you can see the label certainly makes sense on a gut level. Just like hamburgers taste better when eaten right side up. (at least to me...)

I agree, however, gut instincts seems to be a world apart from scientific method. Perhaps social science requires a melding of the two; a place for exploring what makes sense intuitively.

Perhaps "unknowns" is a poor choice of wording. "Complex variables" might be better; complex in that the value of the variable can change with changing contexts. In other words, the value of "most preferred soda" is not an absolute value, but changes as context changes.

[marct]

Hi ML.

BTW, I agree with 120mm - really nice example :).

I agree, however, gut instincts seems to be a world apart from scientific method. Perhaps social science requires a melding of the two; a place for exploring what makes sense intuitively.

Umm, yeah, we used to call that pace "Anthropology" :cool:. Unfortunately, the discipline got hijacked in the 1980's, and the flip side of using intuition as a tool of scientific enquiry - "Know thyself" - got dumped from most curricula and the more important informal training.

Perhaps "unknowns" is a poor choice of wording. "Complex variables" might be better; complex in that the value of the variable can change with changing contexts. In other words, the value of "most preferred soda" is not an absolute value, but changes as context changes.

Well, names do have power (Coke? Pepsi?), and the art to naming something is to try and capture a perceived essence and have it associated with the name. "Complex variables" is better than "unknowns" in some ways, but it still implies some form of absolute value from the implication of causality and, as you noted, context changes "absolutes", which means that a) they aren't absolutes and b) the implied causal model is operating at the wrong level (i.e. it's trash at prediction).

I've been spending a fair bit of time over the past 15-20 years looking at how thinking in terms of patterns, rather than causal lines or networks, may prove to be a more fruitful approach: "life as improvisational jazz" rather than "the Billiard Ball universe" as it were. That doesn't mean that there aren't grammars or deep structures operating with a bounding effect on social action, it just means that linear logic can only be applied to a limited part of social action.

Cheers,

Marc

[Steve the Planner]

ML:

I'm somewhat confused about this hypothetical discussion on "soft sciences."

As an undergrad geographer/econ, I built urban parking rate studies as a proxy for demand variables, then spent time with CSX on route mapping, rights of way and box car movements.

In grad school (planning and policy), I was tracking coal supply/demand factors for budget/policy implications to major project investments, and identifying regional economic patterns and drivers.

So what was my career path? Running a parking management company through grad school. Afterwards, running a large business park development/construction company.

The majority of my fellow "soft" scientists followed the same path---site location, resource planning/analysis, transportation/shipping, weather forecasting, GIS, intel, consulting...

As a senior civilian adviser in Iraq, I worked on the same stuff I work on in civilian world, but more oriented to rebuilding the systems. We were in the field every other day---driving from Tikrit to Baghdad, or up to Bayji to inspect projects, looking at oil/fuel movements. After six months, I probably traveled to more different places across Iraq (civilian and military) than any military folks for the simple reason that their uniforms kept them out of many places/activities/conferences where a green suit was inappropriate.

I spent the next six months as an expert assigned from DoS to the UN, looking at all the disputed boundaries and working closely with the international expert teams, and a large network of civ/mil contacts, on borders, populations, trade patterns, pipelines, etc...

Personally, I believe the DoS PRT effort was really poorly structured and managed, but, within it, and especially through the EPRTs (linked to Battalions), there were some really bright, capable, committed and daily engaged civilians who carved out deep knowledge and contacts with locals---based on efforts to actually do things with them (drainage canals, seed, businesses, cultural programs).

There was never a time that I could learn anything useful about any civilian matter in any part of Iraq where a DoS EPRT person (or military assignees), did not know evereything relevant about it, including the challenges and pitfalls. Whether DoS or DoD these folks were experienced civilians (even if in a green suit for that tour) on the ground helping other experienced civilians in real life conditions.

What useful information could I have gained from an HTS academic passing through? Fact is, in 14 months, I never ran into one or heard of one contributing anything useful.

