THE HUMAN TERRAIN SYSTEM:

Operationally Relevant Social Science

Research in Iraq and Afghanistan

Christopher Sims U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE

Carlisle Barracks, PA and

UNITED STATES 

ARMY WAR COLLEGE

PRESS

THE HUMAN TERRAIN SYSTEM

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Strategic Studies Institute

and

U.S. Army War College Press

THE HUMAN TERRAIN SYSTEM:

OPERATIONALLY RELEVANT SOCIAL 

SCIENCE RESEARCH 

IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN

Christopher J. Sims

December 2015

The views expressed in this report are those of the author and 

do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the 

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Scholarship is a collective enterprise, yet, its production is 

often undertaken in seclusion. The resulting research process 

is precariously balanced between isolated periods of introspective writing on the one hand, and networking aimed at greater 

comprehension of the subject on the other. The historian Edward 

Gibbon delineated this dichotomy when arguing that “conversation enriches understanding, but solitude is the school of genius.” While the ideal equilibrium between network and separa-
vii

tion remains unresolved here, this book only exists because of 

the generosity of a number of individuals who gave selflessly of 

their time and expertise. Professor Greg Kennedy and Professor 

Thomas Rid were always on hand to offer any or all aspects of 

their broad expertise; they are both noteworthy mentors. Professor Anthony King and Dr. Robert Johnson gave invaluable comments which have shaped the book’s content and character; for 

that, and for showing me the wider possibilities of the research, 

I am extremely grateful. Robert Holliday and Patrick McGrann 

also deserve special mention. Kelly Collis and Patrick Bauer provided all logistical support, encouragement, and ethnographic 

expertise in Washington, DC; without their immense kindness, 

there would be no book. 

Michael Davies at the U.S. National Defense University, 

Dr. Nicholas Krohley at King’s College London, and Dr. Paula 

Holmes-Eber at the U.S. Marine Corps University provided critical feedback and offered selflessly their own research and expertise solely to augment my own studies; I have learned from them 

that scholarship is, indeed, a collective enterprise. Dr. Martin 

Bayly, Dr. Aliki Karapliagou, Andrea Coles, Terry Sims, Stefan 

Sabo-Walsh, James Appleyard, Dr. Alison Hawks, and Dr. Nina 

Musgave offered advice and assistance whenever and wherever 

I sought their counsel. Dr. Ben Rockett’s inspiring erudition ensured my continued motivation for the task at hand. Gregory 

Mueller at the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command went 

far beyond any expectations I may have had of him; his is a significant contribution. Colonel Cindy Jebb, Ph.D., at the School of 

Social Sciences, U.S. Military Academy, West Point, New York, 

and Dr. Walt Perry at the RAND Corporation also gave noteworthy assistance to this research project, with the sole aim of 

improving understanding of the Human Terrain System. 

The final academic year of study (2013-14) was partially 

funded by a generous grant from the Allan and Nesta Ferguson 

Charitable Trust. During periods of writing this book, first Google 

and then Maplecroft Consultancy offered flexible employment 

and professional encouragement for which I am immeasurably 

grateful. My family provided welcomed perspective, insights, 

and support throughout; their lives continue to enrich my own. I 

also detail my grateful acknowledgement of all those individuals 

unnamed here that relinquished their time to contribute to this 

effort. Simultaneously humbling and illuminating, it was these 

encounters which taught me that the research process is to be 
enjoyed as much as the outcome; unknown to me at the beginning of the journey was that it would excavate so many priceless treasures. If I have accomplished to any degree improving 

knowledge of the Human Terrain System, it is the result of these 

individuals’ expertise and patience. 

Any errors that remain herein are entirely my own.

ISBN 1-58487-717-0

viii
ix

CONTENTS

Foreword ....................................................................xiii

About the Author........................................................xv

Introduction ...................................................................1

 Operational Planning..............................................7 

 Methods ..................................................................10

 Parameters of the Study........................................12 

 Sample and Research Pool....................................13 

1. Capability Gap.........................................................23

 Human Terrain System and 

 Counterinsurgency .............................................33 

 Finding a Home .....................................................36 

 View from the Ground..........................................41 

 Clarity and Planning .............................................45 

2. Two Cultures............................................................55 

 Society at War.........................................................60 

 The Long Shadow of Vietnam..............................64 

 The Weight of History...........................................68 

 The “Jaundiced Eye”............................................. 73 

 Collaboration or Confrontation?..........................80 

 Toward Pragmatism..............................................92 

3. From a Military Crisis ...........................................109 

 Revolution and Evolution...................................113 

 Lethal Ambush.....................................................115 

 Cultural Preparation of the Environment........124 

 Foreign Military Studies Office..........................136 

 Conclusions ..........................................................146 
x

4. Trial, Error, and Amendment..............................159

 Recruitment ..........................................................165 

 Training ................................................................177 

 Retaining Expertise .............................................182 

 Training Two Cultures........................................183 

 Weston Resolve....................................................184 

 Pre-Deployment...................................................186 

 Evolution ..............................................................189 

 Program Development Team.............................189 

 Operational Planning Team...............................192 

 A Perfect Storm.....................................................196

 “Infinite Opportunity”: 

 Curriculum Redesign.......................................198 

 Ethics at War........................................................208 

 Information Versus Intelligence........................212 

 Many Hats ............................................................216 

 Conclusions..........................................................218

5. Theory and Practice...............................................231 

 In Conflict.............................................................234 

 Intelligence and Information in the Field.........239 

 Attaché and Researcher......................................245 

 Special Operations Forces Augments...............249 

 Operationally Relevant Reporting....................255 

 Personal Choice ...................................................262 

 Function and Acceptance ...................................268 

 “A Street Fight They Couldn’t 

 Quite Understand”..........................................272 

 A Different Country............................................278 

 Actionable and Informative ...............................291 

 Conclusions..........................................................307 

6. At the Limits of Knowledge.................................323 

 Language ..............................................................324

 Zero Nine Limas..................................................329 
xi

 Mobility.................................................................331 

 Team Function .....................................................336 

 Leadership............................................................337 

 “Dots on Foreheads”...........................................340 

 Operational Tempo.............................................343 

 Area of Operations..............................................345 

 One Year at a Time..............................................348 

 The “Local Optic”................................................351 

 Conclusions..........................................................356

Conclusions................................................................369 

Bibliography...............................................................393 

Appendices.................................................................445 

Acronyms, Abbreviations, and Glossary ...............501 

xiii

FOREWORD

The announcement that the Human Terrain System (HTS) was brought to a close in the fall of 2014 met 

with a flurry of responses. Commentators assessed the 

character and content of the social science research 

program and several identified plausible legacies that 

it may bequeath U.S. Armed Services. Often the conclusions therein were mixed, hinting instructively at 

the absence of a strong empirical record of the program. Therefore, this book is a welcomed larger study 

of the HTS, one of the first investigations to delineate 

the experiences of former program members, chart the 

stance of the American Anthropological Association, 

and gain engagement both from the U.S. Training 

and Doctrine Command, and a manager from the first 

primary contractor, BAE Systems.

As a scholarly assessment of the complex interplay of these perspectives, the book becomes part of 

an attempt to find a platform for collaboration and 

discussion on what has become a profoundly polarizing subject. In so doing, the author links the strategic, operational, and tactical arenas of the campaigns 

in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is both an examination 

of the organizational origins of the HTS, and a tactical history delineated through the experiences and 

insights of former Human Terrain Team social scientists, set against the backdrop of a wider debate in 

the academy and media on the efficacy and ethicality of the program. These are important issues, both 

for the program as a historical object of study and the 

wider agenda of the military’s engagement with social 

science research and researchers.

To engage these issues, this book commences 

with an overview of the program and proceeds to 
xiv

examine the wider debate around social science and 

the military. It subsequently charts the origins of the 

program and the experiences and insights of former 

Human Terrain Team social scientists in both Iraq 

and Afghanistan, exploring common themes which 

emerge from accounts of these embedded civilians. 

Through these accounts, the book exposes us to war 

at the most intimate and challenging level, delineating 

contours of two conflicts that have been characterized 

by deep military footprints, fought among civilian 

populations. 

This seminal study of the U.S. Army HTS by the 

Strategic Studies Institute is an illuminating story of 

civilians conducting social science research in conflict 

in order, as one former social scientist notes in the 

book, to help “win a war.”

 

 DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR.

 Director

 Strategic Studies Institute and

 U.S. Army War College Press
xv

 ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CHRISTOPHER J. SIMS has presented research on the 

Human Terrain System at various international conferences, as well as being an invited speaker on the 

subject. His examination of the U.S. Army program is 

part of broader interests in anthropology and insurgencies. Dr. Sims is committed to open access outputs 

and virtual academies on the principle that making 

research and teaching freely available enhances the 

global exchange of knowledge by enabling equal access to scholarship. His work has been published in 

several journals, including Foreign Affairs and Small 

Wars Journal. Dr. Sims holds a Ph.D. from King’s 

College London. 

1

INTRODUCTION

To avoid the footpaths which may have been mined 

with improvised explosive devices (IEDs), Ryan Evans, a U.S. federal civilian, was walking across a wheat 

field in Babaji, Helmand Province, in the spring of 2011. 

Evans was attached to the Royal Highland Fusiliers 

(2 Scots), C Company, a heavy infantry patrol tasked 

with providing security in the vicinity. Begun 2 years 

earlier, the Helmand Food Zone Program was a form 

of development intervention which offered subsidies, 

seed, and fertilizers to farmers who replaced lucrative 

opium cultivation from poppies with growing and 

harvesting wheat and vegetable crops. Babaji had been 

in the control of insurgents until a few months earlier 

and had not received any assistance from the program 

during the previous year; consequently, there were 

tensions between the community and British forces. 

As Evans and the patrol emerged from the field, an 

Afghan man sitting nearby, clearly irate, shouted in 

Pashto that the British soldiers had wanted the farmer 

to grow wheat instead of poppy, and then the same 

British soldiers walked through their fields. 

At the immediate level, the encounter demonstrated the direct link between conflict, food security, and 

local trade, but conflict has many interrelated and mutual dependencies such that the anecdote is instructive on myriad broader milieus. Where, for example, 

is the tipping point that makes a civilian value creating an expression of discontent to a heavily armed 

patrol above his immediate physical security? Do 

livelihoods and cultures affect military strategies? Are 

there interdependencies between insurgencies, societies, and economies? Does the language of war require 

a sociological grammar in order to be understood? 
2

Armed conflict is a human enterprise such that, by extension, understanding of the human dimension in a 

given area of operations should be thought integral to 

planning successful operations.1

Evans was part of a U.S. Army program whose field 

component had commenced 4 years earlier. On February 7, 2007, a five-person military-civilian Human 

Terrain Team (HTT) embedded with the U.S. Army 

4th Brigade Combat Team (BCT), 82nd Airborne Division, at Forward Operating Base (FOB) Salerno in 

Khost province, Afghanistan. Designated AF1, this 

experiment in hybridized civil-military relations was 

the first embedded team in the Human Terrain System (HTS), an ambitious proof-of-concept program 

managed by the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine 

Command (TRADOC). 

The team’s mission was to provide BCT—approximately 3,000 personnel—commanders:

with operationally relevant, sociocultural data, information, knowledge and understanding, and the 

embedded expertise to integrate that understanding 

into the commander’s planning and decisionmaking 

process.2

This embedded expertise was borne in part from an 

identified need to fuse focused social science scholarship to military instruments in Iraq and Afghanistan 

so as to wage more effective population-centered 

counterinsurgency (COIN) campaigns in and among 

the population.3 Teams were to be geographically located, to develop understanding of a particular area 

in order to “preserve and share sociocultural knowledge” across unit rotations.4

The requirement for an HTS was not straightforward, however. Some levels of sociocultural capability 
3

already existed with the BCTs, including, for example, 

Civil Affairs teams and tactical Psychological Operations detachments. Civil Affairs teams were configured as a project management function to assess, repair, or build infrastructure, and evaluate agricultural 

practices per requirements. They were therefore an 

evaluation and monitoring asset that, while in theory 

was grounded in sociocultural analysis of the area of 

operations to prioritize requirements and efficacy, in 

practice was largely assessment conducted at a more 

abstract level. In part, this refracted analysis may 

explain the poor return on the substantial funds invested in development projects and tangentially why 

more detailed research is required in the future.5 Conversely, Psychological Operations teams worked at a 

tactical level, delivering messages to the population 

but did not gather information in a concerted manner to influence BCT thinking, planning, or action. It 

was therefore the development of Courses of Action 

(COAs) beyond their own element which would create a higher level of sociocultural capability than that 

provided by existing functions.6

HTS promised a different and therefore unique sociocultural capability. The teams would conduct granular social science research among the civilian population and report directly to the brigade staff. Thus 

they were plugged in to the highest levels of planning 

on the ground with the ability to influence all aspects 

of the brigade based on their findings. As a former 

HTT member observed, while other brigade elements 

“directly engage the people on a continual basis” focusing on development projects and influencing the 

local population, the HTT’s unique contribution was 

in “understanding the people.”7 In Iraq and Afghanistan, in complex COIN campaigns, understanding the 
4

people required fluent language skills, robust knowledge of research methods, and field experience. Such 

skills, meaning that the team could influence BCT staff 

products in the provision of sociocultural research, required social science expertise identified as only available in the U.S. civilian reservoir. 

As the Afghanistan campaign drew down in 

early-2014, plans to transition the program to a postwar capability took shape. The HTS program was 

transitioned on September 30, 2014, into the residual 

organization at TRADOC called the Global Cultural 

Knowledge Network. The network is composed of a 

commissioned officer, three social scientists, a geospatial specialist, and a knowledge manager.8

 Quoted 

in The New York Times in 2015, an intelligence officer 

at the command noted that the remaining organization was a “nucleus” capable of rapid expansion if required, but that TRADOC lacked the administrative 

and support infrastructure to embed social scientists 

in the future.9 Thus the fall of 2014 brought to a close 

one of the most ambitious and compelling social science experiments conducted by the U.S. military, and 

its character and content deserves investigation. 

In this book, I examine this fusion of civilian expertise and military operations in the HTS. I investigate 

the HTS, initially from a review of secondary sources 

and then from interviews, Freedom of Information Act 

request material, and program documents, in order to 

understand the contribution of social science research 

to brigades in Iraq and Afghanistan. I answer the broad 

question: Why did the U.S. Army embed social scientists in Iraq and Afghanistan? The initial hypothesis 

is that HTS was created in response to, and facilitated 

by, a technological crisis in the U.S. Department of 

Defense (DoD). This hypothesis, in part, supports the 
5

view which sees the program as part of the COIN turn 

which stressed understanding culture as a necessary 

element of overall victory in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 

that definition, overall victory would be defined as 

popular endorsement of government efforts and loss 

of support for the insurgent elements. But I argue also 

that it was the impoverished understanding of the societal network behind the IEDs which facilitated the 

introduction of the program. Existing notions of the 

program as a creation of the COIN turn in military 

thinking curtails an important understanding of the 

way in which technological crises bring forth myriad 

urgent solutions in a febrile atmosphere in the U.S. 

military enterprise. 

The hypothesis is tested in three steps. First, I examine the technological crisis which befell U.S. forces 

in Iraq and Afghanistan as attempts were made to mitigate the effects of the IED and the creation of the HTS 

from that perfect storm. Second, I examine the evolution of the program as it consolidated feedback from 

embedded and returning social scientists, affording 

insight into the character of the program. Third, and 

forming the core of the analysis, I assess experiences 

of former program social scientists that embedded 

with military units in Iraq or Afghanistan, principally 

through interviews. Interviewing social scientists who 

have deployed on HTTs in Iraq or Afghanistan across 

a significant time period lends substantial understanding of why social scientists were embedded in combat 

brigades. As former HTT social scientist Marcus Griffin has noted, a combat brigade “is nothing more than 

an information-consuming machine” and thus having 

“a social scientist on their staff helps them make sense 

of all the information coming at them.”10 I therefore investigate the information required by the brigade and 
6

the ability of the social scientists to deliver products 

based on that requirement, thus I contribute to the 

emerging corpus of scholarship detailing the program 

and the experiences of social scientists in HTTs.11 A 

limitation of the work is that it does not interview 

whole teams, which would provide valuable feedback of social scientist research. It was team leaders, 

for example, that were the military bridge between 

the team and the brigade staff and would have added 

insight into the operational relevance of the research 

conducted. 

Embedding civilians to practice academic skill sets 

in order to influence military thinking, planning, and 

action in combat zones led to disproportionate scrutiny of the program. The historically brittle synthesis 

between academia and the military ensured that the 

HTS captured and maintained media interest. The 

program was at once a compelling and divisive endeavor, and it crystallized sustained opposition from a 

number of anthropologists within the academy whose 

primary fear was the appropriation of their principled 

expertise for military purposes. In their reading, information gathered on the population could be used by 

the brigade to target insurgent networks with lethal 

effect, placing the population in harm as a result of 

the embedded team activities. This was an anathema 

to the academic anthropologists. It was also a debate 

conducted from irreconcilable platforms. As the first 

HTS program manager notes, “The standard they 

gave HTS to meet was to show that nothing produced 

by HTS could ever be used by anyone to target individuals. Most major works of anthropology in the 

past and present cannot meet that standard.”12 Examining the program is therefore a further opportunity 

to investigate the sociocultural dimension of military 

operations through the lens of ethics. 
7

Despite its relatively small size in the U.S. Department of the Army in terms of both personnel and 

budget, the importance of the HTS as a subject of 

study is marked. As a 2008 West Point study on the 

program notes: 

It is important to revisit this study in the changing military context as the Army continues to learn how best 

to conduct operations that will not only help secure 

the country, but also help shape the conditions that 

will promote state capacity and legitimacy.13

At a more abstract level, the book informs debate 

concerning the investigation, distillation, and retention of scholarship in its myriad forms beyond the university, speaking to the way in which military agents 

seek to extract, collate, and apply academic methods 

of inquiry and accumulate knowledge. It is the author’s intention that the analysis resonate beyond the 

permeable boundaries of the academy; social science 

is the study of social structure to inform society, a 

point which can often be obfuscated in the rush for 

scholarly profundity. 

Operational Planning.

Conflicting and superficial accounts from both 

media and scholars have complicated attempts to understand the character of the HTS. The problem has 

been exacerbated by the story of the program being 

so compelling to the extent that, paraphrasing Mark 

Twain, truth has never stood in the way of telling it. 

As an American Anthropological Association assessment indicates of the program’s early years, existing 

journalistic accounts 
provide multiple and often contrasting points of view 

on what HTS is basically about, how it works, and its 

implications for anthropology and for the new counter-insurgency doctrine.14

The program, as noted by a professor of ethics and 

a professor of anthropology in an edited volume on 

the program, was “hardly immune from a variety of 

legitimate and justifiable concerns,” but they further 

argue that the HTS was placed by anthropologists 

within a historical narrative of anthropology’s fraught 

engagement with the military, “pre-empting any impartial assessment of its legitimacy or effectiveness.”15

In order to proceed from this uncertain platform, 

I first consolidate and examine existing literature on 

the program in a review chapter. In the second chapter, I assess the dimensions of the military’s engagement with anthropology, for which the HTS served as 

a specific site for sustained debate. The third chapter 

examines the sense of crisis in military operations in 

Iraq which allowed the controversial program to cohere and evolve. The fourth chapter assesses elements 

within the training cycle of relevance to understanding the role of the social scientist in Iraq and Afghanistan. The fifth chapter investigates the experiences of 

social scientists when embedded, and the sixth chapter follows on from these experiences, observing limitations in social science research in contested spaces. 

In conclusion, I highlight the limiting factors of social 

science research in such insecure environments as Iraq 

and Afghanistan, and suggest possibilities for future 

applications of the program. 

This analysis requires a broad framework for conceptualizing the levels of violence in Iraq and Afghanistan where the social science research took place. I 

8
9

follow the approach of political scientist Stathis N. 

Kalyvas in modelling areas of violence in intrastate 

wars. Usefully, Kalyvas has shown the complexity of 

the situation on the ground, which harbors deep, often fluid mixtures of identities and actions: 

Civil wars are not binary conflicts, but complex and 

ambiguous processes that foster the ‘joint’ action of local and supralocal actors, civilians, and armies, whose 

alliance results in violence that aggregates, yet still reflects, their diverse goals.16

Instructive in the need for detailed research at the 

very granular level, war generates “new local cleavages because power shifts at the local level upset 

delicate arrangements.”17 In theory, then, the unique 

social situation encountered by each brigade in their 

Area of Responsibility, and its inevitable change over 

time, meant that there was a requirement for a permanent element on staff, assessing this sociocultural 

element of the terrain. 

Beneath that nuanced conceptualization of intrastate conflict, where “behavior, beliefs, preferences, 

and even identities” can be altered, Kalyvas models 

the intensity of structured violence between actors.18

Irregular war fought between the incumbent and insurgent is split into five zones, where the first and fifth 

zones are conceptualized as total sovereign and insurgent control, respectively, but hegemonic, though 

incomplete control in Zone 2 and Zone 4 leads to 

high levels of selective, discriminate violence against 

adversaries.19 The third zone, depicted as where opposed forces are present in similar arrangements, contains less selective violence.

Beyond those areas where actors exercise complete 

or equal control, there are contested spaces charac-
10

terized by selective violence. It is in these contested 

spaces where insecurity is relatively high, and military forces are specifically and systematically targeted. In reference to Iraq and Afghanistan, it is in those 

contested spaces where there is the least security for 

coalition forces and insurgents exercise hegemonic 

control, the physical danger and methodological difficulties inherent in social science research modes are 

the greatest. At the time of this writing, a proposal for 

a 12-person proof-of-concept HTT in the U.S. Pacific 

Command (PACOM) was awaiting authorization by 

the U.S. Congress (see Appendix B).20 Program management of the HTS visited PACOM in late-2008 to 

explore possibilities for the combatant command, 

with the theoretical recommendation for an 11-person 

team.21 Based on the Kalyvas model, this team would 

probably conduct research in areas of complete or 

hegemonic control by incumbents where insurgent 

violence is negligible. Therefore, ascertaining why the 

HTS should evolve into this social science asset conducting research in less contested, more secure spaces 

is a contribution of this book. 

Methods.

From its physical origins within the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO) 

landscape, the HTS evolved into a U.S. Army program 

which, by Fiscal Year 2012, commanded a budget of 

U.S.$135 million; a more than six-fold increase on its 

original U.S.$20.4 million funding in 2006.22 The program expanded despite journalistic and academic 

criticism, congressional inquiry, and a budget freeze, 

demonstrating merit in the Army’s use of nonorganic 

additions to augment social science research in its 

ranks. Previous academic assessments of the program, 
11

however, have suffered because the program has been 

entrenched in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

Despite the plausibility of considerable engagement 

with the program and possible release of unclassified documents, there nevertheless has been a paucity 

of information regarding the program. The last HTT 

departed Iraq in 2011, and in 2014, the last teams departed Afghanistan. As a consequence, there are now 

many HTT social scientists departing the program 

such that there is a reasonable expectation of balanced 

assessments of team-level experiences and insights 

gleaned from interviews. 

This research process is inductive, a method that 

has been used in previous examination of the program.23 I generate research which lends itself to observations and findings in order to make comment on 

existing theory. Deconstructing the research question 

into sequential steps creates a clear framework for 

progression. Within the research, interviews are semistructured such that, in accordance with existing social 

science guidelines, “topics are pre-specified and listed 

on an interview protocol, but they can be reworded 

as needed and are covered by the interviewer in any 

sequence or order.”24 Interviews have been chosen as 

a technique because they provide in-depth information and high interpretive validity. Moreover, interviews historically have a high response rate and can 

be used both for exploratory aspects of the thesis and 

confirmatory aspects. Interview questions have been 

formulated using rules for designing interview questions drawn from prevailing social research frameworks methods.25

To develop a holistic assessment of the program, 

I move beyond previous examinations that focused 

exclusively on current or former members of the pro-
12

gram. I interview a spectrum of stakeholders, draw 

from a pool including academia—principally the 

chair of the American Anthropological Association’s 

commission investigating the program—a moderating voice on the commission—professional military 

anthropologists, and, serving staff within TRADOC 

Intelligence Staff G-2. In addition, to gain insight from 

the perspective of the contractor, I interview the HTS 

program director for the BAE Systems contract, 2008-

09, and use contracting material not previously in the 

public domain to augment the study. These interviews 

are valuable in placing the program within the larger 

trajectory of the U.S. Army’s engagement with the social sciences for the purposes of informing operational 

planning. This is important because the program represents a rare opportunity for the academic community to investigate why this social science expertise 

became integrated into tactical planning. 

Parameters of the Study.

This book is a narrow analysis insofar as it is an 

assessment of why the U.S. Army came to use social 

scientists on the front line of conflict. This precise 

investigation removes from the investigation larger 

issues such as the differing approaches to cultural 

warfighting developed by the U.S. Army and the U.S. 

Marine Corps (USMC). The USMC, for example, due 

to its original expeditionary nature, has had protracted experience fighting small wars in the past; hence 

the publishing of the Small Wars Manual and development of the Combined Action Program in Vietnam, although that small wars mentality appears elided in its 

current trajectory toward a heavy amphibious force. 

In contrast to the Army, however, the USMC incorpo-
13

rated culture and language into its operations by establishing the Center for Advanced Operational Culture Learning, a culture and language training center. 

The HTS was funded by the DoD and the Army, but 

support to the USMC, however, was a requirement 

of the program. The HTS was directed to support all 

BCTs and USMC regional command teams (RTCs) 

in theater. 

Sample and Research Pool.

There are more than 20 interviews with people 

who have worked on or with the HTS or critiqued it in 

a professional capacity. These interviews range from 

approximately 30 to 120 minutes in length and include 

social scientists that have been embedded in Iraq or 

Afghanistan, or in both countries. To develop a broad 

cross-sectional representation of the program, I interviewed the first Program Manager, the first Director 

of the Social Science Directorate, and the subsequent 

Acting Director of the Social Science Directorate, social scientists that embedded in Iraq between 2008 and 

2009 and in Afghanistan between 2008 and 2012. I interviewed other members of the HTS management, including members of the Program Development Team, 

Operational Planning Team, and Training Directorate. The majority of interviews were conducted in 

Virginia, Rhode Island, Maryland, and Washington, 

DC, in 2013. I have at least one interview with former 

members from all levels of field HTS teams, HTTs, 

Human Terrain Analysis Teams, and Theater Coordination Elements (TCEs). Social scientists that were 

interviewed have embedded with a range of military 

units; U.S. Army Combat Brigades, USMC Regimental 

Brigades, British, Polish, and Danish units, and other 

smaller units such as those comprised of U.S. Special 
14

Operations Forces, and in both Iraq and Afghanistan, 

that supported a range of activities, including but not 

limited to Village Stability Operations in Afghanistan. 

In order to gain a holistic analysis of the range of 

social sciences represented in the field, and not limit 

the analysis to those trained anthropologists, I interviewed former HTT social scientists who have undergraduate or postgraduate degrees in political science, 

geography, theology, archaeology, international relations, war studies, and anthropology. This crosssection of intellectual origins is an important methodological element: Limiting the study to one area of the 

social science spectrum would present skewed qualitative data. Participation is marked in all instances by 

in-depth, semi-structured, qualitative interviews by 

telephone or in person, and thematic coding is used 

for interview transcript analysis. One characteristic of 

the cross-sectional interview design is that it is applicable when there is interest in capturing a snapshot of 

thematic interests for the given population for which 

data is being collated. At the same time, data can be 

collated on individual characteristics, to enhance 

analysis. Therefore, it is useful for deductive research 

methodologies of the type adopted for this analysis. 

