Originally Posted by
120mm
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.
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