120 talks about tasting the burgers. There are so many folks like him who have actually tasted all these burgers with every kind of condiment applied, that it makes no sense to go looking for a theoretical analysis of the shape of the burger, the symbology of the burger, or the societal linkages of the burger. If I have a question about the burger, it can only be answered by a person with daily experience with burgers: How do I get one? What does it costs? How do I get more? Is the meat rancid?

I think there is a big tendency in this discussion toward a typology of social sciences that inaccurately implies that social science folks are all academic theoreticians. I suspect that most people with economics degrees are, in fact, gainfully employed in very practical day to day real life things that could never be defined as "soft."

The implementation failure for HTS, in my opinion, was to become lost in academia and "soft" theoretical analysis. They would have been better of at the HR/Recruiting stage to avoid academia completely and go after "hard" social scientists with deep reasoning skills in real world applications.

Re: Jed's comments. The answers can't be found by playing with the system. They are a combination of recruitment, deployment, and interaction with the real world and the real problems being faced.

[Dayuhan]

The idea that the tools of social science in general and anthropology specifically can provide military commanders with valuable insights on the "human terrain" is not unreasonable in itself. What I suspect is often overlooked is the reality that good field work takes a great deal of time. Even a very good anthropologist cannot walk into a new community, open some sort of intellectual spigot, and produce a stream of valuable insights. A good anthropologist wouldn't even try. Sending social scientists who have not specialized in an area into the field for a few weeks or months and expecting useful information to emerge is generally going to be futile, especially in a security environment that requires the people doing the study to have military escorts, restricts their time and movement, and makes the community slow to trust and reluctant to provide accurate information.

[120mm]

The idea that the tools of social science in general and anthropology specifically can provide military commanders with valuable insights on the "human terrain" is not unreasonable in itself. What I suspect is often overlooked is the reality that good field work takes a great deal of time. Even a very good anthropologist cannot walk into a new community, open some sort of intellectual spigot, and produce a stream of valuable insights. A good anthropologist wouldn't even try. Sending social scientists who have not specialized in an area into the field for a few weeks or months and expecting useful information to emerge is generally going to be futile, especially in a security environment that requires the people doing the study to have military escorts, restricts their time and movement, and makes the community slow to trust and reluctant to provide accurate information.

Actually, a fairly talented person with even a modicum of information can increase a commander's knowledge incredibly even in a short period of time.

The security environment you describe is largely a myth; someone with just a little bit of fieldcraft can navigate most of Afghanistan quite easily with very minimal security.

The ethnographic interview is a very flawed technique; people lie and they most often lie to themselves. Observation ethnography and looking at societal outputs actually make rapid ethnographic surveys very do-able and are usually more accurate, to boot.

The problem is, most Anthropologists are wonks, who work slowly, pedantically and often come from white-bread America with no experience in anything but academia.

Someone with a broad background, especially with one in agriculture, mechanics, history and linguistics and who is sensitive to nuance and has good perception can make rapid assessments and be correct.

I once sat on a hill in Helmand for four hours, and was joined by a US DoS guy who engaged me in conversation. I proceeded to tell him things he'd never heard before about "his" district that he'd never imagined before, based solely on that morning's observations of things like architecture and planting patterns. That guy had been there five years.

I just returned from a district that was reputed to have "no industry" by so-called "experts" who'd been there since 2002. I spent less than one day in the district and was able to identify a thriving brick-making industry, a combine factory and a large and apparently expanding machining business along the route we took through the district.

[-G-]

Originally Posted by Steve the Planner
Personally, I believe the DoS PRT effort was really poorly structured and managed, but, within it, and especially through the EPRTs (linked to Battalions), there were some really bright, capable, committed and daily engaged civilians who carved out deep knowledge and contacts with locals---based on efforts to actually do things with them (drainage canals, seed, businesses, cultural programs).

If you insert HTS (for Dos PRT) and HTT (for EPRT), is the statement not accurate as well?