I consider that the former program personnel interviewed were afforded enough temporal and professional distance to evaluate critically the spectrum 

of their experiences, from recruitment, training, and 

pre-deployment, to embedded research and expertise 

retention after their return to the United States. All 

former HTT social scientists interviewed offer enough 

criticism to suggest sufficient detachment from the 

program to lend the necessary objectivity for validity 

in their observations. Moreover, when analyzed as a 

corpus, the close thematic correlation of their experiences strongly suggests legitimacy. 
15

It is the interviews with social scientists that have 

departed the program that form the core of this thesis. Unencumbered by any residue of responsibility and having been embedded for at least 9 months, 

these men and women are eloquent, articulate, and 

thoughtful about the nature of their experiences in 

Iraq and Afghanistan. Echoing Paul Joseph of Tufts 

University, in his 2014 study that included interviews 

from teams in Afghanistan, it is best practice to let 

the social scientists’ experiences remain whole in the 

text wherever possible.26 Moreover, their competencies show that many of them earned distinguished 

records of service, meaning that they are best placed 

to answer why they were embedded in combat brigades. Interviewing social scientists that embedded 

across different time periods affords the opportunity 

to draw out common themes experienced by embedded team members, across different periods of time, 

and in cases where experiences may be idiosyncratic 

to countries, regions, or even towns of cities. Conflict 

is, after all, about change over time, about the drawing 

and redrawing of boundaries, both geographical and 

human, and about growth and decay. 

To prevent missed differences or similarities between female and male perspectives, of the nine former 

HTS social scientists interviewed, three are female, a 

statistically significant 33 percent of the sample. Interviewing both genders allows examination of any 

differences or similarities between the sexes regarding recruitment, training, integration into the military 

unit, and interaction with the host population and relationships with indigenous translators. Particularly 

in Afghan society, female social scientists would have 

greater access to women in the country, and thus the 

experiences of these social scientists is important in 
16

any attempt to understand the role, if any, of gender 

in attempts by military units to interact and understand local populations. 

Assistance and engagement from TRADOC G-2 

differentiates this book from other recent volumes 

of note. Any holistic study of the HTS requires input 

from the parent organization of the program. Previous studies’ difficulty in engagement is a consequence 

of the politicization of the program, criticism from 

the academic community, and media portrayals. The 

effect, as Christopher Lamb et al. note, is that: 

Requests for assistance with external studies of HTS 

are routinely turned down. TRADOC also avoids publicity and help from interested outside parties. It provided minimal cooperation for the CNA [Center for 

Naval Analyses, 2010] report, and none at all for this 

and other studies it did not commission.27

Engagement from the TRADOC Intelligence Staff 

is therefore important, but there are limitations. The 

G-2 now differs in personnel from the staff that existed in the early years of the HTS, and the emphasis 

is on institutional training as opposed to support of 

field units. 

To strengthen the research design, I introduce a 

control group into the study of the HTS, a technique 

which has been utilized before to important effect: 

Cindy Jebb et al. conducted interviews with combat 

commanders in Iraq that did not have HTTs in their 

units in order to include a control group in their investigation of HTT effectiveness.28 To differentiate from 

that control group, I interview at least one individual 

that has worked with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the U.S. Department of 

State, familiar with HTT products, to ask why these 
17

civilian entities did not create their own embedded 

teams. Thus, in asking why the U.S. Army chose to 

embed civilian social scientists in combat brigades, I 

also ask explicitly why USAID and the U.S. Department of State did not choose to embed social scientists, 

despite the professional gap between USAID and the 

U.S. Department of State, and that of civilian social 

scientists being less pronounced and thus easier to 

navigate than the military and the social scientists. 

This book does not examine the views of commanders of units in which teams embedded. Myriad 

studies in the public domain have been conducted 

that include interviews with commanders, for example, Jebb et al. and Lamb et al. Moreover, it has been 

argued persuasively that commanders are less critical 

of HTT performance than are team members.29 Ultimately, it is enough to say that many commanders interviewed assessed the embedded teams as being useful.30 Sample sizes for commanders have varied (nine 

for instance, in the case of the Lamb et al., a study that 

also included 19 commanders from the Institute for 

Defense Analyses study, by far the largest group), and 

this book would not improve on these sample sizes 

nor enjoy similar levels of access to high-level military 

commanders. Moreover, because the program was 

supported by officials such as Secretary of Defense 

Robert Gates and General David Petraeus, there is inevitably a political dimension to consider in responses 

from senior commanders, which would color any 

utilization of their responses. 

Finally, the character of this book is shaped with 

specific intent to generate a work which scholars can 

utilize as a platform for future avenues of study. The 

longitudinal and latitudinal dimensions of HTS extend far beyond the program itself, meriting myriad 

opportunities for deep, objective examination. It is 
18

probable that, in the immediate future, a social science 

capability will be produced as a long-range planning 

asset of the U.S. Army, informing the strategic direction of planning by identifying at-risk societies where 

insurgencies may develop. From that mission, I envisage that small teams of expert social scientists will 

conduct research in regions of burgeoning interest to 

the U.S. Army for 12 to 24 months before returning to 

staff to write detailed products of utility to the combatant commands. This analysis, in part, then answers 

why that transformation may occur. 

ENDNOTES - INTRODUCTION

1. For recent identification of this requirement, see Raymond Odierno, James F. Amos, and William H. McRaven, Strategic Landpower: Winning the Clash of Wills, Fort Leavenworth, KS: 

U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), 2013.

2. Nathan Finney, The Human Terrain Team Handbook, Fort 

Leavenworth, KS: TRADOC, 2008, p. 35.

3. Jacob Kipp et al., “The Human Terrain System: A CORDS 

for the 21st Century,” Military Review, Vol. 85, No. 5, 2006, 

pp. 8-15. 

4. Montgomery McFate and Janice H. Laurence, “Introduction: Unveiling the Human Terrain System,” in Montgomery 

McFate and Janice H. Laurence, eds., Social Science Goes to War: 

The Human Terrain System in Iraq and Afghanistan, London, UK: 

Hurst, p. 11. 

5. See, for example, Sharon Behn, “US Watchdog Slams 

Afghanistan Aid Waste,” Voice of America, August 12, 2013.

6. The Human Terrain System program management visited U.S. Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command multiple times to try and build a partnership, without 

success. Steve Fondacaro, personal communication with author, 

September 15, 2015. 
19

7. Jonathan D. Thompson, “Human Terrain Team Operations 

in East Baghdad,” Military Review, Vol. 90, No. 4, 2010, p. 77.

8. Justin Doubleday, “Controversial Army Social-Science Program Morphs Into ‘Reach-Back’ Office,” Inside the Army, Vol. 27, 

No. 27, 2015. 

9. Vanessa Gezari, “The Quiet Demise of the Army’s Plan to 

Understand Afghanistan and Iraq,” The New York Times, August 

18, 2015, available from www.nytimes.com/2015/08/18/magazine/

the-quiet-demise-of-the-armys-plan-to-understand-afghanistan-andiraq.html?_r=0, accessed September 10, 2015. 

10. Marcus Griffin, quoted in Nathan Swire, “McFate Explains 

Human Terrain Teams,” The Dartmouth, September 26, 2008.

11. Christopher J. Lamb et al., Human Terrain Teams: An Organizational Innovation for Sociocultural Knowledge in Irregular 

Warfare, Washington, DC: Institute of World Politics Press, 2013; 

Nicholas Krohley, The Death of the Mehdi Army: The Rise, Fall and 

Revival of Iraq’s Most Powerful Militia, London, UK: Hurst, 2015; 

Paul Joseph, “Soft” Counterinsurgency: Human Terrain Teams and 

US Military Strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan, New York: Palgrave 

Pivot, 2014; Montgomery McFate and Janice H. Laurence, eds., 

Social Science Goes to War: The Human Terrain System in Iraq and 

Afghanistan, London, UK: Hurst, 2015.

12. Steve Fondacaro, personal communication with author, 

September 15, 2015. 

13. Cindy R. Jebb, Laurel J. Hummel, and Tania M. Chacho, 

Human Terrain Team Trip Report: A “Team of Teams,” West Point, 

NY: Unpublished report for TRADOC, 2008, p. 8. Copy held 

by author.

14. Commission on the Engagement of Anthropology with 

the U.S. Security and Intelligence Communities, Final Report on 

the Army’s Human Terrain System Proof of Concept Program, Arlington, VA: American Anthropological Association, October 14, 

2009, p. 11.
20

15. Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban and George R. Lucas Jr., “Assessing the Human Terrain Teams: No White Hats or Black Hats, 

Please,” in Montgomery McFate and Janice H. Laurence, eds., 

Social Science Goes to War: The Human Terrain System in Iraq and 

Afghanistan, London, UK: Hurst, p. 241. 

16. Stathis N. Kalyvas, “The Ontology of ‘Political Violence’: 

Action and Identity in Civil Wars,” Perspectives on Politics, Vol. 1, 

No. 3, 2003, p. 475.

17. Ibid., p. 480.

18. Stathis N. Kalyvas, “Promises and Pitfalls of an Emerging 

Research Program: The Microdynamics of Civil War,” in Stathis 

N. Kalyvas, Ian Shapiro, and Tarek Masoud, eds., Order, Conflict, and Violence, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 

2008, p. 403.

19. Ibid., p. 407.

20. I am indebted to Michael Davies for highlighting this 

redirection. 

21. Steve Fondacaro, personal communication with author, 

September 15, 2015. 

22. Montgomery McFate and Steve Fondacaro, “Reflections 

on the Human Terrain System during the First 4 Years,” PRISM, 

Vol. 2, No. 4, 2011, p. 63.

23. For example, Julia Page, “Human Terrain Teams,” unpublished master’s thesis, Blacksburg, VA: Virginia Polytechnic and 

State University, February 3, 2012.

24. Abbas Tashakkori and Charles Teddlie, eds., Handbook of 

Mixed Methods in Social and Behavioral Research, Thousand Oaks, 

CA: Sage, 2003, p. 306.

25. Alan Bryman, Social Research Methods, Oxford, UK: Oxford 

University Press, 2004, pp. 152-156.
21

26. Joseph, p. 10.

27. Lamb et al., p. 80.

28. Jebb, Hummel, and Chacho, p. 2.

29. Lamb et al., p. 169.

30. Ibid.

23

CHAPTER 1

CAPABILITY GAP

There is enough variation in accounts of the Human Terrain System’s (HTS’s) origin that the precise 

character of the program’s early development may 

remain unresolved. Too many people, both protagonists and peripheral actors, relate the story differently for there to emerge a single unifying narrative. 

However, the program’s physical origins lay firmly 

in the counter-improvised explosive device (C-IED) 

enterprise conducted by the Department of Defense 

(DoD). Within this enterprise, technological efforts to 

mitigate the effect of improvised explosive devices 

proved largely futile. As part of an effort to examine the sociocultural fabric behind the IED’s human 

networks, a proof-of-concept program, the Cultural 

Preparation of the Environment, was created in April 

2005. The program’s testing phase focused on Diyala 

province, Iraq, and was aimed at developing taxonomies for sociocultural data gathered in the field. In 

practice, the program proved unworkable because the 

Iraqi researchers involved did not accurately portray 

their findings.1 The Joint IED Defeat Task Force-Iraq 

leader at that time also notes that the brigade commander was “already overwhelmed with a multitude 

of information input capabilities in his headquarters 

(HQ) from all levels of military intel in DoD” and that 

the staff “had no capability or time to sit with a laptop 

with yet another unique database with its own protocol and data fish.”2

 Specialist researchers embedded 

with combat brigades would be necessary to collect 

information and produce reports related to combatting the social network behind the IEDs. 
24

Nevertheless, there was significant knowledge 

borne from this attempt to extract and visualize sociocultural data from Iraq, and it should be properly 

considered the first fragile iteration of an HTS. This 

program also helped to create a network of individuals, most importantly, DoD cultural anthropologist, 

Dr. Montgomery McFate, and then-U.S. Army Colonel Steve Fondacaro, both of whom would become 

synonymous with HTS content and character as Director of the Social Science Directorate and Program 

Manager, respectively. Many other personnel within 

the HTS zeitgeist would also be borne from this network, such that the human capital of the HTS emerged 

definitively from the fight against the IED. The Cultural Preparation of the Environment (CPE) had been 

developed by a task force at DoD level led by Hirar 

Cabayan who engaged anthropologists Andrea Jackson and Montgomery McFate to assist. Andrea Jackson, at that time working for the Lincoln Group as a 

contractor, was with Fondacaro in Baghdad during 

the implementation of the CPE.3 Fondacaro had previously met both of them in 2005 during a conference in 

Tampa, Florida. 

At the CPE outbrief, the requirement for sociocultural knowledge expertise to influence Courses of Action for brigade combat teams (BCTs) was highlighted. 

As Fondacaro explains, that briefing from Baghdad 

was given to General Montgomery Miegs, commander of JIEDDO and Maxie McFarland in 2005. McFarland took the findings to TRADOC after departing a 

short-term position in the Joint IED defeat enterprise 

and tasked the Foreign Military Studies Office (FMSO) 

with finding a possible solution, based on Fondacaro’s 

recommendation that experts be deployed to theater.4

The FMSO was a small staff, and the capability of 
25

deployed experts was one topic of study; the staff had 

sat in on the weekly video conferences which CPE had 

held while it was active and so were versed on the 

possible requirement for team structure. 

The FMSO staff members were researchers rather than field personnel, although already known to 

Fondacaro: Jacob Kipp, Director of FMSO, was with 

him at the School of Advanced Military Studies; Karl 

Prinslow had been at West Point with him; and Lester Grau, a Central Asia expert, had taught him at the 

U.S. Command and General Staff College.5 Already 

briefed on the requirement for field personnel, FMSO 

had written an article for Military Review which made 

analogous the requirement in Iraq to that in Vietnam. 

As Fondacaro explains, the FMSO article, published 

before he returned from Iraq, “compared HTS to the 

CORDS [Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support] program late in the Vietnam conflict” and the HTS later: 

spent years trying to overcome, unsuccessfully, the 

impression created by this article that HTS was designed to support kinetic targeting like the Phoenix 

Program. The comparison, while interesting from a 

compare and contrast approach, was inaccurate in that 

we were not a 21st Century CORDS by any stretch. 

Everyone is entitled to his opinion, but, as the Director 

of FMSO, everyone reading this accepted this as the 

HTS mission statement.6

When Fondacaro returned from Iraq, only Don 

Smith, a military reserve officer, was working on the 

HTS concept. Smith was serving his annual active 

duty tour with FMSO at the time.7

The model for the program moved forward in 

tandem with an Army Operational Needs Statement 
26

(ONS) for cultural knowledge from the 10th Mountain Division in late-2005.8

 The ONS was not urgent, 

however, and there was no requirement for the Army 

to act on it. The FMSO, however, lacked funds to 

embed a team in a combat theater, and the HTS was 

still an idea held loosely at FMSO. When the Joint 

Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization—

the joint C-IED organization in DoD—authorized the 

HTS concept on June 12, 2006, and provided U.S.$20.4 

million, McFarland, a retired Army officer who was 

then Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, G-2, at 

TRADOC, appointed Fondacaro head of a Cultural 

Operations Research–Human Terrain System (CORHTS) steering committee and program manager.9

Fondacaro, who had been assigned to the HTS project 

in May, had made the earlier funding request brief to 

Dr. Robin Keesee, Deputy Director, JIEDDO, earlier 

in the month, and half of the amount was received in 

August.10 This fund was built on a U.S.$1.12 million 

loan that Don Smith had secured from the Counter 

Terrorist Advisory Group on the DoD staff.11

In 2004, Fondacaro had been a TRADOC assigned 

officer assigned to TRADOC HQ staff and then selected to lead the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Task Force-Iraq (JIEDDTF-Iraq) in early-2005 until April 2006 when the mandatory 30-year retirement 

commenced, but he had already been approached 

by McFarland during that period to return to TRADOC to initiate the HTS capability outlined as part 

of the CPE.12 The HTS was to remain part of FMSO 

until April 2007, when the rapid expansion of the program meant that the FMSO research capability was no 

longer appropriate to house an operational training 

program.13 The FMSO had emphasized testing and 

collating results carefully over a period of years.14

The request and approval for JIEDDO in the initial 
27

funding request was for a 2-year proof of concept, 

consisting of five teams, of which two would be in 

Afghanistan and three in Iraq. As Fondacaro notes: 

We needed this 2-year period to study and discover 

how to recruit, train, integrate and deploy a team like 

this. Nothing like it had been ever done before. We 

had no development and training model to borrow 

from. So we needed the time and experience to discover how to do it right.15

The FMSO had wanted the teams to collect longterm research which could be used to populate their 

open-source database, the World Basic Information 

Library.16 Fondacaro, however, wanted teams to support units in Iraq and Afghanistan directly, using their 

accrued research to influence brigade planning.17 This 

changed leadership thus transitioned the mission of 

teams and thus altered the character of the embedded 

researchers. As Fondacaro explains it, FMSO saw the 

capability as a team that would occasionally deploy 

and conduct research, but that level of superficial engagement would “only be one more distraction interfering with tactical operations in the same way many 

other programs were already confusing the BCT’s 

battlespace.”18 Funding for a World Basic Information 

Library project was unlikely to have gained traction 

from JIEDDO; as such, the program as it evolved was 

to support BCT staff directly. 

As the program concept was created as the result 

of JIEDDO funding, the components became divided 

into two: the deployed teams and the continental U.S.-

based components that supported them with administration, support, training, and an information reservoir 

of the operating environments designated reach-back 

analysis. These deployed teams that embedded with 

military units were the program’s signature appara-
28

tus, integrating the expertise of civilian social scientists 

into BCTs in order to “research, interpret, archive, and 

provide cultural data, information, and knowledge to 

optimize operational effectiveness by harmonizing 

courses of action within the cultural context of the environment,” going beyond the CPE tool in providing 

the requisite additional human dimension to military 

evaluation of the sociocultural layer of the terrain.19

While these Human Terrain Teams (HTTs) would be 

varied in precise composition, in the ideal format, the 

initial model planned for five roles; team leader, cultural analyst, regional studies expert, research manager, and human terrain analyst.20 The cultural analyst 

was to be an anthropologist or sociologist fluent in the 

local language; the regional studies expert would possess similar skills without specific disciplinary social 

sciences background; both were to hold a master’s degree or above.21 The other three team members were to 

be former or military reservists.

Gaining such a totality of social science skill sets 

proved difficult, hampered principally by the esoteric 

sociocultural aspects of Iraq and Afghanistan. Bluntly, 

the military sought area experts with granular knowledge of regions within Iraq and Afghanistan, and 

methods experts who were not simply theorists but 

possessed abundant field experience, in order to provide practical, operational value to BCT operations. 

Even considering the entire academic pool available 

at that time, personnel with these skill and knowledge 

sets (coupled with the physical demands of the environment) were in extremely short supply. This muddies the view of contractor failings in recruitment; the 

requisite skills did not reside in the academy, and, 

as a consequence, there was inevitably a shortage of 

specific expertise combined with practical experience 

that the Department of the Army sought through the 
29

HTS. In actuality, the HTS embedded teams actually 

created the skill sets and practical experience that the 

program sought in the first place and was the basis 

for the request to JIEDDO to field five teams on a 

2-year trial basis. The only blueprint for team composition was Project Jedburgh in the Office of Strategic Services in World War II and shows the extent to 

which the HTS management was conducting a novel 

experiment.22

In addition to the academic knowledge deficit, 

funding constraints had limited the initial roll-out to 

the single team, AF1, embedded in February 2007, in 

Khost province, Afghanistan. While AF1 was in Afghanistan, the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) 

requested five teams be sent to Baghdad by August 

2007 as part of the surge of troops to quell the escalating insurgency, and requested subsequent team 

placement with every brigade and division in Iraq and 

Afghanistan, for a total of 26 teams.23 The pair of phases must be considered in separation; the request for 

JIEDDO to field five teams over 2 years and a second 

phase which asked for rapid deployment of five teams 

to Iraq in a short time frame. The personnel with the 

requisite skill and knowledge sets for an expansion to 

26 teams did not exist in the U.S. military. At this time 

also, integrating into the intellectual military zeitgeist, 

the HTS evolved away from the C-IED enterprise. The 

program became identified as a tool for populationcentered counterinsurgency (COIN) operations that 

attempted to combat the adversary not through overwhelming application of force, but by disenfranchising the insurgent from its support in and among the 

population. 

The first team, AF1 in Khost, received praise from 

its brigade staff. Commander of the 4th BCT, 82nd 
30

Airborne Division Colonel Martin Schweitzer’s initial 

positive assessment of AF1 in October 2007 (quoted 

by The New York Times) credited the team with reducing the need for kinetic activity by 60 percent in 

his brigade’s area of operations and led to the rapid 

expansion of the program.24 AF1’s more granular understanding of tribal dynamics had helped to diffuse 

complex feuds. As a consequence, Schweitzer argued, 

his soldiers had more scope for ‘improving security, 

health care and education for the population.’25 Social 

science expertise resident in AF1, particularly in the 

form of a West Point-trained officer, who also had 

master’s-level anthropology training, had catalyzed 

the development of a process to engage and win over 

the local communities.26

The military elements which ensured operational 

relevance and integration into the BCT were team 

leader Rick Swisher, Robert Holbert (a convert to Islam), and Roya Sharifsoltani, a female Army captain 

who was an Iranian and native Dari speaker. Additionally, in the summer of 2007, AF1’s team members 

conducted interviews with the population that had 

been valuable in planning Operation MAIWAND, 

a military offensive to remove the Taliban presence 

from the Andar district of Ghazni. Underlining Schweitzer’s assessment was a classified Combined Joint 

Task Force-82 Joint Urgent Operational Needs Statement (JUONS) in April 2007, which mirrored the 

earlier ONS, and which created a requirement for sociocultural awareness in Afghanistan, 2 months after 

AF1 had embedded. 

The JUONS is an official request by a combatant commander for an urgently required capability 

deemed necessary for combat or contingency operations and is employed where failure to field the capa-
31

bility could result in an inability to complete the mission or increase loss of life. The statement thus allows 

a critical capability to be fielded rapidly and is the 

central method for combat commanders to interdict 

the standard bureaucracy of acquisitions procedures. 

A CENTCOM JUONS consolidated that Afghanistan 

JUONS and a similar Multi-National Corps-Iraq JUONS from 2007, leading to a later request by DoD for 

26 teams across Iraq and Afghanistan. 

That proof-of-concept team, AF1, used reservists 

with the relevant language capabilities and knowledge of social science research methods feasible for 

a single team. But as noted, with the subsequent enlargement required by DoD, the requisite number of 

personnel with the required skills did not exist in the 

military enterprise.27 Originally, in 2005-06, FMSO 

thought it would be able to find 10 Ph.D.-level social 

scientists, five experienced regional experts on either 

Iraq or Afghanistan, and five social scientists with 

DoD to staff the first five proof-of-concept teams. 

However, as a United States House Armed Services 

Committee-directed assessment by the Center for 

Naval Analyses indicated, the: 

skills needed for HTTs do not appear to be resident in 

sufficient numbers in the DoD civilian workforce or in 

the military to staff the program. HTS therefore must 

hire from the general pool available to academia and 

business to source their personnel requirements.28

Inevitably, recruiting from the civilian sector as 

well-remunerated private contractors to embed in 

combat brigades failed to earn unequivocal and unilateral support in the Armed Services. The program 

came into existence because of an identified capability gap in the military component of government. No 
32

entity was performing the HTS function before the 

program was created. As a nonorganic addition, it 

thus highlighted the absence of sociocultural expertise resident in DoD. Despite the capability gap, Ben 

Connable, a retired Marine Intelligence Officer and 

head of the Marine Corps Cultural Intelligence Program from 2006-07, wrote in Military Review in 2009 of 

the problematic contours encountered in outsourcing 

cultural awareness to the civilian sector. Contextually, as Fondacaro explains, he visited the U.S. Marine Corps Center for Advanced Operational Culture 

Learning (CAOCL) in 2006, meeting with the Director, Jeffrey Bearor, and Major Connable of the Marine 

Corps Intelligence Activity (MCIA): there had already 

been important and far-reaching work produced on 

the importance of operational cultural knowledge at 

MCIA, particularly by Arthur Speyer and Connable, 

but the result of the meeting was that the idea of a 

partnerships which would have turned HTS into a 

joint program and led to a departure from TRADOC 

was rejected.29 Connable in the 2009 article questioned 

the necessity of embedding academics in Iraq and Afghanistan when military officers could be trained in 

the social sciences. To do so would not be without its 

problems, however. Culturally oriented intelligence 

assets already existed in the military structure, for instance, the Foreign Area Officers, but their positions 

required intensive 3-year training processes. As is 

seen by the powerful sense of crisis, immediate solutions were favored. Such immediate solutions, however, could be considered detrimental to the military; 

for example, Connable noted that the: 

practice of deploying academics to a combat zone may 

undermine the very relationships the military is trying 
33

to build, or more accurately rebuild, with a social science community that has generally been suspicious of 

the U.S. military since the Vietnam era.30

Positively, civilians embedded in the military offer 

the chance for effective collaboration. Fondacaro notes 

that embedding teams of former military and social 

scientists together in the combat zone may “actually 

work to achieve consensus” because of the “shared 

experience.”31 Iraq and Afghanistan did have high 

operational tempos which required significant and arduous integration into the decisionmaking cycle. But 

in longer-range research in regions of high incumbent 

control on the ground, military logistical reach and 

civilian expertise can expand to encompass remote 

regions and offer ultimately contributions both to the 

military and to scholarship. HTS is not simply a program for Iraq and Afghanistan, but a tool for all regions of strategic interest to the U.S. Army. Wedding 

academic knowledge and military practicality may 

produce new avenues of exploration for ethnography 

in the future particularly in regions less contested 

than those that teams were to experience in Iraq and 

Afghanistan. 

