All Our Eggs in a Broken Basket: How the Human Terrain System is Undermining Sustainable Military Cultural Competence

• Main Author: Connable, Ben
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Subjects: ASYMMETRIC WARFARE; COUNTERTERRORISM; CULTURAL ANALYSIS; CULTURAL TERRAIN; CULTURAL TRAINING; CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING; CULTURE; EDUCATION; GRASS ROOTS; HTS(HUMAN TERRAIN SYSTEM); MILITARY CAPABILITIES; MILITARY DOCTRINE; Military Operations, Strategy and Tactics; MILITARY PUBLICATIONS; MILITARY TRAINING; REPRINTS; Sociology and Law

Field-experienced warfighters and other experts have identified a range of weaknesses in military cultural training, education, and intelligence. Finding an effective and lasting solution to these shortcomings has framed ongoing debate over how to meet operational cultural requirements. One approach would take all 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 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 Human Terrain System (HTS), calls for a 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. The HTS approach is inconsistent with standing doctrine and ignores recent improvements in military cultural capabilities. American military staffs have proven capable of using cultural terrain to their advantage in the small wars of the early 20th century, in Viet Nam, and in Afghanistan and Iraq. Weaknesses in cultural capability existed had always proven most evident at the onset of low intensity conflicts but were later rectified as warfighters adapted to the environment. These first-round failures occur because a focus on cultural training and education has yet to be sustained between conflicts. Cultural terrain considerations must be closely woven into the full spectrum of military training and operations. Failure to refocus effort on sustainable cultural competency programs will eventually lead to another wave of first-round operational failures the United States can ill afford. Published in Military Review, v59 n2 p57-64, Mar-Apr 2009; ISSN 0026-4148. Professional bulletin 100-0903/4.