Originally Posted by Steve the Planner
There was never a time that I could learn anything useful about any civilian matter in any part of Iraq where a DoS EPRT person (or military assignees), did not know evereything relevant about it, including the challenges and pitfalls. Whether DoS or DoD these folks were experienced civilians (even if in a green suit for that tour) on the ground helping other experienced civilians in real life conditions.

That’s a mighty bold statement. :eek:



Originally Posted by Steve the Planner
What useful information could I have gained from an HTS academic passing through? Fact is, in 14 months, I never ran into one or heard of one contributing anything useful.

Well, with all due respect, maybe some perspective on how much you actually didn't know about every possible civilian matter in Iraq. From my experience this was highly useful. YMMV



Originally Posted by Steve the Planner
If I have a question about the burger, it can only be answered by a person with daily experience with burgers: How do I get one? What does it costs? How do I get more? Is the meat rancid?

You don’t need a “hard” social scientist to answer these questions though. Any semi, non-retarded kid that’s old enough to count will do. In addition, “Soft” social scientists have been known to go out and eat a burger from time to time.

It's useful to know the "why" behind things like this. On which norms are you basing the rancidity of the meat, yours or theirs? Is it supposed to taste like this? Why would they eat meat that tastes like this? Is this a reflection of poor refrigeration, slow transport, sickly livestock, etc? Or do they actually prefer it this way? Why would they serve me a rancid burger? Are they just messing with me, or are they deliberately trying to make me sick (to make a point)? Which point? Which is the “wink” and which is the “blink”. How does this help achieve cultural intimacy? Those are obviously simplistic questions, but the more you know what something means, and how it works, the greater your ability to interpret/manipulate a person/situation towards a desired outcome. However, sometimes the meat just stinks.



Originally Posted by Steve the Planner
The implementation failure for HTS, in my opinion, was to become lost in academia and "soft" theoretical analysis. They would have been better of at the HR/Recruiting stage to avoid academia completely and go after "hard" social scientists with deep reasoning skills in real world applications.

Just because the anthropological community threw the largest (and loudest) hissy fit, doesn’t mean they were the only social scientists HTS recruited. Should HTS have avoided academia altogether? I certainly don’t think so. To imply that an anthropologist lacks “deep reasoning skills in real world applications” is absurd. I really think you may have the wrong idea about what anthropology is, and what a good anthropologist can do.

Are there a bunch of useless twerps in the field? Absolutely. But don’t mistake the current majority membership of the field for its capacity to contribute or its lack of relevance. History has proven otherwise. A good anthropologist has the potential to make great impact and/or wreak great havoc (IRB committee and AAA aside). Or they can analyze the heck out of a perfectly rancid burger. :wry:

G

[Tom Odom]

As a former FAO I am a believer in cultural intelligence and as an anthro minor, history major, I would have to class myself with the social science crowd.

I was and still am a believer in the concept of a dedicated human terrain capability. But I will say after a year as the POLAD in MND-B, the human terrain capablity never was applied in anything near to what it advertised.

There were bright, even brilliant spots on the human terrain teams. Some were antthropologists, most were not. What was lacking was a system to direct and capture relevant information based on the CCIR, not on a whimsy of a social scientist who felt that the Iraqis were not really happy having us there. Gee, who knew? The same fellow wanted to take the summer off because Baghdad was hot.

There were too many like him and not enough of the brilliant ones. None of them really got the concept of telling the commander what he needed to know versus telling him what they found to be "interesting" on any given day.

I again say that the concept is sound but its fielding was done so haphazardly that it left commanders and staffs puzzled on how to best integrate these teams. When those in the system don't have a system to begin with, integrating that system into military planning is systemically doomed to failure.

Best
Tom

[slapout9]

When those in the system don't have a system to begin with, integrating that system into military planning is systemically doomed to failure.

Best
Tom

That is Quote of the week stuff!