HUMAN TERRAIN SYSTEM AND 

COUNTERINSURGENCY

The concerns raised by Connable frame the core of 

this analysis. While there is a robust case to be made 

for social science expertise within a COIN framework, 

why did that expertise manifest as embedded academics rather than teaching and training of existing 

military personnel? The answer may be a complex 

one, intrinsic to the nature of the unfolding stabiliza-
34

tion and enabling operations. Writing in 2007, the former director of the British Defence Academy, Sir John 

Kiszely argued broadly that soldiers find it difficult 

to transition to engaging elements of the population 

having pejoratively framed them in battle sequences, 

therefore soldiers inevitably return to a default setting 

where they exercise hard power when they should be 

exercising soft power; as he calls it, “fighting small 

wars with big war methods.”32 These complexities are 

exacerbated by the absence of any overarching principles for conducting COIN, rather “all counterinsurgencies are sui generis—of their own kind—making 

problematic the transfer of lessons from one to another.”33 As such, there is a strong case for the application 

of expert culture-specific knowledge, both to counter 

prevalent problems associated with ethnocentrism, 

and also because Iraq and Afghanistan presented 

two different—sui generis—social science knowledge 

requirements.34

Understanding and influencing local civilians—

something considered necessary for a successful population-centered COIN campaign—required socially 

astute engagement. Writing in 2004, Lieutenant Colonel James S. Corum observed that a COIN campaign 

required human intelligence; an “inexact art” necessitating the development of taxonomies for amorphous 

sociocultural data, detailed and transparent methodologies, prolonged relationships with the population 

and detailed profiles of the insurgents; an “intelligence 

picture” inevitably built from “unreliable sources and 

partial data combined with the analyst’s intuition.”35

U.S. Army Field Manual (FM) 3-24, Counterinsurgency, 

published in December 2006, went further, stating that 

COIN is an “intelligence-driven endeavor” requiring understanding of the operational environment in 

which the population is a critical part.36
35

To understand all facets of a population, tactical 

units at the brigade level and below were required to 

conduct research in areas such as economics, anthropology, and governance that may be “outside” the 

expertise of existing intelligence personnel, such that 

“drawing on the knowledge of nonintelligence personnel and external subject matter experts with local 

and regional knowledge are critical to effective unit 

preparation.”37 Against the backdrop of this cultureinflected COIN doctrine, societal awareness to understand the population was of such import that the 

civilian social scientists and their expertise were considered an important addition to the military architecture. David Kilcullen, Australian COIN expert and 

special advisor to General David Petraeus, argued in 

2007 that “ethnographic knowledge” in populationcentered COIN operations was a critical component 

for success.38

COIN inverts the traditional modality of intelligence gathering, generating data from the bottom and 

filtering up through a unit. Societal analysis, production, and dissemination required expert distillation in 

order to provide a coherent data bridge between the 

tactical operations and brigade command. In addition to that structural difficulty, effective knowledge 

transfer between departing and relieving units during 

transition into and out of an area of operations was 

often lost, a disconnect amplified by a rapidly changing security environment and competition between 

brigades and armed service components. In effect, this 

meant that the incoming unit would have to commence 

baseline assessments based on relearning knowledge 

which had already been to some extent incorporated in 

the departing unit and lost in the transition.39 A bridge 

to ensure effective knowledge transfer between units 
36

was part of the remit of the HTS, and the reason many 

teams embedded during a tour, which was to ensure 

continuity between departing and incoming units. 

Why must this bridge be in the form of civilian academics, when the structure is a military one? In her 

nuanced evaluation of the program, Jennifer Greanias 

identifies McFate’s assertion that Ph.D.-level academics are not necessary for the program’s success, carrying it forward. From the contracting job information, if 

“4 years of appropriate experience that demonstrates 

that the applicant has acquired knowledge of one or 

more of the behavioral or social sciences equivalent 

to the field” is all that is needed to qualify as an HTT 

social scientist, Greanias asks what the value is in 

outsourcing the function of ethnographic research to 

the civilian sector and housing this mission outside 

of military or government channels.40 In answering, 

Greanias finds that the distance afforded civilian social scientists to the military structure, to operate and 

present information free from hierarchical obligation: 

may be overstated in light of the many advantages 

afforded by HTT members who have military experience and who thus understand military planning, language, and culture, an asset to military commanders.41

Finding a Home.

The COIN modality is prominent in the secondary 

sources. One former HTT member has argued that, in 

a COIN environment, it is “just as—if not more—important to know and understand the cultures of those 

noncombatants living in an area of operations, even if 

they are not an enemy.”42 The influential West Point 

study led by Colonel Cindy Jebb notes the myriad organizations that were “trying to leverage or capture 
37

nonlethal effects,” including the Iraqi Advisor Task 

Force, which had a mission to “capture environmental atmospherics” and embedded Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs), which attempted to provide 

a bridge to the local/central governance structure.43

That West Point study was directed by TRADOC 

as an external, objective inquiry of the program and 

begun in 2008, with West Point faculty and students 

traveling first to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and then 

to Iraq.44 Ultimately, the authors argued, these teams 

together “provide the commander with the necessary 

critical mass that allows him to adapt to the situation,” but that different organizations have “different 

organizational personalities, and bring different skill 

sets and focus to the operation.”45 Problematic was the 

character of HTS in that the teams, when operational, 

were under the control of the BCTs. The BCTs had 

little training on how to use the teams; as one former 

HTT social scientist notes: “Despite HTS products like 

the conveniently labeled ‘Commanders Handbook’ 

and the countless capability briefs our team delivered, 

HTTs were sometimes nevertheless viewed as external, unknown, and unproven entities.”46

Here is the first identified problem in the existing 

literature. There are myriad organizations in an area 

of operations providing societal investigation. The 

Iraqi Advisor Task Force leveraged domestic expertise led by former U.S. Special Operations Forces to 

investigate societal elements. The PRTs in Afghanistan from 2003, and later in Iraq, were composed of 

approximately 50 to 100 personnel led by a military 

officer and composed of personnel from Department 

of State, U.S. Agency for International Development 

(USAID), the Department of Agriculture, and the 

Department of Justice, as well as other agencies. In 
38

the British model, the government’s aid agency, the 

Department for International Development, attached 

personnel to leverage the PRT capabilities. According 

to one former HTT social scientist, however, the PRTs 

do not fall under the control of the BCT commander 

and “can lead to frustrations if the commander and 

embedded PRT leader have different priorities.”47

The Iraqi Advisor Task Force and PRTs were already assembled models for societal investigation and 

evaluation and were led by military officers. The Task 

Force, however, was not focused on enhanced understanding of the population in order to augment the 

knowledge of the brigade staff, and the PRTs did not 

fall under the BCT command. Still, the aperture for the 

HTS to show a unique capability was relatively small. 

From the existing literature, it was doctrine which 

promoted the requirement for nonorganic additions 

to address a critical capability gap. The 2006 Counterinsurgency FM foregrounded a need for sociocultural 

awareness in a COIN campaign. To paraphrase Voltaire, if HTS had not already existed, it would have 

been necessary to invent it. 

If the COIN push highlighted the immediate need 

for the HTS, why was the program to encounter such 

controversy? Sociocultural research of the type envisaged by the program management to plug a capability 

gap was going to be difficult. Embedding civilians to 

do the job for the military exacerbated the complexities of the task. For the research itself in conflict zones, 

there was going to be difficulty in establishing significant and enduring relationships with the population. 

But the promise of the capability explains to some 

extent the introduction of HTTs. This was a research 

capability which could provide deeper expert analysis than existing vehicles available to the brigade. 
39

Existing Civil Affairs capabilities, resident in the PRTs 

for example, were relatively superficial, focused on 

aid and reconstruction, rather than purposeful interaction based around a research methodology to 

achieve products useful for the commander at the 

granular level.

Audrey Roberts has written eloquently on social 

science application in COIN environments. Roberts 

was a human terrain analyst and social scientist with 

AF1 in eastern Afghanistan, and had benefitted from 

working with the country and stabilization operations 

expert Michael Bhatia. In Roberts’ subsequent role as 

the program’s outreach coordinator, she identified 

two specific knowledge and capability deficiencies 

which led to the creation of the HTS: first, an existing 

inability in the military to exploit cultural data; and 

second, the ability to conduct research or tap into the 

reservoir of academic expertise relevant to their environments on the ground.48

Examining the first assertion; the military could 

attempt to integrate exploitation of cultural data if it 

wanted to do so, but the military exists because of a 

requirement to apply force, such that there was probably little appetite for doing so. The second assertion 

requires more granular analysis; academic expertise 

on contemporary Iraq and Afghanistan existed, but 

areas changed so quickly that any nonresident expertise was quickly dated. Of these assertions, then, it is 

that ability to conduct research which was the core 

of the skills which HTTs could bring to the brigade. 

In addition, the HTT would be enhanced by the Research Reachback Centers (RRCs) and “a contracted 

Social Science Research and Analysis (SSRA) capability to conduct primarily quantitative research in areas 

where the teams could not travel.”49
40

Externally, a congressionally directed assessment 

of the program observed that the “HTT assists commanders in understanding the operational relevance, 

or the ‘so what?’ of sociocultural information as it 

applies to the military decisionmaking process.”50

Program efforts can be distilled as involving background research (including open-source and classified information), creating a research plan, conducting 

research, and analyzing and reporting findings.51 A 

paucity of language skills indigenous to teams meant 

that they travel with interpreters who are hired and 

vetted by other commands in the area of operations, 

and should not be considered “a component of HTS” 

despite being “vital for successful interactions with 

the local population.”52 In part, this drives again at the 

contracting issue, which for Fondacaro was “the key 

program failure” and “the source of the most heated 

arguments and controversy between TRADOC G-2 

and HTS.”53

Confirmation of the unique bridge which the HTS 

provided between the brigade and the population it 

was tasked with protecting came from the highest levels of government. While acknowledging the “attendant growing pains” of a program still in its infancy, 

U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates used an 

April 2008 speech delivered to the American Association of Universities to stress the value of the work done 

by embedded teams. Echoing the earlier identification 

of a deficiency in the research capabilities which existed in the two theaters, HTS filled a capability gap 

because the operations performed by military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan: 

have at times been undercut by a lack of knowledge 

of the culture and people they are dealing with every-
41

day [sic]—societies organized by networks of kin and 

tribe, where ancient codes of shame and honor often 

mean a good deal more than ‘hearts and minds.’54

According to Gates, who could draw on feedback 

from Colonel Schweitzer and other BCT commanders by this time, active HTTs resulted often in “less

violence across the board, with fewer hardships and 

casualties among civilians as a result.”55

View from the Ground.

According to the attendant literature, then, HTTs 

existed because civilian experts were required to fill 

a capability gap in military forces. That is the “why,” 

but “how” were social scientists filling that esoteric 

void? There are some clues in the literature, but they 

are largely skewed by being defenses or critiques of 

the program. Indubitably, once embedded, the onus 

was on the HTTs to prove their usefulness to the brigade commander. But, being useful to the brigade in 

practice meant a wide spectrum of possibilities for conducting research when the team embedded. Former 

team leader Peter W. Pierce and senior social scientist 

Robert M. Kerr were part of IZ3, a team embedded in 

Baghdad in 2008 as part of the surge of forces begun 

the previous year as part of the population-centered 

COIN transition. The pair saw that the problems in 

the city for coalition forces were:

cultural misunderstandings and failure to understand how the society functioned in this area had the 

potential to turn neutral (or even supportive) groups 

of people against the coalition and to the side of the 

insurgents.56
42

Pierce and Kerr argued that societal expertise could 

help facilitate the Iraqi surge tactic of moving troops 

out of larger bases into smaller forward operating 

bases, even into smaller combat outposts and smaller 

still joint security stations.57 Therefore, it was not just a 

knowledge gap the team could bridge, but a logistical 

problem which embedded teams could solve. 

The work of the HTTs outlined in these sources was 

so broad that any focused answer as to the work of the 

embedded teams is problematic. Pierce and Kerr give 

some clue as to the problem with secondary sources 

concerning the HTS. Many HTTs—in both Iraq and 

Afghanistan—operated in close concert with PRTs: to 

be effective, these teams required information on the 

local politics and culture which were best undertaken 

by the unique skill sets and function generated by 

teams.58 In addition, in Iraq, an embedded team could 

focus on propagating key leader engagements (KLEs) 

with district advisory councils and neighborhood area 

councils—pseudo-elected bodies created by the coalition forces to perform administrative duties at district 

and neighborhood levels, respectively, and which 

would occur on a weekly, sometimes daily basis—local government managers, and sheikh councils.59 The 

latter engagement was necessary because the tribal 

system in Iraq “remained robust and important, and 

Sheikh Councils dated back to the old Ba’ath Party 

Regime.”60 Kerr and Pierce conclude that 80 percent of 

their BCT’s civil engagement reports originated with 

HTT IZ3 and that in terms of their achievements, they 

assert a “strategic role in that success” by HTTs due to 

facilitating comprehension of the human terrain.61

Such an account hints at what British philosopher 

of metaphysics F. H. Bradley, in his investigation of abstract notions of reality in Hegelian scholarship, called 
43

the “unearthly ballet of bloodless categories.”62 There 

are such a broad number of roles the HTTs perform 

under the remit of providing sociocultural knowledge 

to the BCT that we are left none the wiser about what 

the HTTs actually provided that was of value, and 

what was prized by the commanders on the ground. 

These sociocultural provisions and their effects on the 

BCTs may be difficult to measure qualitatively, and 

quantitative examinations may never exist for the 

program. This goes to the heart of the relationship between the social sciences and the military enterprise in 

areas experiencing high levels of insurgent violence. 

Despite multiple investigations of the HTS by different entities, there is no definitive quantitative way to 

measure the effectiveness of social research on military operations.

Individual team experience of the type elucidated 

here by IZ3 was valuable in 2008. However, each team, 

and iteration of the team as it was backfilled by new 

personnel, was sui generis. As such, a singular problem 

is that the experience of an individual team is not necessarily relevant to any other team at any other time. 

Every moment for HTTs in every location was unique, 

requiring different skills, strategies and foci. This complicates examination of the secondary sources since 

there is a spectrum of analyses determined by the variety of unique settings. A social scientist in Afghanistan will have had an incomparable set of challenges 

to a social scientist in Iraq. 

Each team and each individual performed differently and had different experiences. For example, 

Zenia Helbig, a graduate student at the University of 

Virginia, joined the program in April 2007 but was 

eventually suspended on tendentious security breach 

allegations amid concerns regarding her professional-
44

ism. Helbig remained sure of the program’s worth and 

a supporter of what Fondacaro was trying to achieve. 

Initially a human cause célèbre for critics of the program, speaking at the annual American Anthropological Association conference, Helbig became outspoken 

of many of the critiques levelled at the program by the 

association, and she was effectively marginalized.63

Helbig’s greatest concerns had been at the management failing writ large, rather than the goals of the 

program. A different example is that of Marcus Griffin, 

Professor of Anthropology and Sociology at Christopher Newport University, Virginia, whose published 

writing on the program offered robust endorsements 

and catalogued success. Second, there were different challenges in different areas of operations. Third, 

teams were of different composition, hence suitable 

for different roles and, indeed, often fractured along 

the lines of best fit for tasks confronting the brigade. 

Further complicating the picture of the program 

are existing accounts of the evaluation of the function 

of the embedded teams by other social scientists. Marcus Griffin deconstructed the role of the Human Terrain team into five different but related elements. 

1. To provide descriptions and analyses of civil 

considerations (community profiles and studies); 

2. To maintain an understanding of local leadership, how they interact with each other; 

3. To provide assistance to projects to facilitate 

completion, efficiency, and social impact; 

4. To provide guidance to soldiers regarding how 

to collect human terrain information to improve their 

intelligence preparation of the battlefield and reporting efforts; and,

5. To respond to requests for information from 

elements within the brigade.64
45

This lack of focus and broad remit makes any granular knowledge of the work of HTT social scientists 

impossible without deeper examination through interviews and examination of actual team documents. 

The experience of social scientists is a significant aspect of the thesis, and a part of this book examines 

motivations of HTT personnel because of the paucity 

of scholarship on this sphere of the program.

Clarity and Planning.

Clarity is fundamental to actionable planning in 

complex conflict zones. Yet, in planning, clarity and 

detail clash. That dichotomy would necessarily manifest in the research conducted by the HTTs. The de 

facto requirement for the embedded team was at the 

tactical level: 

In many cases, despite the majority of the operational 

capability serving as assets on HTTs at the brigade 

level, teams operate predominately at even lower (i.e., 

battalion and company) levels due to the nature of the 

conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.65

Emphasizing the difficulty of making social science 

research relevant at the tactical level, Audrey Roberts 

emphasizes, “The planning process is incremental. Sociocultural reality is not.”66

Additional detail of an aspect of the population can 

generate a confusing picture about the entire population; making heterogeneous the homogeneous, added 

variables at the granular level muddy attempts to homogenize the human terrain; HTTs emphasize interactions, myriad variables, “grass root” engagement, 

whereas the military seek uniformity and coherence 

for comprehension and execution. The dichotomy is 
46

evident in Roberts’ evaluation of the bounded units 

being largely unrepresentative of the reality to the 

point that seeking such clarity of comprehension over 

detail jeopardizes lives. 

How, then, can culture, critical to understanding 

the society, be modeled? Culture as a complex, malleable identity matrix has broad precedent in existing 

literature. In 1945, cultural anthropologist Bronislaw 

Malinowski asserted that cultures are composed of 

interrelated patterns of organization, which is a dynamic tool for societal survival and, as such, subject to 

change over time as human needs change.67 Eminent 

international relations scholar Alexander Wendt has 

stressed the prominence of cultures in modeling the 

global political arena and argued that state identities 

are constantly subjected to structural changes generated by changing national interests.68

In her edited volume of case studies, Barbara Shaffer noted that cultural constraints are often bypassed 

when political crises dictated the necessity to change, 

or suffer deleterious impact.69 Similarly, military historian Patrick Porter, in his examination of several examples, observes that “no war culture is an island,” 

and that the symbols and practices of a culture are a 

reservoir from which to draw discriminately in order 

to adapt practices to achieve victory.70 In presenting 

his case, Porter also cites Indian economist and philosopher Armatya Sen, who argued that ideas of fixed 

cultures encoding human practise makes us slaves to 

an “illusory force.”71

In practice then, it is no surprise that in Iraq and 

Afghanistan, despite the emphasis in doctrine, this 

amorphous and indistinct notion of “culture” did not 

resonate with the spectrum of a field commander’s 

concerns:
47

Interestingly, ‘culture’ in the broad anthropological 

sense (for example, as defined in Army Culture and Foreign Language Strategy as ‘the set of distinctive features 

of a society or group and that drives action and behaviour’) has less salience than might have been anticipated. Despite the frequent use of the term in doctrine 

and by policymakers in Washington, D.C., ‘culture’ 

appears to be less relevant than social structure, political and economic systems, and the grievances of the 

population in the context of the conflicts in Iraq and 

Afghanistan.72

Thus there is a discrepancy not only between the 

tactical and policymaking levels, but more broadly 

between the military executioner and the political 

narrative. This observation carries weight because it 

is a product of lessons learned in the field conducting COIN operations in two different countries. At 

the tactical level in a COIN campaign, the collection 

of information saw no value in the assessment and 

evaluation of culture as a unit to integrate into planning considerations. The reality was in stark contrast 

to the theory and the practice of teams was to research 

those units—economy, agriculture, political—which 

were, to some extent, comprehensible. 

Arguably, therefore, the notion of cultures as units 

with intrinsic worth held greatest value in the evaluation of the relationship of the two cultures where these 

social science methods and conceptualizations were 

contained. The HTS was one of many forms of social 

science research in DoD, but it took civilians into combat units to conduct research among local populations 

using anthropological and sociological methods. In 

Chapter 2, therefore, I first examine the broad strokes 

of the historical relationship between the academy, social science research, and the U.S. military enterprise 
48

to provide context for a nuanced examination of the 

critiques from the professional anthropological community regarding the program, the ultimate purpose 

of which was to produce effective reactions within the 

population in the areas where BCTs operated. 

ENDNOTES - CHAPTER 1

1. Christopher J. Lamb et al., Human Terrain Teams: An Organizational Innovation for Sociocultural Knowledge in Irregular Warfare, 

Washington, DC: Institute of World Politics Press, 2013, p. 29.

2. Steve Fondacaro, personal communication with author, 

September 15, 2015. 

3. Ibid.

4. Steve Fondacaro, telephone interview with author, 

September 15, 2015. 

5. Ibid.

6. Steve Fondacaro, personal communication with author, 

September 15, 2015. 

7. Ibid. 

8. Lamb et al., p. 32.

9. Ibid., pp. 31-32.

10. Steve Fondacaro, personal communication with author, 

September 15, 2015. 

11. Ibid. 

12. Ibid. 

13. Steve Fondacaro, telephone interview with author, 

September 15, 2015. 
49

14. Lamb et al., pp. 32-33.

15. Steve Fondacaro, personal communication with author, 

September 15, 2015. 

16. Lamb et al., p. 33.

17. Ibid.

18. Steve Fondacaro, personal communication with author, 

September 15, 2015. 

19. Nathan Finney, The Human Terrain Team Handbook, Fort 

Leavenworth, KS: TRADOC, 2008, p. 35. 

20. Jacob Kipp et al., “The Human Terrain System: A CORDS 

for the 21st Century,” Military Review, Vol. 85, No. 5, 2006, p. 12.

21. Ibid., p. 13.

22. Steve Fondacaro, personal communication with author, 

September 15, 2015. 

23. Yvette Clinton et al., Congressionally Directed Assessment 

of the Human Terrain System, Arlington, VA: Center for Naval 

Analyses, 2010, p. 128.

24. David Rohde, “Army Enlists Anthropology in War 

Zones,” The New York Times, October 5, 2007.

25. Ibid.

26. Ibid.

27. See Vanessa Gezari, The Tender Soldier: A True Story of War 

and Sacrifice, New York: Simon and Schuster, 2013, p. 316. Gezari 

makes the point that it was difficult to find the academics. 

28. Clinton et al., p. 7.

29. Steve Fondacaro, telephone interview with author, September 15, 2015. The MCIA had been developing a concept for 
50

“cultural intelligence” independently, including through Ben 

Connable, Arthur Speyer, and the Hicks and Associates analyst, 

Job Henning. Henning possessed impeccable credentials, having 

worked on the broader development of cultural intelligence as 

part of a research program at the Office of Net Assessment at the 

Pentagon, propagating the idea in respect to U.S. involvement in 

Asia. The HTS management again asked for “formal partnership” 

with the USMC at a USMC Intelligence Community Conference 

in September 2009. 

30. Ben Connable, “All Our Eggs in a Broken Basket: How 

the Human Terrain System is Undermining Sustainable Military 

Cultural Competence,” Military Review, Vol. 89, No. 2, 2009, p. 58. 

31. Steve Fondacaro, telephone interview with author, 

September 15, 2015. 

32. John Kiszely, “Learning about Counterinsurgency,” 

Military Review, Vol. 87, No. 2, 2007, p. 9.

33. Ibid.

34. Following Lamb et al., I define sociocultural knowledge 

as “knowledge pertaining to society and culture that has been 

synthesized and had judgement applied to a specific situation to 

comprehend the situation’s inner relationship.” Lamb et al., p. 7.

35. James S. Corum, “Fighting Insurgents—No Shortcuts 

to Success,” Carlisle, PA: United States Army War College, 

2004, p. 1.

36. Headquarters, Department of the Army, and Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, Field Manual (FM) 3-24/Marine 

Corps Warfighting Publication (MCWP) 3-33.5, Counterinsurgency, 

Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, December 

2006, p. 3-1.

37. Ibid., p. 3-2.

38. David Kilcullen, “Comment: Ethics, Politics, and NonState Warfare,” Anthropology Today, Vol. 23, No. 3, 2007, p. 20. 
51

39. Nathan Hodge, Armed Humanitarians: The Rise of the Nation 

Builders, New York: Bloomsbury, 2011, p. 242.

40. Jennifer Greanias, “Assessing the Effectiveness of the US 

Military’s Human Terrain System,” unpublished master’s thesis, 

Washington, DC: Georgetown University, 2010, p. 23.

41. Ibid.

42. Peter W. Pierce and Robert M. Kerr, “The Human Terrain 

System in Northeast Baghdad: The View from the Team Level,” 

E-International Relations, August 20, 2012, available from www.e-ir.

info/2012/08/20/the-human-terrain-system-in-northeast-baghdad-theview-from-the-team-level/, accessed on August 17, 2014.

43. Cindy R. Jebb, Laurel J. Hummel, and Tania M. Chacho, 

Human Terrain Team Trip Report: A ‘Team of Teams’, West Point, 

NY: Unpublished report for TRADOC, 2008, p. 5. Copy held 

by author.

44. Lamb et al., p. 70.

45. Jebb, Hummel, and Chacho, p. 5.

46. Brian G. Brereton, “Tangi Valley: The Limitations of Applied Anthropology in Afghanistan,” in Montgomery McFate and 

Janice H. Laurence, Social Science Goes to War: The Human Terrain 

System in Iraq and Afghanistan, London, UK: Hurst, p. 285.

47. Katherine Blue Carroll, “What do You Bring to the Fight? 

A Year in Iraq as an Embedded Social Scientist,” in Montgomery McFate and Janice H. Laurence, Social Science Goes to War: 

The Human Terrain System in Iraq and Afghanistan, London, UK: 

Hurst, p. 138.

48. Audrey Roberts, “‘Embedding with the Military in Eastern Afghanistan: The Role of Anthropologists in Peace and Stability Operations,” Walter E. Feichtinger, Ernst M. Felberbauer, 

and Erwin A. Schmidl, eds., International Crisis Management: 

Squaring the Circle, Vienna, Austria, and Geneva, Switzerland: 

National Defense Academy and Austrian Ministry of Defense 

and Sports in cooperation with Geneva Centre for Security Policy, 

2011, pp. 83-84.
52

49. Montgomery McFate and Janice H. Laurence, “Introduction: Unveiling the Human Terrain System,” in Montgomery McFate and Janice H. Laurence, Social Science Goes to War: The Human 

Terrain System in Iraq and Afghanistan, London, UK: Hurst, p. 14. 

50. Clinton et al., p. 17.

51. Ibid., p. 18.

52. Ibid., p. 19; See also Roberts, p. 90.

53. Steve Fondacaro, personal communication with author, 

September 15, 2015. 

54. United States Department of Defense, Speech as Delivered 

by Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, Washington, DC: Association of American Universities, April 14, 2008.

55. Ibid.

56. Pierce and Kerr.

57. Ibid.; Hodge, p. 248.

58. Pierce and Kerr.

59. Ibid.

60. Ibid.

61. Ibid.

62. F. H. Bradley, Principles of Logic, Oxford, UK: G. E. Stechert, 

1912, p. 533.

63. Zenia Helbig, “Personal Perspective on the Human Terrain System Program,” Paper presented to the American Anthropological Association’s Annual Conference, Washington, DC, November 29, 2007; Zenia Helbig, “Memorandum: Human Terrain 

System Program; U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command,” 

letter to Representative Ike Skelton, chairman of the House 

Armed Services Committee, and Representative Henry Waxman, 
53

chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government 

Reform, September 13, 2007.

64. Marcus Griffin, An Anthropologist among the Soldiers: 

Notes from the Field,” John D. Kelly et al., eds., Anthropology 

and Global Counterinsurgency, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago 

Press, 2010, p. 218.

65. Roberts, p. 84.

66. Ibid., p. 86.

67. Bronislaw Malinowski, The Dynamics of Culture Change, 

New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1945.

68. Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics, 

Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

69. Barbara Shaffer, ed., Islam and the Limits of Culture, Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 2006.

70. Patrick Porter, Military Orientalism: Eastern War through 

Western Eyes, London, UK: Hurst and Company, 2009, p. 2.

71. Armatya Sen, Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny, 

New York: W. W. Norton, 2006, p. 103, cited in Porter, Military 

Orientalism, p. 83.

72. Montgomery McFate, Britt Damon, and Robert Holliday, 

“What do Commanders Really Want to Know? U.S. Army Human 

Terrain System Lessons Learned from Iraq and Afghanistan,” Janice H. Laurence and Michael D. Matthews, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Military Psychology, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 

2012, p. 111.

55

CHAPTER 2

TWO CULTURES

The historical dimensions of the engagement of 

anthropology with the U.S. military enterprise inform the discussion of the confrontational atmosphere 

which would come to characterize debate upon the 

Human Terrain System (HTS).1 At times, professional 

anthropology and anthropologists tessellated with the 

strategic requirements of the U.S. military posture; in 

other periods, the discipline and the military enterprise 

were in opposed tangents. This fractious relationship 

results from the fact that war is an extension of politics. 

