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.