[Sparapet]

First off let me say this is a great little debate. I have interacted with HTTs in Iraq quite a bit and instead of pursuing my love of Anthropology and Political Science into grad school chose to pursue my love of the M1A2 after college. My experience with HTTs and other non-targeting intel gathering is that the whole concept of "understanding" my environment is somewhat foreign to the officer corps.
120mm points out his experience in OEF with assessing the environment but I would hazard a guess that he is a rare, rare exception. In general, Tom's opinion of piss-poor implementation of non-targeting intel is spot on. I have observed time and again Bn and Bgde commanders absolutely clueless about what the HTTs do, while the HTTs are confused about what they are supposed to do and get creative or settle into an atmospherics routine.
Whatever our ideological leanings, occupations require local understanding. The more distant the cultures of occupiers from occupied the more the learning curve and the greater the distrust (WWII is a prime example).
As a maneuver leader I spent several months putting together a coherent tribal/leadership picture in my sector because the units before me never got past the key leaders whom they could pay to get things done. My anthro/poli sci background helped me ask the right question and notice the right patterns. By the end, the sector made sense. A year or two of an HTTs effort in a 7 yr occupation would have cut that learning curve and allowed me to implement effective IO in early/mid tour instead of at the end.

At the end the bigger point is the one that started this thread. The anti-intellectualism, especially against the social sciences, in the officer corps is borderline criminal. Considering we are often the de facto governors from Company and up for months and years at a time the fact that we rarely value anything that is education while thinking that training is all you need (current article series on Design is a perfect example) is one of our biggest handicaps and I am convinced it has cost lives, many of them.

[Pete]

When I did Army medical supply work in Bahrain years ago some military people thought I was out touristing around if I wasn't in the warehouse kicking boxes. I needed to know the area of operations, such as where I could rent forklifts and trucks, where the good hardware stores are, and which compressed gas companies could test our medical oxygen cylinders. It also helps to know your way around town so you don't have to take the same routes every day, as well as which neighborhoods are Sunni, which are Shia, and areas to avoid during periods of ethnic tension.

[M.L.]

I think there is a big tendency in this discussion toward a typology of social sciences that inaccurately implies that social science folks are all academic theoreticians. I suspect that most people with economics degrees are, in fact, gainfully employed in very practical day to day real life things that could never be defined as "soft."

The implementation failure for HTS, in my opinion, was to become lost in academia and "soft" theoretical analysis. They would have been better of at the HR/Recruiting stage to avoid academia completely and go after "hard" social scientists with deep reasoning skills in real world applications.

Steve:

To be honest, I could care less what someone does for a living, academic or otherwise. The bottom line is that we need people who can think - whether we find them in academia or "real world" occupations is irrelevant.

I did my first graduate thesis on the relationship of experience to job performance. I found (stunningly), that cognitive ability, rather than experience, is the single best predictor of future performance. In simplistic terms - smart people are better at almost everything.

I understand where you are coming from, but the choice between academics and "real world" social scientists is a false dichotomy.

[Pete]

It's everyones' responsibility to learn about the Area of Operations where they are -- it's not just an intel function, or something that somene else should inform you about via distribution. First off, scout the lay of the land in the area, so if you have to conduct infantry operations you'll have a feel for the area. With more recon and scouting around you'll learn a bit about the demographics, ethnic and sectarian things, road networks, so forth. Learning how to say and understand things in the local language helps too.

The main impression of the U.S. Army intelligence community I've gotten is that they mainly like to fiddle around with organizational charts about how info is processed. They also like their secret handshakes and Walther PPKs, it makes them feel important. Years ago I went to OCS with the guy who now commands Fort Hootchie-Coochie, but as they say, "Three tears in a bucket ... "

Right before I got the old heave-ho out of the Army a former Special Forces guy begged me to join SF, he said I was the sort of guy they needed. I was amazed, I could barely pass the PT test.

[M.L.]

"Complex variables" is better than "unknowns" in some ways, but it still implies some form of absolute value from the implication of causality and, as you noted, context changes "absolutes", which means that a) they aren't absolutes and b) the implied causal model is operating at the wrong level (i.e. it's trash at prediction).

Marc,

I'd be the last person to claim that either absolute values or causal relationships exist in great abundance in social systems. Both are extremely rare, yet our craving for deterministic models (the perfect billiard table) leads us to imagine absolutes and causal relationships where none exist.