The political element of warfighting necessarily lends 

controversial dimensions to each martial endeavor. 

It is accurate to write that, where the controversial 

political character of warfighting was greatest, there, 

too, could be found the most tense and sustained opposition to the military enterprise from sections of the 

academic community. Anthropology and archaeology 

historically have been particularly entwined with the 

long-range lens of protracted armed conflict. Where 

conflict has most explicitly impacted and is impacted 

by society, the call to the social sciences becomes loudest. This historical tail is important as both context and 

as a repository for analogous activities in the conversation regarding the HTS. 

Anthropology “crystalized in the context of war. In 

the United States, anthropology emerged as the state 

sought to understand and administer native populations in the Indian Wars.”2

 This was in the middle of 

the 19th century. Cultural anthropologist and museum professional Dustin M. Wax argued that the 

Bureau of Ethnology created by the U.S. Department 
56

of Interior in 1879 afforded one such case.3 A staunch 

critic of the HTS, Roberto González has gone further, 

arguing for a direct link between work undertaken by 

anthropologists during the European colonial era, as 

information gatherers for indirect rule, and those actions of the Human Terrain Teams (HTTs). González, 

in his historical reference, singled out the interwar 

work of British anthropologist C. K. Meek, who was 

“charged with helping colonial administrators finetune a system of indirect rule” among Nigerian Igbo 

following the Women’s Riots.4

War and anthropology have always existed in a 

curious symbiosis. Anthropology’s “signature methodology of extended participant observation” in the 

field—which would make its academic experts so 

appealing to the HTS—was forced upon the Polishborn British anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski 

by the onset of World War I.5 There has been “a long 

history of entanglement between archaeology and 

anthropology on the one hand and political interests 

and the intelligence and military establishment on the 

other.”6 With the onset of that Great War, anthropologists and scholars of related disciplines in possession 

of such obvious and invaluable regional expertise 

found themselves as “key players in the new game in 

town—espionage.”7 In 1914, T. E. Lawrence, later to 

be popularized as “Lawrence of Arabia,” conducted 

geographical surveys for the British military forces 

in the Negev under the auspices of an archaeological 

expedition. Dr. Montgomery McFate would later assert that his seminal account of that period, the Seven 

Pillars of Wisdom, is “essentially an ethnographic text, 

concerned with the customs and conventions of desert 

dwellers.”8
57

In the U.S. military enterprise, McFate cites Harvard-trained archaeologist Sylvanus Morley, discoverer of the Mayan city of Naachtun, who was considered the “best secret agent the United States produced 

during World War I.”9 The application of ostensibly 

peaceful scholarship for military activities aroused an 

ethical debate, however. The nature of Morley’s work 

for the Office of Naval Intelligence, much of which was 

conducted under the cover of fieldwork, was rebuked 

by Franz Boas in late-1919; at that time arguably the 

preeminent figure in the field of anthropology. Boas’ 

letter to the The Nation suggested that unnamed anthropologists “have prostituted science by using it as 

a cover for their activities as spies.”10 But little came 

from the letter and Boas’ other criticisms of the war, 

save that he was censured “quickly and publicly” by 

the American Anthropological Association in 1919.11

The military interest in anthropological expertise 

did not abate after World War I. According to historian 

Priya Satia, between the two world wars, there was a 

preoccupation in imperial security with the accumulation of knowledge of foreign societies.12 The use of airpower by the British in Arabia to subdue the population did not depend solely upon economic or strategic 

reasons, but was based on ethnological perceptions of 

the inhabitants, such that agents involved developed 

an “intuitive intelligence epistemology modelled on 

their understanding of the Arabian population.”13 The 

ethnographic work of those in possession of anthropological expertise could influence policy in the regions 

in which they operated and assisted the exercise of 

military power, deciphering the social and historical 

dimensions of foreign nations.

The existential threat posed to the United States 

by World War II enabled a systematic adoption of the 
58

discipline of anthropology to the U.S. military enterprise for the first time.14 The scale and scope of the 

threat posed by her foes necessitated a proportionate 

amplification of military intelligence in the United 

States. Increasing the size of the intelligence apparatus 

allowed the structured and sustained application of a 

wider range of tools to problem solving than had previously been the case. For the first time, there was “the 

organized use of social science for understanding the 

knowledge of war; that is, the systematic deployment 

of social sciences to collect and analyze information 

necessary for strategic military ends.”15 In 1941, the 

American Anthropological Association passed a resolution placing its resources and skill sets in the service 

of the country.16

In mid-1941, the U.S. Office of the Coordinator 

of Information (OCI) was created by Presidential 

Order—a civilian agency charged with centralizing 

the existing intelligence architecture. The OCI was 

restructured and renamed the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in mid-1942.17 The charter of the OSS was 

“to collect and analyze all information and data which 

may bear upon national security,” reporting directly 

to the President and the Office of the Joint Chiefs of 

Staff.18 The OSS was divided into two broad sections. 

The first, the Research and Analysis section, analyzed 

and produced information pertaining to the war effort. The second section used field operatives to procure actionable information that could assist in military planning.

This immense war effort saw myriad academic 

disciplines involved in the fight. For example, the OSS 

was the single largest government institution in which 

geographers worked during World War II, with 129 

employed at the same time at its peak.19 But the pro-
59

fession did not only impact war, it was also impacted 

by its focus of study: 

The very experiences of some of the geographers at 

R&A [Research and Analysis section of the OSS] as 

they tried to apply their geographical training to war 

altered their conception of geographical research, 

helping to propel the discipline to a different form.20

Yet, the OSS had a number of systemic issues, 

including the often indecipherable effect from their 

products, which meant that the motivation to create 

them inevitably diminished over time; and also among 

the military, “A deep suspicion that academics cannot 

contribute to war.”21

Such was the broad utility of anthropology during 

a global war that a report by American Anthropological Association Secretary Fred Eggan to the American 

Association for the Advancement of Science in 1943 

noted that more than 50 percent of professional anthropologists in the United States were engaged directly in the war effort and “most of the rest are doing 

part-time work.”22 But not all anthropologists embraced using their expertise to assist the war effort; 

echoing Boas’ concern during the Great War, Melville 

Herskovits considered the ethical dilemma posed by 

using ethnographic knowledge gained from a society 

against that society.23 The end of the war led to departures from the military enterprise. In part, this was 

a diminished need for expertise after the triumph of 

the Allied Powers, but also it was in part because, in 

the aftermath of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 

atomic detonations, the ethical implications of what 

had just been done in the name of freedom made 

many social scientists seek immediate egress from the 

military enterprise.24
60

SOCIETY AT WAR

The strength of the Soviet Union as a rival to U.S. 

hegemony in the immediate post-war period maintained a need for social science expertise in the military enterprise. After the collapse of a crucial U.S.-

Soviet Union summit in Paris on May 17, 1960, U.S. 

Senator John F. Kennedy was moved to outline a 

new approach to foreign policy based on a 12-point 

agenda in which he argued the necessity to “increase 

the strength of the non-Communist world.”25 It was 

necessary, Kennedy observed, to act against a “lack 

of long-range preparation, the lack of policy-planning, 

the lack of coherent and purposeful national strategy 

backed by strength.”26 The perceived threat to the 

United States and her allies by the uptake of Communism was exacerbated by the end of the colonial era. 

In January 1961, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev 

had pledged his support for wars of national liberation around the world. Insurgencies on different continents threatened American interests and strategic 

projection of power. 

The relationship of anthropology to the Cold War 

fighting, according to Seymour Deitchman, who was 

involved on military research programs at this time, 

grew generally from “America’s increasing involvement, after the Second World War, in the affairs of 

the former European colonial empires” and more explicitly from Vietnam—a “long and difficult war in 

a strange and far-off corner of the world.”27 America 

was involved in multiple theaters in which its influence and therefore its ultimate survival were at stake.28

By necessity, given the spectrum of threats faced, a 

broad array of military plans was undertaken; from 

nuclear strategy to irregular warfighting: at President 
61

Kennedy’s request in 1961, Congress appropriated 

approximately U.S.$120 million for “expansion of research and development programs having to do with 

limited war.”29

There are three facets to the application of social 

science techniques to warfighting which arise time 

and again. The first is that there must arise a crisis in 

conventional military planning which necessitates social science tools; second, that there is a common consensus on a specific research field in which social sciences will be useful; third, that in that research field, 

social sciences will be able to contribute meaningfully 

in the search for a solution to the problem. That third 

aspect—proving useful to the production of a military 

solution—has been consistently difficult to prove, 

both historically and in the contemporary military setting, with the result that soldiers continue to wrestle 

with attempts to resolve the discrepancies between 

promise and delivery. When social science is unpackaged from the box and presented to the military enterprise, measuring the effect of social science expertise 

is problematic.30 Social science can be used to explain 

cause or predict effect, but both human spheres are 

subject to myriad variables and the study of human 

environments situates researchers as a variable in the 

very domain they study. This phenomenon whereby 

social science affords a promise which is difficult to 

measure in terms of actual utility has been an unresolved problem at the heart of the complex historical 

relationship between the military and the discipline of 

anthropology. 

The promise of social science as an aid to deciphering the complexities of the post-colonial world was 

important to the U.S. military enterprise. A Defense 

Science Board report published January 30, 1965, 
62

recommended the foundation of the social and behavioral sciences geared toward national security be 

built up through multidisciplinary centers for basic 

research in selected universities.31 In 1964, the U.S. 

Army developed a specific project to examine how 

communist-driven insurgencies might take root and 

spread. Named Project Camelot, its mission was to examine “the feasibility of developing a general socialsystems model that would make it possible to predict 

and influence politically significant aspects of social 

change in the developing nations of the world.”32 It 

was Camelot’s work in Chile which broke the project 

to the media; in June 1965, Chilean newspaper El Siglo

ran the headline, “Yankees Study Invasion of Chile.”33

Even though Camelot was subsequently terminated, it 

was seized upon as evidence by Senators Joseph McCarthy, J. William Fulbright, and Michael Mansfield 

of an improper and expanding grasp of Department 

of Defense (DoD) on foreign affairs, and social sciences funding was imperiled as a consequence. Indeed, 

more generally, Fulbright considered that counterinsurgency (COIN) techniques suppressed valid national aspirations toward legitimate independence.34

Camelot has been of signal import in the divergence of academia and the military enterprise after 

the Vietnam War. Professor Hugh Gusterson, placing 

the HTS within a wide historical arc, has compared it 

directly to the Camelot project, the latter he labelled, a 

“lavishly funded initiative to mobilize anthropologists 

and other social scientists to investigate the origins of 

peasant radicalism and insurgency and devise strategies to pre-empt, contain, and repress revolutionary 

movements.”35 Therefore, Gusterson saw Camelot as 

an important historical precedent which legitimated 

the evolution of the HTS; a powerful analogous model 
63

promising to decode cultures. Maja Zehfuss suggests 

that the controversy over the HTS recalls Camelot in 

two ways:

First, anthropologists are again embroiled in controversy over a project that involves few of them but 

may have serious ramifications for their discipline. 

Second, in objecting to HTS, anthropologists have 

again framed the problem in terms of professional 

ethics, now armed with an ethics code which has been 

revised since its initial formulation (AAA [American 

Anthropological Association], 1998).36

That first code of ethics by the American Anthropological Association had been created by anthropology’s relationship with the military: the use of anthropologists as advisors to DoD in Southeast Asian 

villages led to adoption of a code in 1971.37 This code 

reaffirmed that the primary obligation of anthropologists is to protect the subjects of their studies. The 

strong reaction from anthropologists resulted from 

possible violations of this obligation by anthropologists who may not have protected those that they 

studied.38

Dr. Robert Albro, a moderating voice in the anthropologists’ critique and chair of the American Anthropological Association’s commission investigating the 

HTS has argued that “Camelot is often cited as Exhibit 

A in why we don’t want to do these things.”39 Albro 

points out anomalies in attempts at comparison. First, 

Camelot did not employ anthropologists. Instructively, Albro observes that: 

This means that there is something we have to notice 

about the way that conversation has gone within the 

community of anthropologists, which is that there is 

a narrative about anthropology’s engagement, that is 

slightly mythologised, a kind of a Just-So Story. We 
64

are not altogether critically grounded about our own 

stories in this matter. This is a pity because what our 

stock and trade would seem to be among other things 

is ethnographic, grounded methodologies in all areas 

of our work.40

This febrile atmosphere generated by periods of 

protracted crises coupled to the mythologized character of Camelot and comparable Cold War programs 

makes their invocation frequent.41

THE LONG SHADOW OF VIETNAM

While Camelot was the most high profile social 

science-related project by the Army, there were other 

projects at that time. The RAND Corporation had conducted a study upon the motivation of Vietnamese 

insurgents, VC Motivation and Morale, the nature of 

which was raised in questioning by a congressional 

subcommittee in 1965.42 Project Agile coordinated the 

Advanced Research Projects Agency’s social science 

work; Agile’s social science projects fared better than 

Camelot, avoiding the scrutiny of Congress such that, 

during 1966-69, its small-survey work was allowed 

to continue. So too, Project Themis, a program to enhance the research of smaller universities by government funding led to research submissions for foreign 

area work to DoD.43

By the mid-1960s, U.S. involvement in Vietnam was 

becoming increasingly complex, and organizations on 

the ground now included the State Department and 

the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Therefore, it 

was inevitable that, as part of a rising commitment to 

be seen to understand the intricacy of the situation, 

in May 1967 the Civil Operations and Revolutionary 
65

Development Support (CORDS) was created and “unambiguously placed the military in charge of pacification.”44 CORDS was placed directly under the command of General William C. Westmoreland. One of 

the programs under its umbrella was the Intelligence 

Coordination and Exploitation Program, created in 

July 1967 and in December 1967 it was renamed as 

Phoenix. By 1970, there were 704 U.S. Phoenix advisors 

in South Vietnam.45 Deployed segments were divided 

into two broad units: Provincial Reconstruction Units 

and regional interrogation centers. The program was 

part of a counterterror strategy in Vietnam and targeted the human infrastructure considered responsible for perpetrating the insurgency. At heart, Phoenix 

was a targeted killing program to disrupt important 

nodes within an insurgent network.46 Its structure was 

proposed as the model for a contemporary program 

by COIN expert David Kilcullen. To counter what he 

saw as an emerging global Islamic insurgency, in a 

2004 paper, Kilcullen proposed a Global Phoenix Program.47 Kilcullen saw the future as using covert operations, small footprints, and highly specialized forces 

to disrupt the nodes. Anthropologists and behavioral 

scientists could be used; for example, to “exploit the 

physical and mental vulnerabilities of detainees.”48

Instructively, Kilcullen identifies a mythology arisen from scholarly attempts to characterize Phoenix: 

Contrary to popular mythology, this was a largely 

civilian aid and development program supported by 

targeted military pacification operations and intelligence activity to disrupt the Viet Cong Infrastructure. 

A global Phoenix program (including the other key 

elements that formed part of the successful Vietnam 

CORDS system) would provide a useful starting point 

to consider how disaggregation would develop in 

practice.49
66

Each separate national insurgency—part of a complex 

whole:

demands intelligence collection and analysis capability 

at the lowest possible tactical level. Local commanders 

must have the means to analyze and understand their 

own environment, diagnose key local system elements 

and the best means of attacking them, and communicate this understanding across the force.50

Against the backdrop of Project Camelot and Vietnam, anthropology’s relationship with the military 

has been fraught. Presciently, writing in 1966 on the 

Malayan Emergency, Robert Tilman argued that: 

While anthropological knowledge is now necessary to 

national security, the ethics of anthropologists must 

be taken into account. In addition to direct discussion and debate on using ethnographic information, 

policymakers and military personnel must be trained 

to apply anthropological and social knowledge effectively, appropriately, and ethically.51

Explaining the shift from a largely consensual 

academy in World War II to a divided Cold War 

camp, Gusterson views the change as a generational 

one. Whereas the “good fight” against fascism was a 

relatively unproblematic ethical enterprise, the Vietnam War saw a young generation of anthropologists 

invoke the stance of Franz Boas in 1919, questioning 

the myriad “private bargains” undertaken between 

anthropologists and the U.S. military enterprise.52

Beneath the long shadow cast by the Vietnam War, 

the relationship between the academy and national 

security has been eroded. It shows starkly how the 

context of the moral dimensions of wars flavors the 

tension regarding anthropological engagement with 
67

the military enterprise. After the Vietnam War, there 

followed a period of introspection on the nature of the 

activities previously undertaken. Dustin M. Wax has 

argued that anthropology’s segregation from the military during the Cold War heralded a rapid ascent to 

maturity as a discipline; that emancipation during this 

period from its martial shackles allowed anthropology 

to develop “an understanding of transnational flows 

of goods, money, people, and ideas; finally moved 

past the obsession with assimilation to discover nuanced interplays between cultures even in the face of 

massive power imbalances.”53

This period consistently has been depicted in 

severe terms. Albro argues that it presented a: 

wholesale change in the relationship of the academy 

particularly the social sciences, specifically the social 

sciences, with some obvious exceptions such as ecology primarily, with regard to the military as a social 

institution, as a public institution in American society 

from the Vietnam era to the present.54

Thus, in Albro’s view, there subsequently has been 

generations in which there have existed: 

virtually no relationship, no personal connection to 

the military as a social institution, amongst anthropologists, at least among those that form the professional 

voice that shapes agendas around what it is should 

quote unquote as a pronoun or shouldn’t be doing, 

how we need to be thinking about these things and 

what our reasoning is around it and our ethical frames 

for going forward.55

It was thus that when the HTS was created against 

the backdrop of severe objection to the invasions 

of Iraq and Afghanistan, the discipline of anthro-
68

pology was poised to afford severe critiques of the 

military’s interest in their signature methodologies 

and ethnographies.

These broad strokes delineating aspects of the historical tail of the story of the HTS serve a purpose. 

As Albro argues, the relationship between anthropologists and the military enterprise has “been a very 

persistent intergenerational story and a dilemma that 

anthropology has wrestled with.”56 Yet, while these 

strokes show the baggage of history with which the 

HTS was reluctantly but inevitably encumbered, the 

program has no perfect historical analogy. For that 

reason, to paraphrase Mark Twain, the HTS is not a 

repetition of history, but a rhyme. The program is the 

latest in an often awkward dance between the military 

enterprise and the academy, and expanded beneath 

the still long shadow cast by the war in Vietnam. 

THE WEIGHT OF HISTORY

Given the historical tail therefore, the HTS was a 

compelling story colored by the recent past. The earliest media reports framed the program as the acme of 

an academic approach to military operations required 

for successful COIN operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The expanded HTS depended, at least in part, 

upon developing the program’s profile in the academic community and public sphere in order to both 

attract applicants and buttress funding justifications. 

To raise its head above the parapet, however, was a 

double-edged sword: increasing general awareness 

of the program—being a controversial collaboration 

between civilians and soldiers in a time of war—subjected the HTS to scrutiny. Using anthropological 

methods led to consideration of the program within 
69

a historical trajectory, characterized as the latest in 

a series of difficult military engagements with the 

academy. In addition, the nature and efficacy of embedded teams were questioned. González has been 

critical of the HTS claims of reducing civilian casualties, and more widely critical of the Iraq and Afghan 

wars, which he saw as colonial enterprises.57 González 

called the favorable press reports that emerged concerning HTTs a carefully choreographed public 

relations campaign.58

Indicative of the ease with which conflicting assessments of the program could proliferate, González 

also labelled the HTS a secretive organization wedded 

to the covert national security state.59 Objectively, the 

HTS is one of the most public-oriented programs in 

the U.S. Department of the Army. It was a prominent 

program in the nascent COIN modality of military operations and recruited civilian academics through an 

open process. There was no covert element in its creation or propagation, as seen by the myriad accounts 

relating to it, and the Department of the Army has 

continued to engage researchers of the program in the 

hope of better understanding its optimum function. 

Unlike covert elements of the national security state, 

its former members publish widely on their research 

in academic journals, doing so originally largely as 

part of an outreach program, and latterly as part of 

neutral contributions to scholarship. 

The ambiguous initial assessments from academics 

lacking deep research of their subject makes the HTS 

such a pertinent subject to study. Its profile, disproportionate to its small size, is a result of its compelling 

character and its ability to polarize opinion. Few commentators on the program were to emerge apathetic. 

American anthropologist David Price, who became a 
70

key critic of the program, made a Freedom of Information Act request for the assessment which led to 

Colonel Martin Schweitzer’s claim in congressional 

testimony concerning the quantitative reduction in 

kinetic activity. In February 2008, after recalibrating 

the initial praise, the U.S. Army admitted that no such 

records existed. It is difficult to overstate the damage caused by this admission, demonstrating as it did 

that the capabilities of the HTS were being praised for 

results that did not exist. The only positive outcome 

was that the Department of the Army was transparent 

enough to return the inquiry. This admission fueled 

criticism and entrenched each side in the debate, making collaboration more difficult. In defense, and to his 

credit, Schweitzer composed a personal reply to Price, 

stating that the HTT under his command had focused 

his operations on the population, not the enemy, and 

further that the team operationalized the Pashtunwali

code—an orally communicated ethical template governing social norms among Pashto speakers—assisting the armed forces in application of a specialized 

COIN methodology.60

While the admission from the Department of the 

Army exacerbated the criticism, the core of the problem in the debate remained that the professional 

academic anthropologists were not using their own 

signature methodology—ethnography—in their examination of the program. Instead, examination was 

often cursory and superficial, with material extracted 

from newspaper articles. These expert ethnographers 

were failing to conduct ethnographies of the HTS. As 

a consequence, their findings were often generalized 

and served only to obfuscate understanding of the 

program. 
71

The outside-in-perspective further served to distance not only the American Anthropological Association from the military, but distance the military 

from the American Anthropological Association. 

What could have been an exercise in collaboration, 

conciliatory research, and cross-cultural communication instead quickly degenerated into entrenched defensive positions, from which occasional salvos were 

fired from each side. This was greatly to the detriment 

of each enterprise, for the HTS posed no threat to the 

American Anthropological Association. In addition, 

the HTS was a broad church of social scientists such 

that critique from a small section of expert anthropologists ultimately could not terminate the program. 

Ultimately these agendas, one of practicality, the other 

of ethicality, existed on divergent platforms such that 

throughout the lifetime of the program in Iraq and Afghanistan, the discourse between the two entities was 

irreconcilable.

Academic interrogation of the program was complicated by the domestic U.S. political setting at this 

time. There was significant opposition to the U.S. 

military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan. Invasion 

of the former was seen in many spheres as the action 

of an imperial power, and many of the detractors of 

the HTS were staunch critics of the wider U.S. military activities. The HTS public profile was thus hamstrung before it started the race; being a high-profile 

civil-military hybrid program focused opposition to 

the wars on a single entity. Criticism was not simply 

about the quagmire of deciphering ethical boundaries 

in conflict zones; it was also tied to the concern that 

here was a program which required civilian academic 

expertise and was fielded in support of a controversial 

occupation. 
72

Of the program itself, academic critique crystalized 

into three distinct categories; debate concerning the 

ethics of the program; efficacy of the embedded teams; 

and the place of the program in the larger historical 

context of military engagement with the social sciences. The debate emerged on myriad platforms: the 

program has been the subject of a poem, a documentary, two plays, popular and scholarly books, as well 

as articles in academic scholarly journals including Security Dialogue, Anthropology News, and Anthropology 

Today, and military ones such as Joint Force Quarterly, 

Small Wars Journal, and Military Review.

61 Both staunch 

criticism and robust defense of the program were 

characterized by a degree of hostility because of the 

perceived stakes—literally life and death—such that 

there emerged a difficulty in developing constructive 

scholarship on this historically important program. 

This hostility ties back to the broad context of the perceived illegality of the Iraq occupation and the HTS as 

performing a core function in that occupation. Public 

opinion was turning against the military enterprise by 

late-2006, and many polls showed that the majority 

of the U.S. population were against the war in Iraq. 

Focused critique served only to make the HTS more 

opaque to scrutiny. Indeed: 

the effects of the polarization of the ‘debate’ surrounding the HTS probably made it more difficult for structural problems inside the program to be fixed while it 

was on the road from a proof-of-concept program to a 

program-of-record.62

Media and academic focus narrowed on the program and its processes as a result of the deaths of three 

HTT social scientists in separate incidents between 

2008 and 2009. These high profile fatalities (Michael 
73

Bhatia’s life and death formed part of the 2009 documentary, Human Terrain: War Becomes Academic; Nicole 

Suvege’s death was delineated in Nathan Hodge’s 

Armed Humanitarians; and Paula Loyd’s death was the 

focus of Vanessa Gezari’s 2013 book, A Tender Soldier) 

amplified scrutiny of the program. The result was the 

retrenching of the HTS management to external inquiry exacerbating the outside-in-perspective. Subsequent analyses inevitably oversimplified the program 

and skewed analyses because of the complications in 

garnering a spectrum of interviews and gaining access 

to program documentation. 

What is required, however, is that a social science 

research program’s development not take place in a 

vacuum, entrenched against outside critique. The 

program suffered to some extent from focused criticism in this early period. Yet, the goals and processes 

of the program were so novel that collaboration and 

nuanced analysis and review from academics would 

have been invaluable. Neither did the program’s detractors emerge unscathed. The academics suffered 

from examinations of the program which were colored 

by the backdrop of the U.S.-led invasions of Iraq and 

Afghanistan, the countries where HTTs embedded. 

As a result, the character of social science research 

by these novel HTTs has been largely obscured in 

literature. 

THE “JAUNDICED EYE”

Members of the professional anthropological community were concerned at appropriation of their discipline for military utility, although there was little clear 

evidence about who owned the origins of these social 

science tools that they fought over. In addition, the 
74

unearthly ballet of research meant that the program 

remained largely unintelligible. Aware of this tension 

between the academy and military for which the HTS 

had become a focal point, in 2008, Secretary of Defense 

Robert Gates placed the problem within a historical 

trajectory, arguing that each enterprise: 

continues to look on the other with a jaundiced eye. 

These feelings are rooted in history—academics that 

felt used and disenchanted after Vietnam, and troops 

who felt abandoned and unfairly criticised by academics during the same time. And who often feel that 

academia does not support their efforts.63

Gates ultimately conceded that at least some of 

the blame fell at the feet of DoD, because it fails to 

explain fully the functions of many of its elements in 

language which is accessible outside of the profession: 

“Like academia, the Pentagon has its own, shall we 

say, unique approach to the English language.”64

This language gap complicated expression of the 

character and content of the program successfully 

bridging military and academic languages. This is not 

a facile bridge to cross. The term “human terrain” does 

not appear in nonmilitary academic literature prior to 

the program’s inception. Gates argued in that speech 

that the program’s name “appears almost designed 

to induce maximum paranoia.”65 This evaluation is 

borne out by the evidence. However, existing scholarship currently identifies the first use of “human 

terrain” as being in 1968.66 Reporting on the threat of 

social disaggregation from militant groups such as the 

Black Panthers, the United States House Un-American 

Activities Committee concluded that domestic guerrilla forces, while asymmetric in their material and 

logistical support, nevertheless “possess the ability to 
75

seize and retain the initiative through a superior control of the human terrain.”67

In fact, the first instance when the term was used 

was in a 1967 memorandum from then-Director of 

the CIA Richard Helms to National Security Advisor 

Walt Rostow.68 In the memorandum on the situation 

in Vietnam, Helms wrote of the requirement of forces 

aligned with U.S. interests to dominate political influence of the local population, and that, to achieve that 

goal, it was necessary to target the “Human Terrain.”69

This human terrain, the “target of pacification,” was 

regarded as “highly fragmented by race, regionalism, 

religion, politics, and an inherent mistrust of ‘outside’ influence and authority.”70 The term resurfaced 

4 decades later in 2000 when retired Army officer and 

military analyst Ralph Peters considered the human 

terrain of a city as being the dominant factor in urban 

COIN operations.71 Montgomery McFate and Janice H. 

