Human Terrain & Anthropology (merged thread)

[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:

[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

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

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.....

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 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."

[jcustis]

I'd like to take this thread slightly off the anthopological tack and delve into a question that has been grinding my gears for at least a week now.

Imagine if you will, that you are serving as a PRT member, and are involved in bringing foreign businessmen into Iraq for the purpose of business development talks in an area where a foreign company was responsible for an agricultural project many years ago. Along for the ride is a certain blond DoD liaison representative who, while attractive and young, and a Harvard grad, has about zero wits about her when it comes to cultural sensitivity, and doesn't recognize the fact that her Uggs boots don't fit the freaking climate

If you are said PRT and you are participating in an engagement with the "sheik of sheiks" of Iraq, and happen to know that there is a potential for many other sheiks to be present for impromptu discussions, would you require that the DoD liaison adhered to the basic cultural sensitivity nod of covering her head before she stepped into the ornate home of the host, even if it was a relaxed Queen Noor sort of way?

[Surferbeetle]

Jcustis,

How much pull does your fictional DoD rep have?

Perhaps this person is needed to facilitate an important advance meeting with a similar demographic of the Iraqi population that they can effectively influence and perhaps observe and internalize cultural 'norms' for this demographic. Engagement planning and post engagement discussions may help to orient them to your/The Shiek's concerns.

After all this effort and coordination go for the consensus decision, if there is 'no time for this' then you make the call my friend.

Regards,

Steve

[Rex Brynen]

I'd like to take this thread slightly off the anthopological tack and delve into a question that has been grinding my gears for at least a week now.

I would take her aside and explain to her the cultural and political facts of life, and suggest that she wouldn't want to inadvertently compromise the mission by failing to adapt to local circumstances. How tactfully you do this depends, of course, on rank/influence/age issues.

Of course, I can say this having never served in a PRT However, I wouldn't hesitate to straighten out a fellow consultant/team member when I'm on a field mission for a development agency.

[jcustis]

I suppose that for clarification, I need to say that this in fact did happen, and also make the correction that she was not a liaison, but rather on a fellowship, and responsible for some sort of tag-along responsibilities.

My non-kinetic effects manager told the story from several days ago, as he was part of the movement for the delegation's junket. He is kicking himself for not stopping to make the point that she was out of place, in part because he unconsciously decided that if she had come all the way from the Green Zone that someone had to have screened her and thought she was good to go. When she interrupted a meeting of some 50 sheiks and walked past them all at the head sheik's bidding (he has very Western tendencies BTW), my guy did cut her off when she started asking who the PDK was and who the particular visiting sheiks were aligned with. He made the point that she needed to excuse herself, uncovered and all, and make for a bathroom until the meeting was over.

Makes me think of Emerald City moments, and I am once again brought back to the reality that sometimes, we just don't freaking get it. It had nothing to do with the fact that she was a woman, but everything to do with the fact that it was just a stupid series of moments.

[Rex Brynen]

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


Afghanistan: The 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

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*