(Perhaps it is instructive to remember that Newtonian physics do not describe the universe as it really is, but we stick with Sir Isaac because: 1. He was pretty close. 2. Quantum Theory and Relativity Theory are too "spooky" for everyday life. Do we prefer comfortable lies to uncomfortable truths?)

My use of the term "complex" implies a variable which is dynamic, interactive, and is inextricably linked to its environment, as in a complex system.

Given such a system (and all social systems can be described as complex), the best thing we can shoot for is continuous iterative approximations of the system structure, function, process, and emergent properties.

[Fuchs]

I did my first graduate thesis on the relationship of experience to job performance. I found (stunningly), that cognitive ability, rather than experience, is the single best predictor of future performance. In simplistic terms - smart people are better at almost everything.

This fits to my experiences as and with consultant(s).

We usually got tasks which we never had done before and proceeded to embarrass very experienced employees who had been in and failed on their job for years. They had failed to do what we succeeded to do in a matter of weeks.

Most of them were rather simple minds who weren't able to think unconventionally, creatively or even to raise their own level of expectation high enough to recognize obvious problems. Some recited what they were told, completely devoid of own thinking. Some were even too dumb to grasp what they were told.
Others were very experienced at one or two tasks - and failed every time when the application of their very narrow experience mislead them.

Once I even got into trouble because I wasn't able to hold back my astonishment when I was asked in response to an extremely stupid question. All I had done wrong was to ask why they hadn't thought about this consequence before their action (they had violated a rule and expected me to help them cover up their mess).

I'll never forget how I once solved a mystery for a corporation's medium-level management with a half-time effort over only three weeks. They had been clueless for years (they fell prey to several conflicting lies and half-truths). All I had to do was to use my university education, google, the phone, an intern, pen & paper and the brain.

[jmm99]

That SF guy (probably a laid back type himself):

from Pete
Right before I got the old heave-ho out of the Army a former Special Forces guy begged me to join SF, he said I was the sort of guy they needed. I was amazed, I could barely pass the PT test.

simply recognized your natural talent to sit atop a mountain trading Bravo Sierra with the indigenous types in their own lingo. :D

Which ain't a bad talent for any interviewer and/or intel type.

Regards

Mike

[Pete]

But I wasn't bucking for Special Forces, I thought that learning all you could about the AO was what military professionals did as a matter of course. Patrolling, recon, "Pick Up Your Weapon and Follow Me."

[Steve the Planner]

120's comment about DoS: Obviously, not every DoS PRT was worth the effort to ship them in in the first place--especially in Afghanistan. My buds there tell me they are basically just in lock-down, so it doesn't surprise me that the main batch there are just the types collecting pay.

Even within DoS, the in-fighting was merciless, and very few groups were tapped into what was going on, versus what they were doing as a bureaucratic mission. Just goes to show---if you put enough bureaucracy on the ground anywhere, it will do what it does best---spin around itself.

We had our own list of contacts---everybody crossed the Palace---but, like in the civilian world, most of the best information sharing occurred at the pool or the Off-Site. The good stuff seldom found its way into the internal reports.

I do have to disagree with Spar, though.

I went as part of the batch of senior civs in late 2007. All of us responded ASAP to a call by Amb. Crocker to come and help. It was a very different recruiting pool for a very unique call for our expertises applicable to Iraq matters. Most of the actual experts went back home to do what we do.

I joined up with a new MND-N staff that damned sure had their heads screwed on. Between us, the Iraqis, and them, there was a constant and effective effort to drill for change---get us out of the way and let them find the route. Granted, we were running against a very embedded pattern to the contrary.

Hate to ruin the myth created by years of very poor history, but the military I was working with was exceptional.

Even with that, our MND-N counterparts understood that there were parts the civs were more appropriate for, and parts that they were more appropriate for. LTG Hertling had it down with helicopter diplomacy (bringing ministers to sites in the North) and regional conferences, and that gave us access to the ministers, senior staffs and contacts. And we had cover and contacts from the Green Zone to Al Faw.