Laurence, in their co-edited volume on the program, 

identify that true credit for the term ”human terrain 

system” belongs to Colonel Joseph Celeski, who McFate had referenced in an earlier article.72

Use of the term “human terrain” for a military 

project led to criticism from academics because of 

that disconnect between the discourses of the military 

and the academy. Roberto González suggested that 

the phrase will have objectifying and dehumanizing 

effects,” although no examples of how that might be 

in practice were provided.73 For Price, the U.S. Army 

“does not just want to understand the cultural environment it is working in, it wants to change it to its 

liking, and anthropologists are to be the tools leveraging needed cultural knowledge.”74 These critiques 

were augmented by the public articulation of the 

military customer of the program. In the words of 
76

Schweitzer, brigade staffs were motivated by a desire to reduce kinetic activity, and, in doing so, better 

achieve national objectives: “Ultimately, success will 

require us to change the environment and to do that 

will require a continued deliberate focus on the culture and population of Afghanistan.”75 This reduction 

in kinetic activity would reduce collateral damage, 

affording improved security and engender increased 

relations of trust with the population. Armed violence 

in these settings has a deleterious impact on attempts 

to communicate with the population.

Such scrutiny of a relatively small piece of the U.S. 

Army enterprise occurred because the HTS served as 

a focal mechanism for a more diffuse debate being 

held in the academy over the appropriation of social 

science knowledge and anthropological methodologies more specifically by DoD to assist in the conduct 

of the military. In 2002, Price warned that America’s 

challenges in Iraq and Afghanistan raised: 

numerous ethical issues that must be confronted by 

anthropologists and their colleagues—especially those 

concerning the integrity of the discipline of anthropology, as pressures to harness anthropological knowledge of other societies for military purposes and other 

objectives re-emerge.76

Price argued that a clash between the ethical guidelines of anthropology and the strong desire to serve 

the interests of one’s country would be inevitable, as 

had been observed in recent history.77

The perilous historical trajectory of anthropology’s relationship with the military was invoked by 

those scholars concerned at their discipline’s relationship with DoD. Stressing the gravity of the evolving 

situation, Price cautioned that: 
77

wars raise the stakes for anthropologists, exposing the 

nature of our commitments and principles, and, as past 

wars and colonial campaigns have shown, anthropologists as a group have served both the oppressed and 

the oppressors. Many aspects of our field’s relationship with power remain unresolved.78

This meant that as the conflicts in Afghanistan and 

Iraq became more complex and the apparent anthropological character of military operations burgeoned, 

each side in the encounter refused to offer a conciliatory stance. Under the FMSO initial plan to make the 

program conduct research which was then logged in 

an open-access database, the relationship between the 

program and academia would have been less treacherous, but would also have created data which was 

of little operational relevance to the BCT. Fondacaro’s 

plan to use embedded teams directly to influence 

brigades on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan amplified the stakes and made the possibility of appropriating the discipline a matter of existential concern. 

Fondacaro’s position was formed from his experience 

as a battalion and brigade commander, and then as 

JIEDDTF-Iraq leader; that more data or tools would 

be irrelevant, and that the only solution would be 

embedded human operators working with the BCT 

staff.79 Embedded expertise enduring beyond a unit 

rotation would prevent the 10-year war being fought 

1 year at a time. 

The recruitment of social scientists for warfighting 

was seen as part of a wider securitization of public life 

and hence a necessary site for concerted critiques of 

the developments.80 Elements within the social science 

community, which Dan G. Cox, Assistant Professor of 

Political Science at the United States Army School of 
78

Advanced Military Studies, labeled a “small but vociferous chorus of pundits and academics,” argued 

that anthropology’s re-engagement with the military 

risked changing the character of the discipline.81

HTS thus served as a principal site for the anthropological debate on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

The program placed academic experts in roles designed to directly influence the direction of conflict. 

There was a notable lack of abundant and systematically analyzed evidence to support these claims 

against the program, and, because the two sides had 

now become entrenched in defensive positions, there 

was difficulty in gaining access to the program to create new information based on interviews or program 

documents. 

Anthropology as a discipline existed in tension 

with the program because the idea of the HTS under Fondacaro, if not execution on the ground, was 

spun from an appropriation of the discipline’s signature methodology, ethnography, for a purpose of 

national security. To some within the anthropological community, this was unacceptable. As Lamb et al., 

note, anthropology as a social scientific discipline is 

relatively small in size; there are only approximately 

11,000 members of the America Anthropological Association, compared to for example, 137,000 members of the American Psychological Association.82

In focusing on the HTS, the criticism by a relatively 

small academic community concentrated on a single 

program in the U.S. military enterprise. The criticism 

made the concerted arguments against the program 

more pronounced than had been the case against the 

broader military ventures in Iraq and Afghanistan 

precisely because it engaged anthropology’s signature 

characteristics. 
79

For its proponents, defending both the concept of 

the program and the execution of the idea was more 

than the protection of the HTS; it was rather the defense of population-centered COIN as a whole. The 

HTS and COIN became linked such that it was necessary in defense of COIN to defend the work of the 

program and flaws were covered up. Supporters and 

proponents of the program considered it ethical, that 

it helped to save lives through more focused and effective operations, was not involved in collecting intelligence that led to kinetic targeting of individuals, and 

was a key way for anthropology to become relevant to 

the shaping of operations in the field, and eventually 

policy back home. In doing so, the discipline could 

move away from the abstract field it had become in 

the wake of its retreat from government after the U.S. 

ended its military involvement in Vietnam.83

The wide parameters of the debate hinted at the 

program becoming the focal mechanism for a generational debate on anthropology’s engagement with the 

military. But larger still, and with important implications for the durability of the discussion, it could be 

seen as a conversation regarding the application of 

scholarship to any and all exploitative ventures, especially those with national security implications. As 

such, it posed a question: should the demarcation between the academy and the nonacademy be distinct 

and impermeable? This was a conversation with a 

lineage; most recently regarding the use of anthropologists in corporate contexts in the 1990s.84 There, 

too, concerns were voiced regarding the use of data, 

and the possible exploitation of research subjects 

and degree of transparency in the context of corporate competitiveness.85 That period of anthropology’s 

tense engagement with corporate America was linked 
80

explicitly when accusations of McFate having at one 

time been a corporate spy emerged in 2008.86

The focus anthropology as a discipline exerted on 

the HTS has parallels, even within the Iraq conflict. 

The American Psychological Association had earlier 

focused on the Abu Ghraib controversy as a catalyst 

for concern, allowing discussion of the utilization of 

academic knowledge in intelligence interviewing techniques as they were being integrated into a broader 

spectrum of torture.87 That central concern and alarm 

about its situation within the national intelligence architecture broadly paralleled anthropology and the 

HTS, taking ethnography and situating its use within 

the national intelligence architecture. This debate was 

not new to the field, only to the field’s current generation of scholars. 

Collaboration or Confrontation?

From the academic side, the debate surrounding 

the program should have been nuanced and deeply 

researched, as befitting the program. Social science is 

the deep study of society not for the benefit of social 

sciences, but for society. Instead, the examination was 

superficial and the language inflammatory. As much 

as there was cause to evaluate the program, the magnitude of the attacks and the core use of newspaper articles devalued what could have been a chance to move 

forward collaboratively with the military. Instead of 

collaboration, the site of the HTS debate unfortunately 

was one of confrontation. This friction had the added 

consequence of making intricate academic research of 

the program more arduous as fragile bridges of trust 

between the sections of the anthropological community in the academy and DoD were unceremoniously 

burnt. 
81

The core space for that vociferous debate was the 

American Anthropological Association’s Commission 

on the Engagement of Anthropology with the U.S. Security and Intelligence Communities. There were two 

phases to the commission’s life which were associated 

with two broad studies: The first, published on November 4, 2007, was chaired by James Peacock, Emeritus Professor at the University of North Carolina, and 

developed from concern at the CIA posting an employment advertisement on the American Anthropological 

Association’s website for professional vacancies and 

the Pat Roberts Intelligence Scholars Program.88 This 

first phase attempted to delineate the contemporary 

engagement between anthropology and the national 

security structure in the United States. 

The HTS was included in the report as the public 

discussion around the program was escalating.89 In 

the report, a peripheral but emerging debate among 

the panel was the extent to which HTT fieldwork 

could be conducted in alignment with the American 

Anthropological Association Code of Ethics or a generic review board, given that the research would 

be for a military customer among a population in a 

contested space.90 Importantly, the commission identified a primary issue with embedded teams regarding the primary obligation of anthropologists to “do 

no harm.” Seeking to answer if the teams were used 

“for” or “against” the population, the panel wrote that 

team research is “framed by the military as undertaken to ‘protect’ studied populations, but HTS studies 

also present risks of using cultural research against 

studied populations.”91

The peripheral examination of the U.S. Army program compared to its high profile necessitated a second phase of the commission beginning in December 
82

2008, when the American Anthropological Association asked the Commission to review specifically the 

HTS in order to develop a concerted stance regarding 

members’ participation in the program’s activities.92

This review was chaired by Albro, Professor of Anthropology at American University, based on his position in the first phase. 

The priorities of the commission changed between 

the phases.93 The second report was preempted by 

the American Anthropological Association Executive 

Board’s statement censuring the HTS on October 31, 

2007, which was not entirely aligned with the broader 

conclusions of the American Anthropological Association committee.94 While that committee in the second 

phase was consulted by the executive board, there 

was pressure from the rank and file to make a statement on the HTS, and they went ahead and did that 

at that time without engagement with the program 

and relied instead upon journalistic accounts of the 

program, as they termed it “information in the public 

record.”95

The executive board methodological shortcomings 

and its terse 800-word indictment against the program 

exacerbated the deepening divide between DoD and 

the discipline of anthropology, and, more broadly, degraded the way in which the military perceived academia because of the board’s absence of evidence. As 

much as this quickly released statement served to highlight the concerns on the American Anthropological 

Association’s Executive Board, it would also alienate 

sympathetic elements in the military enterprise that 

would, as a consequence of the absence of research, be 

dismissive of the critique. The board expressed grave 

concerns that responsibilities of HTT members might 

lie with their units, and that they could fail to iden-
83

tify themselves as anthropologists rather than military 

personnel; concerns identified in “the context of a war 

that is widely recognized as a denial of human rights 

and based on faulty intelligence and undemocratic 

principles.”96 In addition, the board noted the difficulty of getting informed consent in contested spaces, the 

use of information for targeting and the toxic spillage 

for non-HTS anthropologists of anthropology’s association with the military in this instance.97

The executive board statement gave superficial indictments of the program’s activities, despite the profound questions posed by the first phase of the commission. In this regard, the board’s assessment served 

to detract from the ongoing investigation which was 

later led by Albro. The board made the statement 

without contacting the U.S. Army program and relied 

on journalistic accounts. Thus, that hastily erected position contributed to entrenching the polarization of 

the debate because it could so readily be dismissed by 

proponents of the program as an inquiry using existing journalistic accounts. In addition, the board noted 

explicitly the illegality of the conflicts in which the 

program teams operated, such that the broader context colored the assessment of the program activities. 

In that regard, the HTS was a focal mechanism for 

a much larger debate. Also—as has been seen in the 

historical assessment—the greater the controversy of 

the conflict, then the greater tension that exists in the 

relationship between professional anthropology and 

the military. 

The second commission’s report was notable in that 

participants did interview HTS administrators at that 

time, including Senior Social Scientist and Director of 

the Social Science Directorate McFate, and asked the 

program management a set of questions and request-
84

ed a formal response, which they received, with the 

answers included in the commission report appendix. 

That second commission was composed of members 

from both academic and nonacademic arenas, as well 

as being composed of academics from different disciplinary commitments.98 These commission members 

arrived at the discussion from different viewpoints 

and with different priorities.99

The broad character meant that other members of 

the commission focused on the questionable ability 

of embedded team members to get documented, informed consent in a conflict zone—another key component of the Association’s ethics code. But the core 

conversation within the commission centered on the 

distancing of the HTS from any institutional review 

board, the application of outmoded theory, and the 

perceived absence of organizational transparency and 

of the research itself. The commission’s report suffered from the inevitable clash of multiple viewpoints 

and priorities, as well as a lack of solid, aggregated, 

and mutually reinforcing evidence about the specific 

activities of different teams. The report offered the 

broad conclusion that HTT work in the field was not 

professional anthropology and was in contravention 

of “disciplinary ethics.”100 The crux of the commission’s assessment was:

When ethnographic investigation is determined by 

military missions, not subject to external review, 

where data collection occurs in the context of war, integrated into the goals of counterinsurgency, and in 

a potentially coercive environment—all characteristic 

factors of the HTS concept and its application—it can 

no longer be considered a legitimate professional exercise of anthropology.101
85

The commission was correct: In these contested 

spaces, this was a different form of interaction with 

the population, distinct and different from engagement with the population in an ethnographic sense. 

In contrast to the short assessment from the executive board, the commission was tasked with formulating a consistent and explicit stance on participation in 

the HTS for the American Anthropological Association’s members but spoke more widely to “any social 

science organization or federal agency that expects 

its members or its employees to adhere to established 

disciplinary and federal standards for the treatment 

of human subjects.”102 The commission was therefore 

widening the lens of the debate from the narrow discipline of anthropology to a broader discussion of 

the use of any of the myriad forms of social science 

in research involving human subjects. The HTS was 

therefore the principal site in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars for renewed debate on the appropriation of 

a spectrum of academic expertise in order to influence 

or shape foreign populations. 

As a principal site for scholarly debate of the ongoing population-centered COIN effort, the commission 

asserted that gathering sociocultural information to 

aid commanders’ planning on the ground risked the 

program being able to single-handedly define “anthropology” for DoD.103 This is a conclusion cloaked in the 

dramatic context of a divisive war; a conclusion which 

was unrepresentative of the reality on the ground and 

the research being conducted and the position of the 

program in the DoD enterprise. As the commission itself notes, the program was “one development among 

many.”104

The HTS as a social science program implemented 

rapid assessments of local populations where high 
86

levels of selective violence inhibited the ability to conduct traditional ethnographies. Conflict forces rapid 

change of populations over time. For the HTS in practice to influence the planning cycle of a brigade, a team 

would need to conduct rough and ready operationally relevant reporting of the host society in ways that 

were distanced from professional anthropology. This 

could be understood by detailed analysis of research 

products from the field. The problem in 2008 and 2009 

when the commission was conducting its assessment, 

however, was that despite the “extensive body of information about HTS in the public domain,” the “vast 

majority has been generated not by HTS employees, 

or academics, but rather by journalists.”105 It is the 

journalistic accounts which have exacerbated the level 

of uncertainty over the research conducted by HTTs, 

and the character of the program. The commission 

was thus forced to sidestep the bulk of the existing 

material on the program. As the program was ongoing and without complete access to HTT research, despite many interviews with HTT social scientists, the 

commission’s assessments can only be, as noted, tentative.106 The core problem identified by the commission is a perpetual symptom of study of the program; 

that there are conflicting viewpoints on the nature of 

the program and the experiences of the fieldwork, 

and the sources are often contradictory.107 In addition, 

its wider relationship with the military enterprise of 

which it was, unquestionably, a small, esoteric part 

was uncertain. 

The program’s direct relationship to professional 

anthropology is largely tangential. The commission 

notes that the 2008 Human Terrain Team Handbook describes how research methods for embedded teams 

could “include classic anthropological and sociologi-
87

cal methods such as semi-structured and open-ended 

interviews, polling and surveys, text analysis, and 

participant-observation.”108 This is a broad attempt to 

reference the sociological character of the program, 

but certainly does not risk defining “anthropology” 

for DoD, or appropriating professional anthropological practices for the program or professional anthropology’s signature methods, for instance ethnography 

and core concepts, for example, culture.109 “Culture” 

was an abstract concept without resonance in the practical requirements of HTTs, while “ethnography” as a 

professional practice requiring hegemonic control by 

the incumbent to ensure security on the ground and 

12 to 24 months among the population was, by definition, impossible circumstances for HTTs in Iraq and 

Afghanistan. The commission quotes an unnamed 

HTT social scientist thus: “This is not ethnography. It 

is translating abstractions into actionable recommendations.”110

The core concern was on the fidelity of the data 

gained from working in a contested space in the presence of a military force. These concerns are well founded, and an unnamed U.S. Marine Corps commander 

stated that in such environments, interviews could be 

considered that the research “looks more like push 

polling.”111 This unwittingly strikes at the heart of a 

much larger tension in DoD and data analytics more 

generally between qualitative and quantitative data 

signals. The honesty of the data derived from qualitative assessments in areas experiencing high levels of 

violence is questionable. That must be compared to 

the absolute values in quantitative assessments of human centers, such as the price of foodstuffs or illicitly 

traded weapons. This concern thus resonates because 

it is part of a broader debate in which quantitative 
88

assessments are likely to win out over qualitative research modalities. Qualitative uncertainty is proportional to physical insecurity. 

On the issue of the HTS as an intelligence asset, 

the commission observed with some explicit uncertainty that there is “significant likelihood that HTS 

data will in some way be used as part of military intelligence, advertently or inadvertently.”112 In part, 

the ambiguity is a product of the uncertain nature of 

what “intelligence” entails. Evaluating Joint doctrine, 

the commission observes that “intelligence is pretty 

much any form of knowledge production.”113 That 

all-encompassing definition raises larger, potentially 

discomforting questions about all knowledge, even 

professional scholarship in the public sphere, being 

employed in intelligence production. But, in part, also 

this question regarding the uncertainty on information and intelligence was also due to the commission’s 

conclusion that: “There is significant variation in the 

ways that HTTs interact with the intelligence elements 

in their area. This seems to rely, at least to some extent, 

on the inclination of the people filling social scientist 

roles.”114 The ethical character of the research lay at 

the heart of this argument. Research guarantees both 

anonymity and the safety of participants, or it does 

not.115 It is a clear binary state. Teams could choose to 

cross over the line or not, with the ability to choose being facilitated, if not dictated, by the laissez-faire freedoms experienced in these contested spaces found in 

Iraq and Afghanistan. 

The commission foregrounded the ethical character 

of the program and ethics dominate the broader professional discussion.116 The commission observed that, 

in the creation of the HTS, the American Anthropological Association’s Code of Ethics, which identifies 
89

the need for “the establishment of voluntary informed 

consent, taking care to insure that no harm comes to 

research participants as a result of HTS research, and 

full disclosure to research participants what will be 

done with collected data,” appears to have been ignored.117 This is largely anticipated, given the applied 

nature of the research: McFate has observed that in 

developing the research modalities for the team, she 

consulted the Society for Applied Anthropology’s 

Code of Ethics.118

The character of this applied social science research 

being developed by the HTS was unique and posed 

problems in relation to standardized professional practice. The American Anthropological Association in its 

close inspection of the program in relation to ethics 

concluded that “so far as we can tell, HTS does not currently use an IRB [Institutional Review Board].”119 At 

the level of the combat brigade, where there was high 

operational tempo in areas experiencing high levels 

of selective violence by insurgents, this was likely unfeasible in these contested spaces. Research was often 

dictated by the transport available; where the military 

logistics determine the opportunity for research—for 

example, route clearance or resupply convoys. An IRB 

would thus have to have been staffed 7 days a week, 

for every hour of each day, and had a panel available 

to assess the research proposals in the U.S. and send 

them back to each team; in the rapid evolution of the 

program, this type of novel IRB system seems unlikely 

to be able to implement. With longer research modes 

in regions where there are less pronounced insurgencies, the IRB seems not just feasible, but a prerequisite 

for the HTS were it to continue to evolve beyond the 

conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. 
90

The American Anthropological Association chose 

the ethical dimensions of the research to critique most 

heavily rather than the value of the work done. Albro, 

consistently eloquent and considered on the conversation between the profession of anthropology and 

the military enterprise, voices concern about the discipline’s persistent use of ethics “as its stock in trade, 

to talk about where anthropologists should be, what 

anthropologists should and shouldn’t be doing and to 

define the lines between academic anthropology and 

mostly everything else.”120 Moreover, the American 

Anthropological Association and senior professional 

anthropologists in the United States were not united 

in their broad assessment. The Network of Concerned 

Anthropologists, a group of professional anthropologists that included members of the commission and 

executive board, gave a petition to the U.S. Congress 

in 2010 in a bid to halt funding of the program. The 

petition was signed by six of nine living former presidents of the American Anthropological Association, 

meaning that a third chose not to take an explicit stance 

against the program in this manner.121 This absence of 

a concerted stance; the different investigative modes 

of the board statement and the commission; the varied 

concerns of those members of the commission; and the 

rapidly evolving nature of the program being studied 

each contributed to ameliorating the impact of these 

fundamentally important concerns of professional 

anthropology. 

Effectiveness, however, rather than ethics, arguably mattered most to the military customer. On the 

back of Schweitzer’s estimated quantitative assessment of his embedded team’s contribution to a reduction in kinetic activity, which was presented as fact, 

the need for careful investigation of the program was 
91

implicit. Indeed, the trenchant position of the Network of Concerned Anthropologists arguably hindered equitable discourse, but their point that there 

is no evidence that HTTs are effective points to the 

singular problem in appropriating social science research modalities for combat zones. How do you measure success? The arguments of the professional anthropologists were further hindered by the difficulty 

in offering homogeneous assessment of the program 

when there was a spectrum of voices in the critique 

and a spectrum of voices from the program itself, often 

generating conflicting viewpoints, was pronounced.

In 2012, Albro and Gusterson wrote that they 

stood by the 2009 conclusions of the commission, specifically that the program contravenes anthropological 

ethics and falls short of professional standards for ethnography.122 Based on the commission’s findings, Albro and Gusterson also expressed concern at possible 

plans to reconfigure the program to a shaping tool in 

regions where insecurity may prove to be problematic 

to U.S. interests, noting that research conducted in a 

military setting lacks the integrity to be considered 

professional anthropology and that compared to other engagements between the military enterprise and 

anthropology, “HTS is different because it threatens 

the integrity of that core relationship between anthropologists and their subjects.”123

This dominant theme regarding the ethics of 

the profession stems from a larger concern which is 

grounded in the historical military engagement with 

the social sciences, namely, the actual utility of academic knowledge which was used to defeat insurgencies. This is why Albro is right to identify the particular emphasis placed on ethical research forms as an 

issue of importance in and of itself. Historically, social 
92

science research methods and theoretical conceptualizations are integrated into military epistemologies for 

actionable benefit. But the relationship has not been 

continual or one of constant progress or evolution. Instead, the complex discrepancy between expectation 

and reality regarding what social science research can 

offer the military enterprise has meant the historical 

encounter has been wrought by opaque experiments 

often curtailed by consistently uncertain ends. The 

overarching question when the engagement between 

anthropology and war is taken as a whole is: To what 

extent does social science research augment the operational picture?124 Across generations, that question 

has never been adequately answered, and it is for that 

reason that we find this intergenerational story continuing. Surrounding the detailed assessments by the 

American Anthropological Association’s commission 

and the statement of the board, the specter of the opposition to the Iraq and Afghan wars inevitably hangs 

heavily over the existing debate on the HTS. 

Toward Pragmatism.

Packaging anthropological knowledge in a form 

which was both comprehensible and actionable required the use of parsimonious frameworks for modeling the operating environment. Presciently, Price 

had suggested there would be a selective uptake of 

anthropological methods when he wrote: 

There is much of anthropology that the military does 

not want: the military does not want anthropological critiques of power, imperialism, or neocolonialism. It does not want empathetic understandings of 

‘the other’ unless this can be used as an ‘asset’ for 

‘leveraging’.125
93

What was taking place in the crisis of Iraq was a 

rapid and selective uptake of social science. As part 

of that selective uptake and a site for sustained debate 

was the program’s utilization of structural functionalism. This theoretical construct was a social model of 

the environment which had been fashionable in the 

1950s but was now perceived as being outmoded.126

For HTS, however, there was significant utility in the 

theoretical framework because it models society as 

symbiotic elements which aggregate to a single organism. In this model, propagated by American sociologist Talcott Parsons, culture, traditions, and institutions are organs within the societal body, the function 

of each impacting the viability of the whole. Addressing one to the detriment of any other would distort the 

fragile equilibrium, generating imbalance such that 

the societal structure is disturbed.

These anthropomorphic and reifying tendencies 

of the theory were attractive to a military enterprise 

modeling insurgencies in a resonant manner. The 

model utilizes a consensus theory in which a coherent 

society is developed through the architecture of order, a balancing of interest in those interrelated macroscopic elements upon which the society functions. 

Pertinent to the COIN doctrine being propagated, 

structural functionalism had the added advantage of 

foregrounding the role of culture in shaping the societal edifice; values, norms, ideas, and beliefs are all 

causally relevant. Culture is the binding force to the 

extent that it “is seen as a patterned, ordered system 

of symbols that are objects of orientations to actors, 

internalized aspects of the personality system, and institutionalized patterns in the social system.”127

The contemporary position of the academic discipline of anthropology with regard to this model was 
94

at odds with its renaissance in the military, however. 

The academy had consigned this system to possessing largely historical significance, comparative to its 

situation in the 1950s and 1960s as the “primary organizing paradigm for most of American sociology.”128

As a criticism, using the model decades later fundamentally misrepresented the intellectual moment of 

the discipline of anthropology. Instructively, in her 

1994 doctoral dissertation, McFate had already noted 

that there lay a discrepancy between the scholarly 

discipline of anthropology and military application 

of its models, but argued for its relevance to the military as a simplistic model encouraging understanding 

and constructing an intellectual bridge between the 

military and academia: 

Although structural-functionalist methodology has 

long been unfashionable within anthropology, the 

oscillating equilibrium model (with the addition 

of population dynamics and catastrophe theory) is 

now being used in military operational research for 

predicting the oscillating force-structure patterns in 

counterinsurgency.129

It demonstrates an aspiration within the military 

for modeling the character of warfare in complex environments; in this instance, the variation of force-size 

around a central value with respect to time. 

Moreover, as Gezari notes in her examination of 

the program, as a student, McFate “wrote papers arguing that structural functionalism was invalid because it objectified and dehumanized the subjects of 

anthropological observation. But the pragmatist in her 

rejected this argument.”130 Pragmatism in stabilization 

and enabling operations is paramount in successful 

planning and execution of plans; where decisiveness, 
95

assertiveness, and clarity by necessity win out over 

uncertainty, deference, and detail. 

Structural functionalism can be viewed as a stepping stone for military engagement with sociocultural 

expertise resident in the academy; a tentative step toward collaboration between two poles; one emphasizing the production of knowledge for unity of purpose, 

the other, granular exposition of knowledge for no 

particular end. This theoretical model thus served as 

a platform for the military to move ahead in their conceptualization of the human terrain. Indeed, as Gezari 

notes, rather than a traditional military predisposition 

to amalgamating disparate elements such as “politics, economics, social organization or the ideas that 

people have in their heads,” unhelpful in explaining 

tribal systems, kinship organizations, religion, and the 

fact that “not all tribal systems are Islamic and not all 

of Islamic societies are tribal,” there was the necessity 

to make a distinction in order to “clearly explain to 

people in uniform what is going on downrange [in 

Iraq and Afghanistan].”131 Structural functionalism 

therefore offered an accessible academic language 

that could clarify the embedded work conducted by 

the HTTs, as well as engaging existing conceptual 

frameworks which the military enterprise was utilizing for assessment of social environments in which it 

operated. 

The bridge between theory and practice may require compromise. Teaching structural functionalism 

to model and make resonant the human environment 

in complex contested spaces is one such compromise. 

As McFate explains, structural functionalism “is predicated on looking at society as a holistic entity and the 

view that all parts are all elements of the society at 

some function” but importantly, it must be thought of 
96

as “a heuristic model, not as an accurate description. 

Some way in which to capture a bit of social reality and 

make it explicable to people who do not know what 

these words mean, it is not such a bad approach.”132

As much as a model is a compromise between clarity and detail, so the teaching of the model itself is a 

compromise. 

Social scientists on embedded teams thus represented a first attempt to bridge the gap between the 

academy and the military in person, albeit functioning amidst the high operational tempo of stabilization 

operations. To enable conversation and collaboration, HTS taught its recruits basic social theory, and 

tracked with structural functionalism by making 

“society” analytically distinct from “culture,” something which the military historically had not tended 

to do.133 Struggling to comprehend the character of the 

insurgencies developing in Iraq and Afghanistan, a 

structural functionalist interpretation of culture was 

the de facto lens through which to identify and understand societal constituents. Perhaps the model’s 

single greatest limitation was an absence of quantitative methods which allowed the statistical representation of data. This approach therefore foregrounded 

qualitative assessments of the environment in training which were subsequently brought into the field 

environments. Ultimately, however, a model is an abstraction of reality according to a certain conceptualization and that model can facilitate communication, 

learning, and analysis about relevant aspects of the 

underlying terrain provided that the categorization of 

that terrain is expressed in a language which enables 

understanding.

The model shows the divide between the contemporary academic setting and aspects of the teaching 
97

and training in the HTS program despite the possibility that structural functionalism may experience 

an evolving renaissance in scholarship more broadly, 

even beyond the confines of DoD. As shown by McFate, there is value in its application in a military 

setting. But as a misrepresentation of the contemporary paradigms of the discipline, the concerns of the 

American Anthropological Association’s commission 

regarding the narrative that the HTS is able to direct in 

DoD have some resonance:

The potential problem here is that, despite the fact 

that HTS is just one modest program, among many, to 

which anthropology might contribute in DoD—and in 

the security sector broadly conceived—its notoriety is 

shaping prevailing wisdom about what anthropology 

is and what the role of anthropology should be among 

military and security policymakers, in ways that might 

very well be to the detriment of everyone else, or other 

more constructive arrangements, collaborations, and 

ethical applications of anthropological practice and 

knowledge.134

Despite this tense historical engagement and 

contemporary setting against the backdrop of controversial conflicts, the program gained funding and 

expanded rapidly. Given the controversial nature of 

its existence and the granular critique from the American Anthropological Association, I ask why the U.S. 

Army embedded civilians in military units in Iraq and 

Afghanistan to conduct research using social science 

methods. In Chapter 3, I examine the origins of the 

program and its evolution into a proof-of-concept entity with a physical home at the U.S. Army Training 

and Doctrine Command (TRADOC). 
98

ENDNOTES - CHAPTER 2

1. I am indebted to Professor Anthony King for comments on 

an earlier draft of this chapter. 

2. Cited in Hugh Gusterson, “Anthropology and Militarism,” 

Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 36, 2007, p. 156.

3. Dustin M. Wax, “The Uses of Anthropology in the Insurgent Age,” John D. Kelly et al., eds., Anthropology and Global 

Counterinsurgency, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 

2010, p. 154.

4. Robert J. González, “Indirect Rule and Embedded Anthropology: Practical, Theoretical, and Ethical Concerns,” in Anthropology and Global Counterinsurgency, John D. Kelly et al., eds., Anthropology and Global Counterinsurgency, Chicago, IL: University of 

Chicago Press, 2010, p. 236.

5. Gusterson, “Anthropology and Militarism,” p. 156. 

6. Geoff Emberling, “Archaeologists and the Military in Iraq, 

2003-2008: Compromise or Contribution?” Archaeologies, Vol. 4, 

No. 3, 2008, p. 448.

7. Montgomery McFate, “Anthropology and Counterinsurgency: The Strange Story of their Curious Relationship,” Military 

Review, Vol. 85, No. 2, 2005, p. 29.

8. Montgomery Cybele Carlough, “Pax Britannica: British 

Counterinsurgency in Northern Ireland,1969-1982,” unpublished 

Ph.D. dissertation, New Haven, CT: Yale University, 1994, p. 28.

9. Cited in McFate, “Anthropology and Counterinsurgency,” 

p. 29.

10. Ibid.

11. Vanessa Gezari, The Tender Soldier: A True Story of War and 

Sacrifice, New York: Simon and Schuster, 2013, p. 122.
99

12. Priya Satia, Spies in Arabia: The Great War and the Cultural 

Foundations of Britain’s Covert Empire in the Middle East, New York: 

Oxford University Press USA, 2008.

13. Ibid., p. 5. See also Priya Satia, “The Defense of Inhumanity: Air control and the British idea of Arabia,” American Historical 

Review, Vol. 111, No. 1, 2006, pp. 16-51.

14. David Price, “Lessons from Second World War Anthropology: Peripheral, Persuasive and Ignored Contributions,” Anthropology Today, Vol. 18, No. 3, 2002, p. 14. 

15. Trevor J. Barnes, “Geographical Intelligence: American 

Geographers and Research and Analysis in the Office of Strategic Services 1941-1945,” Journal of Historical Geography, Vol. 32, 

2006, p. 150.

16. Gezari, p. 122.

17. Barnes, p. 150.

18. Ibid.

19. Ibid.

20. Ibid., p. 162.

21. Ibid., p. 157.

22. Cited in Price, “Lessons from Second World War 

Anthropology,” p. 16.

23. Ibid.

24. John D. Kelly, Beatrice Jauregui, Sean T. Mitchell, and Jeremy Walton, “Culture, Counterinsurgency, Conscience,” in John 

D. Kelly, Beatrice Jauregui, Sean T. Mitchell, and Jeremy Walton, 

eds., Anthropology and Global Counterinsurgency, Ann Arbor, MI: 

University of Chicago Press, 2010, p. 1. 

25. Allan Nevins, ed., The Strategy of Peace by John F. Kennedy, 

New York, Evanston, IL, and London, UK: Harper & Row, 1960.
100

26. Ibid.

27. Seymour J. Deitchman, The Best-Laid Schemes: A Tale of Social Research and Bureaucracy, Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1976, p. 2.

28. Ibid., pp. 2-3.

29. Ibid., p. 26.

30. I thank Dr. Robert Johnson for making this argument so 

eloquently. 

31. Deitchman, p. 117.

32. Sharon Weinberger, “The Pentagon’s Culture Wars,” Nature, Vol. 455, 2008, p. 585.

33. Deitchman, p. 158.

34. Ibid., pp. 240-245.

35. Hugh Gusterson, “’Militarizing knowledge,’ in Union [sic] 

of Concerned Anthropologists,” The Counter-Counterinsurgency 

Manual, Chicago, IL: Prickly Paradigm Press, 2009, p. 48, cited 

in Maja Zehfuss, “Culturally Sensitive War? The Human Terrain 

System and the Seduction of Ethics,” Security Dialogue, Vol. 43, 

No. 2, 2012, pp. 175-190.

36. Zehfuss, “Culturally Sensitive War?” p. 179.

37. Gusterson, “Militarizing knowledge,” pp. 48-49, cited in 

Zehfuss, “Culturally Sensitive War?” p. 179.

38. Zehfuss, “Culturally Sensitive War?” pp. 179-180. A fuller 

examination of codes of ethics as they related to historical events 

is in Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban and George R. Lucas Jr., “Assessing 

the Human Terrain Teams: No White Hats or Black Hats Please,” 

in Montgomery McFate and Janice H. Laurence, Social Science 

Goes to War, London, UK: Hurst, 2015, pp. 237-264. 
101

39. Robert Albro, interview by author, Washington, DC, 

August 14, 2013; Gezari, pp. 122-125.

40. Albro interview.

41. Ibid.

42. Deitchman, pp. 234-235.

43. Ibid., p. 336.

44. Dale Andrade and James H. Willbanks, “CORDS/Phoenix: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Vietnam for the Future,” 

Military Review, March-April, 2006, p. 14.

45. Ibid., p. 18.

46. Ibid., p. 20.

47. David Kilcullen, “Countering Global Insurgency,” Small 

Wars Journal, November 30, 2004.

48. Tom Hayden, “Meet the New Dr. Strangelove,” The 

Nation, July 7, 2008.

49. Kilcullen, p. 40.

50. Ibid.

51. Robert O. Tilman, “Non-lessons of the Malayan Emergency,” Military Review, 1966, p. 46, cited in Montgomery McFate, 

“The Military Utility of Understanding Adversary Culture,” Joint 

Force Quarterly, Vol. 38, 2005, p. 48.

52. Gusterson, “Anthropology and Militarism,” p. 157.

53. Wax, p. 163.

54. Albro interview.

55. Ibid.
102

56. Ibid.

57. Roberto J. González, “‘Human Terrain’: Past, Present 

and Future Applications,” Anthropology Today, Vol. 24, No. 1, 

2008, pp. 21-26.

58. González, “Indirect Rule and Embedded Anthropology,” p. 231.

59. Roberto J. González, “Anthropology and the Covert: 

Methodological Notes on Researching Military and Intelligence 

Programmes,” Anthropology Today, Vol. 28, No. 2, 2012, p. 24.

60. David H. Price, “Soft Power, Hard Power, and the Anthropological ‘Leveraging’ of Cultural ‘Assets’: Distilling the Politics 

and Ethics of Anthropological Counterinsurgency,” John D. Kelly 

et al., eds., Anthropology and Global Counterinsurgency, Chicago, IL: 

University of Chicago Press, 2010, p. 249.

61. See Maximilian C. Forte, “The Human Terrain System and 

Anthropology: A Review of Ongoing Public Debates,” American 

Anthropologist, Vol. 113, No. 1, 2011, p. 150.

62. Marc W. D. Tyrrell, “The Human Terrain System: Clashing Moralities or Rhetorical Dead Horses,” E-International Relations, February 5, 2012, available from www.e-ir.info/2012/02/05/

the-human-terrain-system-clashing-moralities-or-rhetorical-dead-horses/, accessed August 12, 2014.

63. Robert M. Gates, Speech to the Association of American 

Universities, Washington, DC, DoD.

64. Ibid.

65. Ibid.

66. For erroneous identification of 1968 as the first instance, 

see, for example, Richard M. Medina, “From Anthropology to 

Human Geography: Human Terrain and the Evolution of Operational Sociocultural Understanding,” Intelligence and National 

Security, 2014, p. 4.
103

67. Cited in González, “Indirect Rule,” p. 223.

68. I am indebted to Andrew Gawthorpe of the Defence Studies Department at King’s College London for pointing out this 

1967 use of the term and for providing a citation for the document. Both Helms and Rostow had worked for the Office of Strategic Services in World War II. 

69. Memorandum, Helms to Rostow, February 17, 1967, folder “Vietnam memos, A. Vol. 66,” Box 41, National Security File: 

Vietnam, Lyndon B. Johnson Library, Austin, Texas, p. 5.

70. Ibid.

71. Ralph Peters, “The Human Terrain of Urban Operations,” 

Parameters, Vol. 30, No. 1, 2000, pp. 4-12.

72. Montgomery McFate and Janice H. Laurence, “Introduction: Unveiling the Human Terrain System,” in Montgomery McFate and Janice H. Laurence, eds., Social Science Goes to War: The 

Human Terrain System in Iraq and Afghanistan,London, UK: Hurst, 

2015, p. 5.

73. González, “Indirect Rule,” p. 223.

74. Price, “Soft Power, Hard Power,” p. 250.

75. Ibid.

76. David Price, “Past Wars, Present Dangers, Future Anthropologies,” Anthropology Today, Vol. 18, No. 1, 2002, p. 3.

77. Ibid., p. 4.

78. David Price, “Lessons from Second World War Anthropology,” p. 19.

79. Steve Fondacaro, personal communication with author, 

September 15, 2015. 

80. Final Report on the Army’s Human Terrain System, Arlington, VA: American Anthropological Association, October 14, 

2009, p. 5; Zehfuss, “Culturally Sensitive War?” p. 177.
104

81. Dan G. Cox, “Human Terrain Systems and the Moral Prosecution of Warfare,” Parameters, Vol. 41, No. 3, 2011, p. 20; see, for 

example, Josef Ansorge, “Spirits of War: A Field Manual,” International Political Sociology, Vol. 4, No. 4, 2010, p. 372.

82. Christopher J. Lamb et al., Human Terrain Teams: An Organizational Innovation for Sociocultural Knowledge in Irregular Warfare, 

Washington, DC: Institute of World Politics Press, 2013, p. 119. 

83. Forte, “The Human Terrain System and Anthropology,” p. 

149; McFate, “Anthropology and Counterinsurgency,” pp. 24-38.

84. See, for example, Timothy de Waal Malefyt and Robert 

J. Morais, Advertising and Anthropology: Ethnographic Practice and 

Cultural Perspectives, New York: Berg, 2012.

85. I am indebted to Dr. Robert Albro for providing this 

important context on the aspects of the debate. 

86. Maximilian Forte, “A SPY IN OUR MIDST: Montgomery 

Sapone/Montgomery McFate,” Zero Anthropology, January 15, 

2013, available from zeroanthropology.net/2008/07/31/a-spy-in-ourmidst-montgomery-saponemontgomery-mcfate/.

87. Bronwen Lichtenstein, “Beyond Abu Ghraib: The 2010 

APA Ethics Code Standard 1.02 and Competency for Execution 

Evaluations,” Ethics and Behavior, Vol. 23, No. 1, 2013, pp. 67-70. 

88. David Price, “America the Ambivalent: Quietly Selling 

Anthropology to the CIA,” Anthropology Today, Vol. 21, No. 5, 

2005, p. 1; Roberto J. González, “We Must Fight the Militarisation of Anthropology,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, February 

2, 2007. 

89. Albro interview.

90. Commission on the Engagement of Anthropology with the US 

Security and Intelligence Communities: Final Report, Arlington, VA: 

American Anthropological Association, November 4, 2007, p. 10.

91. Ibid., p. 20.
105

92. Ibid. I am indebted to Dr. Robert Albro for providing this 

detailed account of the American Anthropological Association’s 

engagement with the HTS through this period. 

93. Ibid.

94. Ibid.

95. Albro interview; Executive Board Statement on the Human 

Terrain System Project, Arlington, VA: American Anthropological 

Association, October 31, 2007.

96. American Anthropological Association, Executive Board 

Statement on the Human Terrain System Project.

97. Ibid.

98. Albro interview.

99. Ibid.

100. American Anthropological Association, Final Report on 

the Army’s Human Terrain System, p. 3.

101. Ibid., p. 4.

102. Ibid., p. 3.

103. Ibid.

104. Ibid., p. 6. 

105. Ibid., p. 8.

106. Ibid., pp. 7-8.

107. Ibid., p. 11.

108. Nathan Finney, The Human Terrain Team Handbook, 

Fort Leavenworth, KS: TRADOC, 2008, p. 4, cited in American 

Anthropological Association, Final Report on the Army’s Human 

Terrain System, p. 19. 
106

109. American Anthropological Association, Final Report on 

the Army’s Human Terrain System, p. 6.

110. Ibid., p. 30.

111. Ibid., p. 24.

112. Ibid., p. 3.

113. Ibid., p. 36.

114. Ibid.

115. I am indebted to Dr. Nicholas Krohley for highlighting 

this point. 

116. Albro interview.

117. American Anthropological Association, Final Report on 

the Army’s Human Terrain System, p. 42.

118. Montgomery McFate, interview with author, August

1, 2013.

119. Ibid., p. 48.

120. Albro interview.

121. Robert Albro and Hugh Gusterson, “Commentary: ‘Do 

No Harm’,” C4ISR Journal, April 25, 2012, available from www.

defensenews.com/article/20120425/C4ISR02/304250001/Con,

accessed March 16, 2015.

122. Ibid.

123. Ibid.

124. I thank Dr. Robert Johnson for highlighting this issue. 

125. Price, “Soft Power, Hard Power,” p. 258. 
107

126. For a broad but excellent analysis of U.S. military engagement with sociology, see Chris Paparone, The Sociology of Military 

Science: Prospects for Postinstitutional Military Design, New York: 

Continuum, 2012.

127. Talcott Parsons, The Structure of Social Action, New York: 

Free Press, 1937, p. 77. 

128. Peter Hamilton, Talcott Parsons, Chichester, UK: Ellis 

Horwood, 1983, p. 45.

129. J. T. Dockery and A. E. R. Woodcock, eds., The Military 

Landscape: Mathematical Models of Combat, Cambridge, UK: Woodhead Publishing, 1993, cited in Carlough, pp. 21-22. The oscillating equilibrium model proposed by Edmund Leach is based 

on the structural functionalist approach in assessing society as 

composed of functional constituents prone to flux.

130. Gezari, p. 114.

131. Ibid.

132. McFate interview.

133. Ibid. 

134. American Anthropological Association, Final Report on 

the Army’s Human Terrain System, p. 51.

109

CHAPTER 3

FROM A MILITARY CRISIS

The prevailing orthodoxy asserts that Human Terrain System (HTS) is a counterinsurgency (COIN) 

tool created to provide sociocultural knowledge in 

that capacity. From the outside-in perspective, it is 

easy to link the social science research program to 

requirements for military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, outlined explicitly in Field Manual (FM) 3-24. 

Bluntly, the American Anthropological Association 

argued that the program performs a “tactical function 

in counterinsurgency warfare.”1 In their authoritative 

study, Lamb et al. argued that the population-centric 

approach to COIN required “protecting and eliciting 

cooperation from the population” and that “the principal instruments for delivering this understanding to 

[General David] Petraeus’ military forces in the field 

were Human Terrain Teams” (HTT).2 The problem in 

this reading is that if COIN was the solution, we must 

search for the problem to understand why the HTS 

was considered valuable. Examining only the solution 

will do nothing to inform evaluation of future contours in military planning. 

Searching for the problem, we run into difficulty. 

COIN is a diffuse concept, and there is no identified 

casus belli for the social sciences uptake, other than 

a general reading of two wars gone awry. Professor 

Hugh Gusterson, a critic of the conflicts, wrote that 

the national security apparatus took a “cultural turn” 

after “deciding that anthropology might be to the 

‘war on terror’, what physics was to the cold war.”3

The introduction of the COIN FM, suggests another 

scholar, was: 
110

a response to the near-implosion of Iraq, where an 

insurgency mutated into horrific communal violence, 

while the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) 

tries to navigate the tribal world of Afghanistan and a 

resurgent Taliban.4

Eminent political geographer Derek Gregory’s paper on the cultural turn, what he terms “the rush to 

the intimate,” notes that the interim COIN FM 3.07-22

released in 2004 was an “attempt to shore up the rapidly deteriorating situation” in Iraq.5

 For Gregory, the 

ensuing cultural turn was “a heterogeneous assemblage of discourses and objects, practices, and powers distributed across different but networked sites: a 

military dispositif if you prefer.”6

By the end of 2006, the George Bush administration simply ran out of ideas, according to a leading 

critic of the handling of the Iraq occupation that had 

supported the initial invasion.7 Fred Kaplan suggests 

it was driven by Petraeus and his “cabal” or “mafia”; 

graduates from the West Point Department of Social 

Sciences who adapted their enemies’ tactics to overhaul their own military and reorganize it for small 

wars.8 While critical of COIN doctrine, retired U.S. 

Army officer Ralph Peters notes that it is part of “a 

growing sense that the reality on the ground in Iraq 

and elsewhere contradicts the theories we were fed.”9

Theory driven approaches to this renewed emphasis on cultural understanding have been employed 

but produce different conclusions. Janine Davidson, 

writing as a leading author of the COIN FM, argued 

not for the why but for the how; employing organization theory to argue that there was a remarkable 

flexibility within the U.S. Armed Forces to respond 

to novel threats which enabled victory in Iraq and 

Afghanistan.10
111

Seen as a novel threat, it is unsurprising that deterioration in security in Iraq generated specific calls 

for a paradigm shift in military thinking to circumvent 

an apparent Cold War conventional warfighting paradigm which had proved unable to counter the insurgency patterns in the country. In 2004, COIN expert 

David Kilcullen called for “a new paradigm, capable 

of addressing globalized insurgency.”11 In 2005, Montgomery McFate placed the need for a transition into a 

historical trajectory, arguing that the end of the Cold 

War had altered the “nature of the enemy” and that 

globalization, failed states, and small arms proliferation required, “An immediate transformation in the 

military conceptual paradigm.”12 In 2006, Petraeus 

echoed earlier calls for a paradigm shift in thinking to 

combat the deleterious situation in Iraq.13 These calls 

built on identified requirements in the field: Major Michael S. Patton, speaking to The Washington Post from 

Baghdad in 2003 argued that the Iraq conflict was a 

new form of war where “Everyone is an intelligence 

officer—that’s sort of our theme. If you’re talking 

about a paradigm shift, this is it: You have to see everyone you come into contact with as having intelligence value.”14

Seen as part of this trend for cultural awareness, 

Human Terrain System was thus part of a cultural 

turn in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Paul Joseph, 

Professor of Sociology at Tufts University, in his 2014 

account asserts that the “very existence of the program’ reflected a trend in the Department of Defense 

for deeper understanding of operations “among people whose reactions to those operations will significantly influence, if not ultimately determine, success 

or failure.”15 For Joseph, it was part of a culture wave, 

during which “HTS emerged during this recogni-
112

tion of the need for greater cultural sophistication.”16

Other studies arrive at similar conclusions. The Center for Naval Analyses assessment of the HTS argued 

that the program was “intended to provide military 

decisionmakers in Iraq and Afghanistan with greater 

understanding of the local population’s cultures and 

perspectives.”17

In this chapter, I argue against the cultural turn in 

the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts catalyzing formation and of the HTS. Instead, I assert that the military 

crisis created by the improvised explosive device (IED), 

primarily in Iraq, engendered an “anything goes” approach to combatting the insurgency. I use Freedom 

of Information Act requests to obtain elements of the 

Joint Urgent Operational Needs Statements (JUONS) 

(see Appendix D for explicit linkage of HTS to the IED 

defeat fight) in order to deepen understanding of this 

evolution. Understanding of the character of this particular military crisis and the clamor for novelty it engendered is useful. It informs discussion on the manner in which peripheral ideas and projects can rapidly 

become the normal and accepted modes of thought in 

periods of military fragility.

The remaining piece of the puzzle is why the HTS 

departed the counter-IED (C-IED) enterprise and 

emerged into the broader COIN realm concerned with 

understanding the population. The answer is threefold; idealism, pragmatism, and pecuniary motives all 

contributed. First, the ascendant COIN theory in the 

Department of the Army allowed the HTS to develop 

as a nonkinetic asset which sat more comfortably with 

McFate’s vision for the future of the program than as 

a primarily C-IED tool. Second, the move was pragmatic; it fell into line with the work McFate was doing with Petraeus on the FM 3-24, which, especially in 
113

Chapter 3 (part of which had been written by McFate) 

could then be used to highlight to brigades what HTTs 

could offer.18 It was also easier to recruit civilians 

through a COIN narrative than a C-IED narrative, the 

latter being the largest cause of U.S. casualties in Iraq. 

Third, by mid-2007, when the U.S. Central Command JUONS was drafted by the program management, COIN doctrine, which sought a high profile 

in the U.S. media and received it, had emerged with 

powerful fathers. Petraeus, then commander of the 

Multi-National Corps-Iraq and General James N. Mattis, commander of 1 Marine Expeditionary Force were 

staunch advocates. With the HTS set for Iraq after a 

surge replaced the penciled draw-down of forces, linking the program to a scholarly, nonkinetic dimension 

of the COIN operations was the only game in town 

and in a crisis, “anything goes.” Begun in late-2005, 

HTS preceded the COIN push, but as it burgeoned, it 

became easy to transition the HTS, a C-IED tool, to the 

COIN fight. 

REVOLUTION AND EVOLUTION

HTS evolved to such an extent that by 2010 the 

Outreach Coordinator for the program stated that it 

was not in the program’s mandate “to pursue information related to insurgents, improvised explosive 

devices or other weapons employed by insurgent 

elements” but insecurity and its attendant manifest 

elements arise frequently in interviews with the local 

population, such that, ambiguously, “HTS teams only 

provide their unit with information related to IEDs 

and insurgent activity, if this information is provided 

to them, unsolicited [my italics], by the people they are 

interviewing.”19 It is the argument made in this chap-
114

ter that the IED was the lodestone which catalyzed 

need, funding, and ability to create the HTS. 

Given the controversy surrounding it and the 

many individuals involved in its genesis, the origins 

of the program are difficult to capture. Vanessa Gezari 

has made this assessment eloquently in writing:

The roots of the Human Terrain System are ambiguous 

and contested, stained with bad blood and accusations 

of impure motives, its origin myths embellished by 

ambitious and therefore potentially unreliable narrators who, nevertheless, each holds a piece of the story. 

Its elements evolved simultaneously and organically 

from various corners of the defense establishment and 

flourished in the atmosphere of ferment that grew out 

of the Army’s realization that it was losing the war in 

Iraq.20

Nevertheless, I use primary and secondary sources, 

including interviews with McFate and documentation 

obtained from Freedom of Information Act requests to 

construct a trajectory of the origin of the program and 

its relationship with the C-IED landscape. 

The crisis generated by the IEDs in Iraq created 

rich funding opportunities for myriad initiatives designed to counter the threat.21 In keeping with the 

military preference for technological solutions to 

mitigate emerging threats, there was an initial focus 

on technological solutions to combat IEDs; products 

which would fight, if not negate, the effects of the device itself. By 2006 with key personnel changes in the 

C-IED landscape and as the limitations of applying 

technological alone solutions became obvious, there 

was a shift in emphasis, if not focus, from combatting the device to attacking the network behind it, 

with consequentially increased importance placed on 
115

intelligence and social science research techniques in 

order to better understand the nature of the social networks in Iraq and Afghanistan. This shift is explored 

in two steps: first, an investigation of the evolution 

of attempts to combat the IED; second, an examination of the development of the HTS from the C-IED 

architecture. 