When you put Iraqi technical managers together with US ones, the expertises, problems and solutions are all common, and they really graved what we could make available to them (especially through DivEng, mobility, etc...). That created an entirely different value to the relationships and information flows than if you just send a bunch of folks to bother them.

Like 120 in Afghanistan, I never felt any constraints about movement or access to anything I wanted to see or anybody I needed to meet with, and we always found enough venues and side-contacts to get the full story. I had my full body armor stowed at Speicher for trips in the North, and lightweight DoS vests to go under suits when we undercovered through Baghdad in the old beat-up Buicks.

Only time we ever had movement trouble was in September 2008. A minister called and said he was surprised that he had managed to get several key ministers together to meet next week (scheduling was always a bear). So we jumped at the chance.

On the morning of, we got alarming calls that security had descended on the ministry and wanted to do the full dogs and shake-downs of everybody.

Then, when we went out the door at the Palace, instead of our usual low-key convoy, there was a driveway full of big stuff. We forgot that it was 9/11, so the ministers were available because nobody else had scheduled, but the security on our side was too much to allow the meeting with us. So, instead, they all got together, which was, as we found out later, a very productive session (without us). I count that as a win.

G: The folks I travelled with were mostly Syrians, Iraqi-Americans, Iraqis, and UN's international experts, etc... and very good at interpreting what was going on. They wrote the books that the academics were reading.

Not everybody in Iraq was blind, deaf and dumb all the time.

Last week, Foreign Policy had an article bemoaning the fact that the census was cancelled (again). Anybody who actually understands Iraq's Ottoman bureaucratic past, and its actual census system and capabilities would know that they have always known exactly how many Iraqis are where. Just because they don't say, doesn't mean they don't know. (Hint: Food rations are as accurate as any census would every be.)

But I can assure you that HTS didn't have a clue. Populations, settlement patterns, tribal. ethnic, religious. Wasn't that a key factor?

[Steve the Planner]

PS- Team Ninewa Article provides a good overview of what things had to become. Iraq focused. Smaller, sustainable projects. Better integration from Nahias, Qaddas to Governate to Baghdad. Expanding scope and participation beyond "the regular suspects."

Rocket science is not a precondition.

Interesting, but one of the biggest execution stumbling blocks in the North was a US guy they just arrested in PA--graft, corruption, kick-back allegations. Go figure?

[sgmgrumpy]

All good points. As 120 has experienced the processes of the program, and some of the crazy stuff you cannot make up as an example of below article on the latest with one of these so called "smart people", the never ending saga of the misfits continue.


Apparently, the young woman likes to wear the monkey outside the wire because she thinks it reduces the hostility of the locals by presenting a soft friendly fuzzy American face, offsetting the threat implicit in the weapon she wears on her hip.

http://www.seven-shots.com/spanking-the-monkey-ht-team-and-cultural-sensitivity/

[M.L.]

All good points. As 120 has experienced the processes of the program, and some of the crazy stuff you cannot make up as an example of below article on the latest with one of these so called "smart people", the never ending saga of the misfits continue.

Who, exactly, accused a woman with a sock monkey of being smart? Is is because she was educated? Cognitive ability and education are most certainly not the same.

[Pete]

That SF guy (probably a laid back type himself):
simply recognized your natural talent to sit atop a mountain trading Bravo Sierra with the indigenous types in their own lingo. :D

Which ain't a bad talent for any interviewer and/or intel type.
Bravo Sierrra? Wait a minute, I'm not sure that's a compliment. I've had some serious posts on this forum:

Ridgeway Caps
known-distance marksmanship training
loop and hasty slings
Blanton's Bourbon
five-paragraph field orders
how to shine M1943 buckle-top boots
M1 thumb
"Ain't no use in lookin' down"
"Ain't no discharge on the ground"
Article 15s
raccoons on my deck eating the cat's food
Field Artillery gunnery
fixing flat tires for female Ordnance officers who are maintenance experts
John S. Mosby confounding the U.S. Army

... and that's just to name a few. So there, take that.