LETHAL AMBUSH

Giving a historical trajectory to the problem of 

the IED in Iraq and Afghanistan, Lieutenant General 

Thomas Metz told the House Armed Services Committee: “In its most fundamental form, the IED is a 

lethal ambush, and men have been ambushing their 

enemies for thousands of years.”22 Within the ambush, 

the IED has proliferated to become the weapon of 

choice to implement the tactic in Iraq and Afghanistan. The problems posed by IEDs today are six-fold: 

first, they require little or no physical confrontation 

with opposed forces; second, they are difficult to detect or counter with current technologies and their improvised nature means that they can be quickly modified to overcome countermeasures defined to defeat 

them; third, they prevent security on the ground and 

therefore inhibit reconstruction efforts; fourth, they 

do not require military hardware, instead often being 

assembled from nonmilitary products such as fertilizer; fifth, the inability to retaliate against the opponent 

responsible has a deleterious effect upon soldiers’ morale; and sixth, events against coalition forces appear 

on insurgent and terrorist websites. As such, the IED 

is a weapon that can have strategic impact, possessing 

the ability to deliver the goals of an insurgency by exerting considerable influence on popular perceptions 

of the conflict.
116

Following the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the IED 

was immediately the weapon of choice for insurgents 

because of the abundance of deteriorated munitions 

throughout Iraq following the fall of Saddam’s regime 

and its ease of manufacture, cost-effectiveness, and 

brutal effects. Its use evolved to such an extent that, 

by late-2003, there was already a crisis in military operations and only the first and second battles of Fallujah in 2004—in which there was small arms fire and 

close quarter combat—temporarily lessened the IED 

casualty rate as a percentage of overall fatalities. By 

December 2004, IED casualties accounted for half of 

all U.S. military casualties, and, by the following year, 

all major forms of IED were apparent in Iraq.23 Road 

side bombs had evolved early in the Iraq campaign as 

a way to exploit the relatively unprotected underside 

and lower sides of armored vehicles, especially the 

Humvee, and were conducted against the spectrum of 

coalition vehicles, including Abrams tanks.24 The explosively formed penetrator, which received particular media coverage as a technology possibly having 

been “brought” to Iraq by Iranian actors, was present 

as early as 2004.25 One study suggested that the explosively formed penetrator never accounted for more 

than 5 to 10 percent of the total number of IEDs detonated, but accounted for 40 percent of the casualties. 

Although the study does not define the time period, it 

demonstrates the capacity for the IED to cause widespread casualties.26

An absence of deep planning for the post-invasion 

scenarios meant that the IED threat was not provisioned for in the equipment spectrum of coalition 

forces. Without any specific C-IED technologies, U.S. 

troops improvised by “hanging armored vests on the 

doors of vehicles and placing sand bags on the floors 
117

of Humvees to absorb blasts.”27 Troops also began to 

use scrap metal to up-armor the vehicles for enhanced 

survivability. In June 2003, General John P. Abizaid, 

who had taken over from General Tommy Franks as 

Commander of United States Central Command, declared IEDs his “number one threat.”28 Franks had 

failed to envisage the rise of militias antagonistic to 

coalition forces and had appeared disconnected from 

the rapidly changing events on the ground. 

The powerbrokers in Iraq remained the Coalition 

Provisional Authority and Multi-National Force-Iraq, 

but Abizaid’s observations are valuable in being the 

distilled analyses from the situation in Iraq. Implicit in 

the appointment was a changing emphasis where intent lay less in coercing the population than winning 

them over. Abizaid was a fluent Arabic speaker who 

combined military experience with scholarly learning, 

and he had already indicated his desire for greater 

training for troops engaged in peacekeeping. Showing the awareness at the highest levels of the evolving insurgency, in a statement to the Senate Armed 

Services Committee in September 2003, Abizaid considered that U.S. forces in Iraq were already engaged 

in “a wide range of activities” including “counterinsurgency, counterterrorist, stability, and civil-affairs 

operations.”29

The primary modality of the evolving and increasingly violent insurgency was the IED. It was inevitable, given the scramble for additional armor being 

sought by military personnel, that the ensuing push 

for C-IED projects was orientated toward finding 

technological solutions. In October 2003, the United 

States Congress approved U.S.$572 million for more 

armored Humvees and U.S.$100 million for bolt-onarmor retrofits to existing vehicles.30 Yet armored 
118

Humvees provided only a minimal increase in protection because they had been designed to combat land 

mines, not the lateral blasts from many of the IEDs.31

The problem, however, was more than a technological 

one, as an unnamed senior Army officer noted; if the 

armor was increased, the insurgents would just build 

bigger and better IEDs.32 The admission hints at the 

psychological effects of the ubiquitous device in Iraq, 

as well as the ability of the insurgents to adapt to U.S. 

innovation with ease and develop cost-effective solutions to mitigate vastly superior U.S. technology.33

In parallel with the escalating IED crisis was an 

emerging identity to the campaign in Iraq. By March 

2004, Abizaid considered that U.S. forces were “waging a counterinsurgency against an enemy hiding 

within the population and operating without rules.”34

Explicit now was the military’s preoccupation with 

the IED, and Abizaid considered at this time that 

the central element of the COIN effort would be human intelligence collected through myriad initiatives, 

which would include the cultivation of the populace 

and its leaders.35 Yet, Abizaid did not link the IED to 

the COIN campaign; in combatting the former, he was 

a staunch advocate of rapidly deployed technological 

approaches to fight the device. At this stage and under this leadership, COIN and the IED were discussed 

largely in separation.

An absence of a single joint instruction to produce 

a blanket, unified C-IED strategy meant that units on 

the ground produced ad hoc tactics, techniques, and 

procedures as insurgent tactics evolved.36 Organizationally, the U.S. Army relied on the Rapid Equipping 

Force created in 2002 and the Operational Needs Statement which enabled combat commanders to bypass 

standard acquisition channels for materiel solutions 
119

by creating an urgent need. At this early stage, C-IED 

was still oriented toward materiel solutions aimed at 

defeating the device itself. The variation was most obvious between Armed Service components. 

Within the Marine Corps, initial C-IED efforts 

were based at the Marine Corps Combat Development Command, responsible for developing material 

needs.37 Requests for C-IED material to the Command 

accelerated from two in 2002 to eight in 2003 and 26 in 

2004. Of all requests to the Command during 2002-04, 

13 percent were for C-IED material.38 Conscious of the 

rising requests, in 2004 the Marine Corps established 

a C-IED cell which was later transferred to the Marine 

Corps Warfighting Laboratory, and during this period, the Urgent Universal Needs Statement was developed to allow rapid fielding of critical technologies.

Given the crisis unfolding and the lack of direction from the top of planning, myriad C-IED initiatives proliferated at the component services level. The 

Combined Explosives Exploitation Cell, established 

by the U.S. Army in 2003, performed physical, biometric, and tactical exploitation of evidence from IED 

attack scenes.39 The cell included early attempts to 

acquire biometric data and analysis of enemy tactics. 

In 2004, the Naval Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technology Division served as an administrative sponsor 

to the cell. The Technical Support Working Group 

was also involved in fielding technologies as part of 

the Combating Terrorism Directorate at the Joint Staff 

Operations Center. The Terrorist Explosive Device 

Analytical Center was formed in 2003 to investigate 

recovered IED components in order to provide actionable intelligence to coalition forces. According to officials, the center “focused on higher-level strategic 

issues rather than tactical ones” and thus shows the 

tactical and strategic threat posed by IEDs in Iraq.40
120

With the Army bearing the brunt of the IED fight, 

in October 2003, Lieutenant General Richard Cody, 

the Army’s Vice Chief, created the Army IED Task 

Force. Cody was acutely aware of the danger posed by 

the IED to coalition forces, calling the IED the “poor 

man’s cruise missile.”41 Cody nominated Brigadier 

General Joseph L. Votel, then Army Deputy Director 

for Information Operations, to head the nascent task 

force. With a budget of only U.S.$20 million allotted, 

this task force focused primarily on the cultivation of 

intelligence and, to that end, deployed small numbers 

of contractors (former Special Operations Forces) and 

officers to the field to investigate the IED landscape 

and make recommendations for best practices in the 

light of their findings. 

These suggested revisions to operational and 

training methods were sent back as lessons learned 

from field teams to a coordinating cell in Washington 

and relayed to the Army Center for Lessons Learned.42

The first team deployed to Iraq in December 2003, and 

in April 2004, another team went to Iraq and a first 

team was sent to Afghanistan. In addition, the organization communicated across the Armed Services and 

Department of Defense (DoD), finding some islands 

of technological expertise already in the structure, for 

example, at the U.S. Army Engineer School.43 An IED 

cell was established at the Army center for incorporating lessons into the training of outgoing troops in 

Iraq and deployed a very limited amount of C-IED 

technology.44 But with such a limited budget and no 

interservices authority, there was no scope beyond the 

relatively narrow remit afforded to it; its only option 

was to continue its major initiative to train soldiers on 

how to detect or avoid IEDs. 
121

At this time, Colonel Steve Fondacaro, who would 

later become the driving force behind development of 

the HTS, joined the Army IED Task Force headed by 

Votel. Fondacaro had known Votel from his time at 

the Army Rangers.45 Fondacaro was one of the officers 

sent to Iraq to head the field-deployed projects against 

IEDs which Lamb et al. note in their study, “were by 

far the largest cause of U.S. casualties in Iraq and the 

most prominent operational problem confronting U.S. 

forces there.”46 During his time in Iraq, Fondacaro was 

working in close proximity with Andrea Jackson, who 

had been assigned by the now-defunct Washington, 

DC-based public relations firm, the Lincoln Group, to 

work for Multi-National Corps-Iraq headquarters on 

the Cultural Preparation of the Environment (CPE) 

project.47

Diyala province was chosen for the proof-of-concept in part because prior research had been undertaken there for the Iraq Training Program. The project’s 

aim was to: 

provide commanders on the ground with a tool that 

will allow them to understand operationally relevant 

aspects of local culture; the ethno-religious, tribal, and 

other divisions within Iraqi society; and the interests 

and leaders of these groups.48 

It was thus through the C-IED architecture that key 

relationships in the HTS network began to develop. 

In addition, at a Booz Allen Hamilton event held in 

Tampa, Florida, in early-2005 that focused on how 

sociocultural knowledge could be employed to defeat 

the IED, McFate met Fondacaro, and they would begin to sketch the first outlines of what would become 

ultimately the HTS.49 The aim was to depart the C-IED 

landscape and to examine and understand the under-
122

pinning of the conflict, the “reason why the population were silent witnesses, passive and sometimes 

active supporters.”50 From Fondacaro’s experience in 

Iraq, notably with the JIEDDTF, focusing on the IEDs 

themselves “resulted only in minor incremental advantages that were very temporary, while the problem continued endlessly.”51

As the task force showed, there was an increasing 

need for information on the character of asymmetric 

threats and to deploy specialists to acquire the specific 

knowledge from the theater. Therefore, in order to advise commanders on methods for combatting irregular 

arranged adversaries, at the request of Army Operations staff engaged with the IED Task Force, an Asymmetric Warfare Group was nominally created in April 

2004. The group was termed the Asymmetric Warfare 

Regiment at conception, and was then redesignated 

the Asymmetric Warfare Group (AWG) in April 2006. 

In reality, the Army began organizing the AWG in 

January 2005 to be operational by the middle of that 

year.52 As early as March 2005, a part of the group already involved “Linkages to the warfighter [which] 

will be established through dedicated liaison teams to 

functional and geographic combatant commanders.”53

The model for the organization of the group included an operations squadron, the job of which was to 

“provide the trained and ready teams that deploy forward to collect, develop, and disseminate tactics, techniques, and procedures and observations.”54 Further, 

“The operations squadron will be able to provide liaison and staff integration with supported commands 

and will be capable of assisting deployed units in the integration and training of rapidly fielded countermeasures

[my italics].”55 A U.S. located training and assessment 

team trained personnel prior to their deployment into 
123

theater, and incorporated feedback from the forwarddeployed operations squadron into that training. 

These AWG teams consisted of military personnel 

and contractors, and deployed typically for periods of 

90-120 days. The establishment of the AWG indicated 

an important juncture had been reached in the fight 

against IED networks. The Army had decided that as 

well as a technological approach, there was clearly the 

necessity for specific expertise to low-intensity kinetic 

environments, and that it would go to some lengths 

to develop that capability. In a 2005 article, Brigadier General Votel and Lieutenant General James J. 

Lovelace concluded that conventional U.S. warfighting methods and technological solutions to the violent 

insurgency had been overrun in Iraq: 

Every new or improved capability, however, no matter how dominant, brings with it a whole new set of 

inherent vulnerabilities. A smart, resourceful enemy 

will seek out those chinks in his adversary’s armor 

and attack them with asymmetric means.56

Tellingly, the authors note that “A stark example of 

this is the current threat posed by improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in Iraq.”57 Among the required initiatives to fill existing gaps at this time was “adequate 

knowledge of indigenous cultures and availability of 

skilled linguists.”58

The task force and the AWG were Army-only solutions and did not capitalize on the strengths of all 

the services which were pursuing their own C-IED 

programs independently. The need for a coordinated 

department-wide effort led Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz on July 12, 2004, to establish the 

Joint Integrated Process Team (JIPT) in a 1-paragraph 

memorandum. The team would be the core of DoD 
124

efforts to combat the IED threat and would be led by 

the Army. As a consequence of this action, the Army 

IED Task Force became a Joint IED Task Force. The 

team was organized around and incorporated the existing Army IED Task Force but also pulled together 

the myriad existing initiatives within DoD, academy, 

and the private sector; the primary focus was on 

technology-based solutions.59 

CULTURAL PREPARATION 

OF THE ENVIRONMENT

In 2004, Lieutenant Colonel William Adamson returned from Diyala province, Iraq, to serve a joint tour 

in the Pentagon, having been a strong advocate for 

better understanding of the population in an area of 

operations. Adamson believed that military comprehension of civilian networks had been fundamental to 

securing local support among the population but that 

after leaving the area of operations, this knowledge 

had not been stored in a way that could be easily accessed by relief forces.60 Adamson and Dr. Hriar Cabayan, Chief Science Advisor for the Joint Chiefs of 

Staff J-3, thus worked at the Pentagon on development 

of a methodology to solve that problem across different areas of operations. At the same time, McFate 

had undertaken a project for Marine Corps Brigadier 

General Thomas D. Waldhauser, based on a need to 

understand the cultural environment in an area of operation, and which centered on interviewing Marines 

returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Waldhauser 

had participated in combat operations in southern Afghanistan and Iraq before returning to serve as Commanding General, Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory, and Deputy Commander, Marine Corps Combat 

Development Command, and thus was well-placed to 
125

sponsor small-scale investigations into the application 

of cultural layers to aid warfighting. 

When the project finished during 2004, McFate 

briefed the assessment around the Pentagon framed as 

a problem with the requirement to understand better 

the population in order to mitigate insurgent activity. 

It was this networking which brought McFate to the 

attention of Hriar Cabayan, as a suitable person for 

the project being developed with William Adamson. 

At that first meeting with Cabayan, Adamson, and 

project manager Nancy Chesser, the plan unveiled 

was the creation of a database called Cultural Preparation of the Environment, which would be designed by 

the MITRE Corporation.61 Significantly, the funding 

source was from the C-IED architecture; the Joint IED 

Task Force provided U.S.$1.2 million for the creation 

and testing of the device between 2004 and 2006. 

The network behind the IED was at this point unintelligible to U.S. forces operating in Iraq. The use of 

IEDs had proliferated as an effective ambush weapon, 

causing significant physical injury and impact upon 

morale. Any tool that promised to decipher these networks and decode the population was of immense 

utility in such an atmosphere. In 2005, Abizaid was 

given a demonstration of the Cultural Preparation of 

the Environment platform and observed that, with 

it, “we would know more about Iraq than we do the 

US.”62 As part of this database drive, McFate and Jackson wrote a briefing with notes which was sent to numerous individuals as part of the networking push, 

including the then-editor of the Military Review, on 

how to solve the sociocultural operational problems. 

The briefing was published as an article in the JulyAugust 2005 edition of that journal.63
126

It was that article which laid out the organizational dimensions for an HTS capability. In the words of 

McFate speaking retrospectively: “You need to have 

an entity that can do research in a war zone, that can 

advise military forces, that can conduct independent 

research, that can train,” and stressing the importance 

of historical models, McFate notes that she “was reading a lot at that time about the OSS [Office of Strategic 

Services] and the OSS structure” which influenced the 

thinking regarding structure.64 McFate and Jackson 

were tasked with developing taxonomies and ontologies for the data, and, to begin this process, McFate 

noted that it was necessary to “try to go back and not 

start from scratch; somebody, somewhere must have 

done something similar to this in the dim, distant 

past.”65 The research that was conducted was focused 

on templates in the civil affairs communities, organization in historically relevant models such as the Human Relation Area Files, because McFate could find 

no analogical models in existence after 1945. There 

were further complications because those files were 

organized differently as they concerned comparative 

analysis. McFate was not concerned with comparative 

analysis in an area of operations, but instead emphasized that the program envisaged “quick and dirty 

presentation of data in a way that a military officer 

could understand; not for social scientists.”66

McFate had already written about the organizational context of the IED social network. In the MayJune 2005 issue of Military Review, she painted the 

security landscape of the IED problem, noting their 

ubiquity and lethality, it was argued that while “U.S. 

defense science and technology communities have 

focused on developing technical solutions to the IED 

threat,” it must also be considered that: 
127

IEDs are a product of human ingenuity and social 

organization. If we understand the social context in 

which they are invented, built, and used we will have 

an additional avenue for defeating them.67

For McFate, a “shift in focus from the IED technology to IED makers requires examining the social environment in which bombs are invented, manufactured, 

distributed, and used.”68 Focusing on the bomb maker 

and their enabling social network would then require 

four areas of evaluation of the organization, the material procurement, and the surrounding population.

The IED network, shadowy and indistinct, was thus 

the terrain on which McFate could launch the need for 

an HTS capability. Based on sources, McFate argued in 

the article that IED production in Iraq stems from an 

Iraqi Intelligence Service (part of Saddam Hussein’s 

toppled regime) unit called M-21 (also known as the 

A1 Ghafiqi Project). In short, McFate concludes, “The 

ISS M-21 unit is a key reason the Iraqi insurgency is so 

adept at constructing IEDs,” providing a skeleton of 

the body of the nascent post-war insurgency.69 At this 

juncture, a specific date is highlighted—September 

2003—when the IED threat escalated because “IEDs 

became more sophisticated, evolving from simple suicide attacks to more complex remote-control, vehicleborne IEDs and daisy-chain IEDs using trip-wires.”70

The increasing sophistication over time indicated 

“that their design and construction has become a specialized function within the insurgency, rather than a 

dispersed function.”71

Thus September 2003 became a temporally identifiable crisis point in the escalation of IED use to which 

no solution had yet been created. This meant in con-
128

clusion that “identifying the bombmakers must be an 

absolute priority.”72 To that end, the bomb making 

organization must be analyzed because, “Members 

of insurgent cells operate part-time and blend back 

into the civilian population when operations are complete.”73 The presence of foreign fighters aside, McFate argues that the “majority of insurgents are native 

Iraqis connected to each and to the general population by social networks and relationships. The most 

important social network in Iraq is the tribe.” Indeed, 

“The tribes provide money, manpower, intelligence, 

and assistance in escape and evasion after an attack.”74

But theory was complicated by practice; work on 

the taxonomy for the Cultural Preparation of the Environment tool designed to identify the tribal network 

behind the bomb maker was complicated by the nascent networks being developed which were essentially alien to those involved; at that time, the Tactical Ground Reporting System was being developed 

by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency; 

the Combined Information Data Network Exchange, 

a tactical reporting database, which would become 

critical to the proliferation of HTS products in the 

field had not yet been created, while Palantir and the 

Distributed Common Ground System-Army were not 

widely utilized. 

The result was that the project managers were “operating blind” in the creation of categories for the data, 

after which the MITRE Corporation, the contractors 

for Cultural Preparation of the Environment, created 

the interface.75 The data call for that system was unsuccessful, with requests from different agencies on number and structure of tribes in Diyala province bringing wide variation in answers. The absence of deep, 

robust information about the province was indicative 
129

of a wider problem in the intelligence community, to 

which, as McFate explains, the solution was to: 

do the research on the ground. And when you are talking about Iraq and Afghanistan these are societies that 

have been closed to social science research for about 30 

years, more or less and mostly it has never been done 

at the very granular level that we were being asked to 

look at.76

These closed societies would also mean finding 

subject matter experts to deploy later in the HTS was 

an extremely arduous, if not impossible, task. 

As this Cultural Preparation of the Environment 

tool was beginning to be field tested, the pronounced 

impact of the IED was foregrounded in the American 

media sphere. By the end of 2004, there were detailed 

reports of the IED crisis; a prominent Chicago Tribune

article in October noted that over half of the more than 

8,600 war casualties were caused by the “low-tech” 

IED threat.77 In public, Votel conceded that there was 

a lack of intelligence about how the adversaries’ IED 

network was structured. Asked in a National Public 

Radio interview if the threat originated from a unified 

command structure, Votel responded that there were 

probably different groups which were united only in 

a common goal to oust U.S. forces, and he could only 

assume that these disparate elements were sharing 

intelligence with each other.78

This is the military problem that we have been 

searching for in this chapter, for which the C-IED 

was the ascendant solution. In identifying the trajectory of the expanding problem, we are able to chart 

the rise of the nontechnological solutions to the IED 

threat, of which the HTS was to become a high-profile example. The stark gap in knowledge about the 
130

insurgents that were escalating their use of the device 

was pronounced. It was also difficult to cover up. In 

2005, Votel conceded that predicting the number of 

attacks by the enemy in the following year would be 

difficult, because he was “not sure he knows enough 

about their capabilities.”79 Votel obscured discussions 

that the use of technology might defeat the IED blasts 

in Iraq because they had so far proved ineffective. Instead, Votel asserted that greater efforts must be made 

to track the perpetrators and cells behind the atrocities.80 A World Tribune article from the same month 

observed: “Officials said the army appears to have 

reached a stalemate in the war against IEDs.”81

Without obvious solutions to the IED, Gordon England, Deputy Secretary of Defence, who had replaced 

Paul Wolfowitz in June 2005, recommended evolving 

Wolfowitz’ Joint IED Task Force into a Joint IED Defeat Task Force. The difference between the two entities is a small but important one for identification of 

the evolution of the C-IED enterprise as the latter now 

assimilated the Force Protection Working Group and 

the Joint Integrated Process Team. England formerly 

had been Secretary of the Navy and in that capacity 

in 2004 had met with senior government scientists, 

agreeing upon the need for a comprehensive approach 

to combat the IED threat. In the new iteration of the 

C-IED enterprise, a spectrum of solutions would be 

sought, and, because of the existential threat to the 

military venture posed by the crisis, funding could 

circumvent traditional DoD bureaucracy. 

Retired General Montgomery Meigs was appointed the first director of the new task force, reporting 

directly to Deputy Director England. Meigs held a 

doctorate in history from the University of WisconsinMadison and had been an International Affairs Fellow 
131

at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; therefore, he was ideally suited to fuse an academic approach with practical approaches to warfighting. His 

academic work had focused on the hybridization of 

civilian expertise and military initiatives. Meigs’ 1982 

doctoral thesis was titled “Managing Uncertainty: 

Vannevar Bush, James B. Conant, and the Development of the Atomic Bomb, 1940-1945.” In the thesis, 

Meigs argued that civilian expertise had been vital to 

solving complex military problems which threatened 

national security.

In 2003, Meigs published an article on asymmetric 

warfare in the U.S. Army journal, Parameters, in which 

he noted that to “isolate al-Qaeda’s true advantage, 

we should begin with a look at the historical roots of 

asymmetric warfare.”82 Framing the current confrontation as one of permanent ambush, Meigs argued 

that, in Afghanistan, the situation now resembled one 

which is characteristic of the situation faced by Afghan fighters throughout the centuries: “a relatively 

conventional military force on the ground attempting 

to chase down groups and individuals almost invisible in the native culture and terrain.”83 On beginning 

his appointment with the Joint IED Task Force on December 12, 2005, Meigs brought with him Maxie McFarland, the Deputy Chief of Staff, G-2, at the Training 

and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), with an immediate but temporary responsibility to increase the intelligence capability of the task force. In 2005, McFarland 

had authored an influential article in Military Review 

entitled “Military Cultural Education,” which stressed 

the need for lessons learned to be transported back to 

the United States. As part of his remit, Meigs travelled 

to Iraq and Afghanistan, and McFarland travelled 

with him. Earlier, Meigs had expressed the need to develop investigative skills in forward operating roles.84
132

Fondacaro was head of the JIEDDTF-Iraq. At the 

time of his deployment there, he considered that an 

information technology revolution of the past 30 years 

meant that narratives rather than technology were key 

to victory; “Perception truly now is reality, and our 

enemies know it. We have to fight on the information 

battlefield.”85 He considered himself a “radical” who, 

in revolutionizing the way the war in Iraq would be 

conducted, required the help of academics, specifically, social scientists because it was necessary to go beyond incremental gains which could be made against 

the effects of violence and look closely at the causes, 

the “human terrain” as he termed it.86 Yet, Fondacaro 

identified problems with the Cultural Preparation of 

the Environment capability: brigade staffs were already overloaded with technologies for which they 

had no time to learn how to utilize; there was also 

a lack of sufficient baseline knowledge allowing the 

military to most efficiently use the information; and 

there was a marked absence of social scientists to produce valuable cultural knowledge.87 It was to address 

these shortcomings that McFate and Jackson produced their briefing published in the Military Review. 

The result of the field test, however, was that the CPE 

tool was returned to the C-IED enterprise and as a tool 

the conclusion was that it lacked utility. As Fondacaro 

explains, “It was not granular enough, was not timely, 

the information sources for its content varied wildly. 

It was clear the unit had to do its own research, in its 

own AOR [Area of Responsibility] for the content to 

be relevant and usable.”88 

Despite the increased budget and raised profile, 

a DoD official interviewed by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) suggested that, by 2006, the 

temporary status of the Joint IED Task Force made 
133

attracting and retaining qualified personnel difficult.89 This meant that working for the organization 

was fraught with professional uncertainty, making 

it difficult to recruit experienced personnel with the 

desired expertise. A temporary status for an organization which was central to combatting the crisis in Iraq 

was clearly unacceptable. Plans were already underway at the Office of the Deputy Secretary of Defense 

in late-2005 to make the organization permanent, 

which was achieved in February 2006 with DoD Directive 2000.19E, turning the task force into a permanent 

entity and jointly manned activity of the department. 

Renamed the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO), the permanent structure 

now had a budget of U.S.$3.7 billion. This budget was 

delivered, according to one official, “with the intention to provide the institutional stability necessary to 

attract and retain qualified personnel.”90

The establishment of that new organization was arranged in the absence of DoD having formal guidance 

for establishing joint organizations but rather developed through conversations between high-level officials in various departments and services. The ad hoc 

construction of the new organization, JIEDDO, along 

with its considerable budget, undertaken through 

informal channels and without official guidelines to 

implement a joint organization, demonstrated the flyby-wire nature of the C-IED project and the ample 

resources allocated to it because of the nature of the 

IED crisis. That its sui generis procurement system 

was necessary also more broadly highlighted existing 

difficulties in the acquisition system which were not 

solved during the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. Importantly for the development of HTS, programs seeking JIEDDO funding were likewise largely configured 
134

without official oversight. In addition, Fondacaro had 

finished a tour for the organization and thus had credibility for program funding based on findings in the 

field. For funding, to rapidly field capabilities, only 

programs requiring over U.S.$25 million required annual briefings to the Deputy Secretary of Defense’s 

Senior Resource Steering Group.91 (See Figure 3-1.)

Source: Government Accountability Office, Washington, DC.

Figure 3-1. Evolution of C-IED Organizations 

Versus IED incidents in Iraq.

The organization had specific instruction from 

DoD to sponsor a spectrum of potential capabilities. 