[Ethereal]

Actually, a fairly talented person with even a modicum of information can increase a commander's knowledge incredibly even in a short period of time.

The security environment you describe is largely a myth; someone with just a little bit of fieldcraft can navigate most of Afghanistan quite easily with very minimal security.

The ethnographic interview is a very flawed technique; people lie and they most often lie to themselves. Observation ethnography and looking at societal outputs actually make rapid ethnographic surveys very do-able and are usually more accurate, to boot.

The problem is, most Anthropologists are wonks, who work slowly, pedantically and often come from white-bread America with no experience in anything but academia.

Someone with a broad background, especially with one in agriculture, mechanics, history and linguistics and who is sensitive to nuance and has good perception can make rapid assessments and be correct.

I once sat on a hill in Helmand for four hours, and was joined by a US DoS guy who engaged me in conversation. I proceeded to tell him things he'd never heard before about "his" district that he'd never imagined before, based solely on that morning's observations of things like architecture and planting patterns. That guy had been there five years.

I just returned from a district that was reputed to have "no industry" by so-called "experts" who'd been there since 2002. I spent less than one day in the district and was able to identify a thriving brick-making industry, a combine factory and a large and apparently expanding machining business along the route we took through the district.

Based on your experience, or based on fact? Do you really believe that you "engaged" a DoS guy in a conversation he's never had? Seriously?

E.

[120mm]

Based on your experience, or based on fact? Do you really believe that you "engaged" a DoS guy in a conversation he's never had? Seriously?

E.

Yes. I am not some kind of wunderkind. What I do is actually go out into the district, armed with a bit of of research, and look at the countryside with a critical eye.

The problem is as I state it. The kind of person who gets assigned to the field often does not have a discriminating eye, or they lack relevant real world experience. Frankly, if I were in charge of picking folks to send downrange, I'd look very hard at guys and gals with agricultural experience, and experience with the mechanical arts.

What I don't mention is what a rich resource the ADTs and USDA representatives have turned out to be. I cannot praise highly enough the insight these guys have pretty uniformly had.

The problem you run into, of course, is finding the right mix of ag/mechanical experience and a basically curious outlook on the world and knowledge of history/culture.

[jmm99]

to say nothing of possums. :)

Yup, actually a compliment - metaphor would be talking with Montagnard (http://www.cal.org/co/montagnards/vpeop.html) types - making like a practical, field anthropologist (vs the office bound type), sitting on the edge of the village until accepted and then eventually getting to participate some in the local activities. Something like Dayuhan has done.

As I said, BSing with the indigenous folks "ain't a bad talent for any interviewer and/or intel type."

Now, if you've been reduced to BSing with possums, that's where I draw the line. :D

Regards

Mike

[Pete]

Thanks for the compliment. :o My main downfall as an officer, besides a fondness for beer, was in the area of leadership -- I was never entirely comfortable or confident in leadership positions. My college degree fast-tracked me into OCS after I enlisted. Had I spent more time enlisted I would have either developed my leadership skills through experience and attendance at junior NCO schools, or barring that I would never have been considered for commissioning in the first place. Nobody ever doubted that I was intelligent or a nice guy.

[Shek]

Tom,

If memory serves, R-square values are a numeric expression of the probability that a given model will predict future behavior. Perhaps the problem is social scientists are trying to predict behavior. This seems somewhat difficult to accomplish in a social system where the agents have a choice, emotions, subjective rationalities, cultural forces, etc...

M.L.

R^2 measures the amount of variance in the observational data described by the model. Thus, it describes a correlative relationship in past data.

If your model captures a causal relationship, then your R^2 will give you a sense of how well you might predict future outcomes. However, many folks commit statistical malpractice because they 1) don't understand what makes a model a good model and 2) confuse correlation with causation, and so they only interpret the model through the R^2.

As you talk to, in the end, human behavior is subject irrationality and involves a complex interdependence, and so R^2 values tend to be low in the social sciences (this may not be problematic for your model depending on what you are trying to do, but that's a tangent not needed for the thread).