While focus was on technology-based solutions, it 

could approve “some counter-IED initiatives without 

vetting them through the appropriate service counterIED focal points because the process allows the organ-
135

isation to make exceptions if deemed necessary and 

appropriate.”92 In practice, this meant that the Director of JIEDDO C-IED training center could “make 

exceptions when training requirements and training 

support activities need to be accelerated to meet predeployment training requirements.”93 Such was the 

parallel importance of knowledge in the C-IED landscape that the organization bypassed its acquisition 

process by working directly with individual service 

units and organizations to address specific capability 

gaps.94

According to Vincent T. Clark of the U.S. Navy, 

JIEDDO was specifically created to “circumvent the 

bureaucratic processes of the Services.”95 Clark wrote 

of a “paradigm shift” in bureaucratic procedure, particularly in budgeting, allowing previous obstacles 

to be surmounted.96 The organization worked with 

TRADOC to establish the Joint Training CounterImprovised Explosive Device Operations and Integration Center. Although this went ahead without input 

from the Army’s Asymmetric Warfare Office and sat 

uneasily with the Army’s existing C-IED initiatives, 

it demonstrates the broad and strong development 

of a doctrinal aspect to counter the threat. McFarland 

had brought the idea for the center back from his 

work with the JIEDDTF, but it struggled for funds, as 

Fondacaro notes.97

In early-2006, Abizaid conceded in testimony before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense that the IED was the “perfect asymmetric weapon” and “the single greatest source of our casualties,” 

being “the enemy’s most effective weapon.”98 The insurgency, however, was not easily defined, and, consequently, knowledge about the nature of the adversary in Iraq remained acutely inchoate. IEDs, Abizaid 
136

continued, were a “strategic threat,” seemingly ubiquitous, adaptable, and continually augmented in their 

lethality.99 At this point the U.S. Central Command focused its intelligence efforts on the IED challenge.100 So 

great was the crisis that Abizaid stressed it was necessary to “mobilize our country’s resources, both military 

and civilian [my italics], to better understand the region 

and the extremist enemies we face.”101 In a prepared 

statement before the House Armed Services Committee in November 2006, Abizaid emphasized the need 

in Iraq to invest in “more manpower and resources 

into the coalition military transition teams, speed the 

delivery of logistics, and mobility enablers.”102 Echoing the need for nonorganic additions to the military 

enterprise to assist in understanding, General Michael 

Maples, Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, 

in a Senate hearing on Iraq and Afghanistan in that 

same month, described the situation in Iraq as “unquestionably complex and difficult.”103

FOREIGN MILITARY STUDIES OFFICE

With Cultural Preparation for the Environment 

running into problems both with information and 

data presentation at TRADOC, Maxie McFarland, who 

both McFate and Andrea Jackson had known previously, asked McFate to participate in Unified Quest, 

the Army wargame run at the command. McFate and 

McFarland also met with John Agoglia, Director of 

the U.S. Army Peacekeeping and Stability Operations 

Institute at the U.S. Army War College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in Fort Monroe, Virginia, to discuss the basic 

idea of an HTS-type capability. With Andrea Jackson, 

McFate followed up with McFarland at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and McFarland noted that TRADOC 
137

was well-placed to develop an HTS capability within 

the Foreign Military Studies Office (FMSO). 

Dr. Jacob Kipp, Karl Prinslow, Lester Grau, and 

Captain Don Smith, members of the FMSO, were then 

directed by McFarland to audit the weekly video teleconferences for the CPE capability where Fondacaro 

was briefing for small teams of experts to be embedded with brigades to offer a solution, instead of the 

tool which had notable shortcomings. All four men 

possessed expert knowledge of the Soviet experience 

with fighting Afghan and Chechen warriors, and the 

problems the Russians encountered fighting irregular 

conflicts in both countries.104 Indicative of these professionals’ expertise in identifying military capability gaps, in 1987, Lester Grau quoted Soviet General 

Shkirko on their Chechen experience, that the Soviets:

did not have a war which had been expected, for which 

the troops and staffs were preparing, which had been 

studied in academies and planned accordingly, and 

which would have complied with regulations and 

field manuals.105

Don Smith, in particular, was enthusiastic about the 

idea of an HTS capability and met with McFate at Fort 

Leavenworth, where Smith expressed interest in taking the idea forward, which seemed logical to McFate, 

“Because this is something that has to happen in the 

military,” and he was a uniformed military officer.106

Cultural Preparation of the Environment was drawing to a conclusion, absent requisite funding and posting results of no value from the field. 

The CPE tool, one of the many technologies Fondacaro oversaw in Iraq, was “chewed and regurgitated” data when what was required was “information 

that was a couple of days old.”107 The CPE, basically a 
138

laptop with data entered, was irrelevant, because the 

brigade commanders were already “drinking from 

a firehose turned on full blast” with databases and 

technologies from the PRT, the CIA, and myriad other 

entities, when what the commander needed was: 

living people, humans, on my staff, on my team . . . 

I need someone on my team doing research, going 

out on operations every day, explaining the granular 

problems I have and then telling me the recommendations they have in terms of Courses of Action. I need 

them to do all this work.108

As interest moved to an HTS capability of deployed social scientists as a successor to the poorly 

performing Cultural Preparation of the Environment, 

there were questions as to where it would sit in the 

military architecture, as the Joint Chiefs of Staff, J-3, 

home to Hriar Cabayan, lacked the ability to run joint 

programs. Personnel who worked on the CPE were 

meeting with different entities which possessed the 

capability to stage the HTS prototype, including the 

State Department Humanitarian Information Unit in 

March 2005, the Army Civil Affairs and Psychological 

Operations Command in June 2005, and the Marine 

Corps Intelligence Activity in July 2005, all of which 

refused. The FMSO then suggested that the capability 

could be housed with them at TRADOC.109 Cabayan 

was sceptical of the FMSO arrangement, considering 

the office to be best suited to long-range analysis.110 In 

addition, the most enthusiastic member of the FMSO, 

Don Smith, was only a captain, and it was uncertain if 

he possessed the stature to consolidate the program. 

However, Cabayan’s Strategic Multi-Layer Assessment Group at the Pentagon agreed to transition the 

Cultural Preparation of the Environment capability 
139

to the FMSO for further development into an HTS 

prototype in February 2006; the CPE capability was 

the hardware which would come to form mapping 

the human terrain (MAP-HT).111 Fondacaro, who had 

been a Joint IED Defeat Task Force commander in Iraq 

from 2005-06 and thus well known to McFarland, was 

transitioning to retirement when the HTS capability 

came up. This was also a meeting of minds; McFarland had been brought into the task force when Meigs 

began his appointment on December 12, 2005—while 

retaining his role at TRADOC—and with an immediate responsibility to increase the intelligence capability of the task force. McFarland had also been present 

at the Baghdad briefings to Meigs by Fondacaro and 

Jackson.112

McFarland could act in a supervisory capacity for 

the FMSO program, and lacking viable, funded alternatives for the program as envisaged, the idea of developing a possible HTS prototype became integrated 

into the remit of the office. If the COIN requirement 

was so pronounced, there would have been a clamor from different entities in the Department of State 

and DoD to fund the program. There was no clamor, 

but at the FMSO, the particular areas of expertise of 

the staff gave them a heightened awareness of culture and sociocultural knowledge in stabilization 

operations, and: 

how it impacts not just decision-making at the highest 

levels, but down to the tactical level. And we saw this 

in Afghanistan in the [19]80s. That knowledge bled 

through everything the Foreign Military Studies Office did in the creation of HTS in the beginning—those 

guys’ ability to understand different how perspectives 

impacted on warfighting was vitally important to 

where the programme came from.113
140

By April 2006 the FMSO team had a draft design 

for the HTS program, which was published in Military 

Review.

114

Through his work with the C-IED initiatives, McFarland had seen firsthand in Iraq the necessity to 

move “left of bang,” and to do that would require enhancing cultural awareness not only on the ground but 

in a pedagogic capacity.115 McFarland was uniquely 

placed within the architecture of TRADOC as its G-2 

Intelligence chief, and had seen firsthand the requirements for sociocultural information on the ground 

to enable such a transformation. McFarland created 

a steering committee for what was now termed the 

Cultural Operations Research-HTS prototype in July 

2006. Smith and Fondacaro continued to attempt to 

procure funding for the program now that it had a 

physical home, but, as McFate explains of DoD budget 

allocation: 

it’s not like venture capital in the civilian world where 

you’ve got a widget and you’re going to go out and 

meet some guys in the Silicon Valley, and they are going to pony up $2 million. There is no one place in the 

Pentagon to go if you want to raise money so basically 

you just have to go meet as many people as you can, 

and this is what they were doing.116

In addition, as Fondacaro explains, at this point 

there was a “solid plan to operationalize HTS,” and 

Dr. Robin Keesee, the Deputy JIEDDO Director, who 

approved the initial funding, was a human dynamics 

engineer that Fondacaro had previously employed on 

his team when he was running the Objective Force 

Soldier Study for General Eric Shinseki, Chief of Staff 

of the Army, when Fondacaro was a brigade commander in 2002.117 Being the end of the Fiscal Year 
141

also worked in their favor; with unspent money in 

departments which could be spent quickly on unfulfilled requirements.118 At the same time, they made a 

proposal for funds to JIEDDO for a U.S.$20.4 million 

five-team proof of concept and, with neither permanent office space nor training facilities, began the first 

HTT training with those funds.119 The funding proposal for Cultural Operations Research-HTS therefore 

came from the C-IED enterprise. During this time and 

as part of this process, while expecting the proposal 

to move forward, the FMSO developed the prototype 

at TRADOC. They used reservists to assemble two 

field teams and two research teams, spending an estimated U.S.$700,000 in salaries and materiel. While the 

office lacked sufficient funds to deploy a team, training could begin.120 It is unclear, however, where the 

U.S.$700,000 came from and may have formed part of 

the standard assigned salaries to the reservists as part 

of their active duty tour, paid wherever they deployed 

and thus not part of an HTS project per se but part of 

a budget which already existed.

Instructively, it was also JIEDDO which set the 

original proof-of-concept objectives in 2007: to provide 

brigade information and knowledge; to minimize loss 

in continuity between incoming and departing units; 

to archive cultural information to enhance operational 

effectiveness; and to maximize effectiveness of operational decisions by harmonizing courses of action with 

target area cultural knowledge.121 In this original iteration for the proof-of-concept, there was no mention of 

interaction with the host population, and no allusion 

to COIN doctrine, despite it being an ascendant trope 

in policy. JIEDDO wanted the capability to provide 

cultural expertise to enhance operational effectiveness. 

But the physical home at TRADOC, cautioned against 

by Cabayan, was still problematic. Ultimately, in 
142

retrospect, Fondacaro observes that TRADOC “doesn’t 

operationalize anything” and had no existing funds to 

develop the HTS concept itself, so that the priority for 

the longevity of the idea was: 

to get it started, because if you gain credibility, if you 

gain support, then you figure out where it is supposed 

to go. But there is no Department of Good Ideas in the 

Pentagon; there’s no place like that. JIEDDO was as 

close as you could get to a new ideas funding source. 

And I had credibility there.122

 

Within a very short period after AF1 deployed to 

Afghanistan, The Multi-National Corps-Iraq JUONS 

was generated. This statement created a requirement 

for five teams to deploy to Iraq by mid-2007, the refreshing of AF1 as an enduring team, and 13 further 

teams and four Human Terrain Analysis Teams, the 

latter serving at the division level. This statement effectively jettisoned the original blueprint for a 2-year 

proof-of-concept program. The HTS was always an ad 

hoc program “to see what works, so we had, it was 

like ‘It’s an experiment, it’s an in-situ experiment, I 

love grounded theory. Let us see what works’.”123 But 

after the JUONS, the HTS, instead of testing, experimenting, and analyzing these teams over time would 

be forced to create an entirely new enduring capability and thrust them into the field. In the words of Fondacaro: “We were building this plane in flight, that is 

what the JUONS did to us.”124 This new requirement 

marked a distinct evolution in the program; from the 

experimental, ad hoc nature of AF1, to a deliberate effort to replicate AF1 with the five teams in Iraq, as well 

as backfilling people into AF1.

The creation of the JUONS meant that Fondacaro, as program manager, met with the Joint Rapid 
143

Acquisition Cell (JRAC) to determine whether to “fill 

or kill” the HTS capability; to designate it as an Immediate Warfighter Need.125 The JRAC is instructive 

in the sense of building innovation through crisis; 

established in September 2004, it was, in Fondacaro’s 

words as someone who briefed successfully to it, one 

of the “rapid workarounds created by the war.”126

The brief had to explain that without the capability 

there was risk of mission failure and put soldiers’ lives 

at stake. As a result of the meeting, Fondacaro was 

promised U.S.$16 million, which was later expanded 

substantially, as part of organizations making surplus 

budgets available to the proof-of-concept program. 

A program brief from May 2007 notes that the 

Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence had developed a Surge Support Initiative in February 2007 

that “recommended redirecting and expanding HTS 

to support operations in Iraq (Baghdad)” and that requests for HTTs had come from Command Groups of 

the 10th Mountain Division; II Marine Expeditionary 

Force; 1 Cavalry Division/III Corps; 82nd Airborne 

Division; Special Operations Command, Pacific; and 

the 4th Infantry Division.127 At the same time as this 

rapid expansion into the combat brigades, Fondacaro 

had an ongoing, broader plan to transition the capability into a strategic one, housed at the Humanitarian Information Unit at the Department of State. The 

program creators initially had funding for the HTS 

capability turned down by the unit, but maintained 

engagement with the Department of State for funding 

and integration. 

The briefing for CENTCOM and Multi-National 

Corps-Iraq in mid-2007 also included the raw results 

of two 10-person focus groups conducted by the Lincoln Group in Baghdad in June 2006, which “resulted 

in an increased understanding of opinion in Baghdad 
144

about several of the main issues facing the Coalition 

in Iraq” and the “participants expressed the opinion 

that the Iraqi government is weak or non-existent.”128

It was this understanding of the popular perception 

in the areas in which coalition forces fought that was 

seen as pivotal to winning against the insurgency. The 

briefing was also to include raw results from 34 interviews entitled “Mahdi army” which asked unnamed 

cases 77 questions ranging from demographics to perception of the insurgency. 

In addition, a “Social Science Research and Analysis: Implementation Plan for Baghdad” presentation 

from Andrea V. Jackson, who had been Director of 

Research at the Lincoln Group and was a consultant 

to the HTS, proposed conducting in eight districts of 

Baghdad 1,500-person random sample surveys; 40 interviews with members of each militia; 40 interviews 

with members of each ethno-religious group; one set 

of two focus groups (one male, one female); and observational research based on a research question.129

It was this aspect of the presentation from the work 

done by the Lincoln Group, which created the Social 

Science Research and Analysis (SSRA) element of the 

HTS program and which commenced in both Iraq and 

Afghanistan in 2008, subcontracted to Glevum Associates by BAE Systems. The SSRA Research and Analysis Management Team used indigenous contractors 

to conduct polling, surveys, focus groups and semistructured interviews of the population on a variety 

of issues which could be useful in understanding and 

countering insurgencies, conducting quantitative and 

qualitative analysis of the results. 

Against the backdrop of this initial and detailed 

assessment of what could be provisioned in order 

to fill a capability gap, the concept and the program 

developed robust support. As the teams were sent 
145

to Iraq and Afghanistan, their positive and negative 

effects on the brigades could be assessed, and also 

briefed. It was this ongoing, iterative process which 

allowed feedback on outcomes. On January 8, 2009, 

for example, Congressman Tim Baird, Chairman of 

the Science and Education Committee, set up a meeting which included Ike Skelton, Chairman of the 

Armed Service Committee; Tim McClees, Staff Director for the Subcommittee on Terrorism; and Mike 

Warren, an HTT leader. The meeting was a chance to 

outline the capabilities of an HTT to Skelton as well as 

existing shortcomings, and Skelton highlighted that, 

in his opinion, the capability should be expanded to 

Combatant Commands beyond CENTCOM, and that 

he wanted to assist with resourcing, when the Army 

identified requirements.

The solution to the capability gap offered by the 

HTS resonated further; across coalition partners in Afghanistan, where the complex social patterns required 

intricate understanding of the population in order 

to engage it effectively. From January 8 to January 

9, 2009, Fondacaro and McFate met with representatives from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s 

Joint Force Command, and the Strategic Communications Advisor, Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, to discuss integrating an HTS capability into the command structure in Afghanistan. The 

Joint Force Command were “unclear exactly what 

they desire” and ultimately for the HTS, it was “not 

clear what the support expectation from ISAF [International Security Assistance Force] actually is.”130

Additionally, the HTS program also engaged with 

the NATO Tiger Team to examine ways in which the 

role of culture could be integrated into interagency 

intelligence procedures. 
146

CONCLUSIONS

Speaking in the throes of revolution, Abraham 

Lincoln observed: 

The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the 

stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case 

is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must 

disenthrall ourselves.131

Crises are existential threats which exert intolerable pressures upon the status quo. There is a necessity 

in the throes of a crisis to think anew and act anew. 

After the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, military resistance proliferated to the extent that an examination 

of the enemy and the population in which they operated could not be ignored. 

Despite its immense size, the intellectual tools and 

the experts necessary to understand the character of 

the human terrain at the granular level on the ground 

were absent from the military enterprise. That capability gap required prompt action: as Robert Gates 

argued at the National Defense University on September 29, 2008, “No one should ever neglect the psychological, cultural, political, and human dimensions 

of warfare.”132 To that end, the expertise found in the 

intellectual reservoir of the academy was considered a 

necessary and immediate addition to the warfighting 

effort because the military structure did not possess a: 

deeply rooted constituency inside the Pentagon or 

elsewhere for institutionalizing the capabilities necessary to wage asymmetric or irregular conflict—and 

to quickly meet the ever-changing needs of forces 

engaged in these conflicts.133
147

Future planning for irregular warfare had been 

proceeding in the periphery of military thought 

throughout the post-Vietnam era, but by 2006, Petraeus could suggest that the complex insurgencies experienced in Iraq and Afghanistan would become the 

central modality of conflict in this new century.134 The 

pivot in planning was borne directly from a perceived 

necessity to understand the character of the adversary 

in order to attack the network behind the IEDs. The 

ensuing need to understand the terrain on a cultural level stood in marked contrast from the hubristic 

beginnings of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM in which 

there was “a relative lack of concern by the President 

and the top military leadership” regarding Iraqi culture and consultation with academic experts.135 In the 

HTS in particular, there was an identified requirement to “understand the cloak in which the insurgent 

wrapped himself in: the population.”136 Focusing on 

the insurgent would lead to collateral damage and 

popular support for the insurgency. If the population’s needs were met, the insurgents can be exposed 

and isolated.137

Early in his military career, Petraeus ghost-wrote a 

Parameters article for Southern Command commander 

General John Galvin.138 In it, Petraeus observed the 

conditions necessary for a shift in emphasis in military 

thinking: 

We arrange in our minds a war we can comprehend on 

our own terms, usually with an enemy who looks like 

us and acts like us. This comfortable conceptualization becomes the accepted way of seeing things and, 

as such, ceases to be an object for further investigation 

unless it comes under serious challenge as a result of 

some major event—usually a military disaster.139
148

The rapidly expanding IED threat which spread 

from Iraq to Afghanistan was such a military disaster. 

But despite U.S.$20.4 million from the JIEDDO—the 

only funding the HTS could find—the program was 

not configured to trace IED networks. The MAP-HT 

was configured for social network analysis, like the 

CPE before it, in order to identify networks in the area, 

but it was used “to understand the problem in the AO 

[area of operations] in all its dimensions, educate the 

BCT and plan research.”140 Fondacaro had planned 

to transition the HTS into the Department of State 

and MAP-HT was a tool which would facilitate that 

migration. As noted in the Concept of Operations: 

The mission of MAP-HT is to support multi-disciplined Civil, Social analysis through dynamic fusion 

of data throughout the civil picture that will require 

interaction between Non-Governmental Organizations, Governmental Organizations, and Interactional 

Organizations.141

The HTS ended as a quasi-nongovernmental organization (NGO) disavowing any assistance to kinetic 

targeting. The emerging COIN milieu of military 

thinking quoted in the 2006 FM Counterinsurgency as 

the “graduate level of war” heightened the ability of 

the HTS to recruit from the civilian sector as it promised smart war, superior tactical thinking in order to 

conduct more population-centric operations. 

In crises, we think anew and act anew. 

ENDNOTES - CHAPTER 3

1. American Anthropological Association, Final Report on the 

Army’s Human Terrain System Proof of Concept Program, Arlington, 

VA: American Anthropological Association, p. 3.
149

2. Christopher J. Lamb et al., Human Terrain Teams: An Organizational Innovation for Sociocultural Knowledge in Irregular Warfare, 

Washington, DC: Institute of World Politics Press, 2013, p. 1.

3. Hugh Gusterson, “Anthropology and Militarism,” Annual 

Review of Anthropology, Vol. 36, 2007, p. 164.

4. Patrick Porter, Military Orientalism: Eastern War through 

Western Eyes, London, UK: Hurst and Company, 2009, p. 7.

5. Derek Gregory, “The Rush to the Intimate: Counterinsurgency and the Cultural Turn,” Radical Philosophy, Vol. 150, 

2008, p. 16.

6. Ibid., p. 17.

7. George Packer, The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq, New 

York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005.

8. Fred Kaplan, The Insurgents: David Petraeus and the 

Plot to Change the American Way of War, New York: Simon & 

Schuster, 2013.

9. Ralph Peters, “Progress and Peril: New Counterinsurgency Manual Cheats on the History Exam,” Armed Forces Journal, 

February 1, 2007.

10. Janine Davidson, Lifting the Fog of Peace: How Americans Learned to Fight Modern War, Ann Arbor, MI: University of 

Michigan Press, 2010.

11. David Kilcullen, “Countering Global Insurgency,” Small 

Wars Journal, November 30, 2004.

12. Montgomery McFate, “The Military Utility of Understanding Adversary Culture,” Joint Force Quarterly, Vol. 38, 2005, p. 43.

13. David Petraeus, “Learning Counterinsurgency: Observations from Soldiering in Iraq,” Military Review, Vol. 86, No. 1, 

2006, p. 11.

14. Quoted in Vernon Loeb, “Instead of Force, Persuasion,” 

The Washington Post, November 5, 2003.
150

15. Paul Joseph, “Soft” Counterinsurgency: Human Terrain Teams and U.S. Strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan, New York: 

Palgrave Pivot, July 8, 2014, pp. 2-3. 

16. Ibid., p. 19.

17. Yvette Clinton et al., Congressionally Directed Assessment 

of the Human Terrain System, Arlington, VA: Center for Naval 

Analyses, 2010, p. 1.

18. Montgomery McFate, interview with author, Newport, 

RI, August 1, 2013. For the controversy and debate in DoD over 

McFate’s draft of her section of Chap. 3, see Kaplan, pp. 213-219.

19. Audrey Roberts, “‘Embedding with the Military in Eastern Afghanistan: The Role of Anthropologists in Peace and Stability Operations,” Walter E. Feichtinger, Ernst M. Felberbauer, and 

Erwin A. Schmidl, eds., International Crisis Management: Squaring 

the Circle, Vienna, Austria, and Geneva, Switzerland: National 

Defense Academy and Austrian Ministry of Defense and Sports 

in cooperation with Geneva Centre for Security Policy, 2011, p. 90.

20. Vanessa Gezari, The Tender Soldier: A True Story of War and 

Sacrifice, New York: Simon and Schuster, 2013, p. 24.

21. Following Thomas Kuhn, I define a “crisis” as constituted 

by “a pronounced failure in the normal problem solving activity,” where “Failure of existing rules is the prelude to a search for 

new ones.” Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 

3rd Ed., Chicago, IL, and London, UK: The University of Chicago 

Press, 1996, pp. 68, 74-75.

22. Thomas Metz, “Defeating the Improvised Explosive Device and Other Asymmetric Threats: Today’s Efforts and Tomorrow’s Requirements, Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat 

Organization,” Hearing Before the Committee on Armed Services, Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, Washington, 

DC: U.S. Government, September 16, 2008. 

23. Christopher J. Lamb, Matthew J. Schmidt, and Berit G. 

Fitzsimmons, “MRAPs, Irregular Warfare, and Pentagon Reform,” Occasional Paper 6, Washington, DC: Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University Press, 2009, p. 1.
151

24. Ibid.

25. Ibid.

26. Ibid., pp. 1-2.

27. Stephen J. Hedges, “U.S. Battles Low-Tech Threat,” 

Chicago Tribune, October 23, 2003.

28. Christopher J. Lamb, Matthew J. Schmidt and Berit G. 

Fitzsimmons, “MRAPs, Irregular Warfare, and Pentagon Reform,” Joint Force Quarterly, Vol. 55, 2009, p. 77.

29. John P. Abizaid, Commander, U.S. Central Command, 

Iraqi Reconstruction, Hearing before the Committee on Armed 

Services, U.S. Senate, 108th Cong., 1st Sess., Washington, DC: U.S. 

Government Printing Office (USGPO), September 25, 2003.

30. Ibid.

31. Ibid.

32. Ibid.

33. Christopher Sims, “Fighting the Insurgents’ War in 

Afghanistan,” Small Wars Journal, January 12, 2012.

34. Abizaid, Iraqi Reconstruction, Hearing before the Committee on Armed Services.

35. Ibid.

36. “Warfighter Support: Actions Needed to Improve Visibility and Coordination of DOD’s Counter-Improvised Explosive 

Device Efforts,” Report to Congressional Committees, GAO-10-

95, Washington, DC: U.S. Government Accountability Office (USGAO) , October 2009, p. 9.

37. Ibid., p. 10.

38. Ibid.
152

39. Ibid.

40. Ibid.

41. Quoted in James J. Lovelace and Joseph L. Votel, “The 

Asymmetric Warfare Group: Closing the Capability Gaps,” Army 

Magazine, Vol. 55, No. 3, 2005, p. 34.

42. Ibid., p. 31.

43. Ibid.

44. “Warfighter Support,” USGAO, p. 13.

45. Gezari, p. 35.

46. Lamb et al., Human Terrain Teams, p. 27.

47. Ibid., p. 29.

48. Cited in Montgomery McFate and Steve Fondacaro, “Reflections on the Human Terrain System during the First 4 Years,” 

PRISM, Vol. 2, No. 4, p. 66.

49. McFate interview.

50. Steve Fondacaro, personal communication with author, 

September 15, 2015. 

51. Ibid. 

52. Lamb et al., Human Terrain Teams, p. 32. 

53. Ibid.

54. Ibid., p. 34.

55. Ibid.

56. Lovelace and Votel, p. 30.

57. Ibid.
153

58. Ibid., pp. 31-32.

59. William G. Adamson, “An Asymmetric Threat Invokes 

Strategic Leader Initiative: The Joint Improvised Explosive Device 

Defeat Organization,” Industrial College of the Armed Forces 

(ICAF) Research Paper, Washington, DC: National Defense University, 2007, p. 21.

60. Lamb et al., Human Terrain Teams, pp. 27-28.

61. Ibid., p. 28.

62. Ibid.

63. Montgomery McFate and Andrea Jackson, “An Organizational Solution for DOD’s Cultural Knowledge Needs,” Military 

Review, Vol. 85, No. 4, 2005, pp. 18-21.

64. McFate interview.

65. Ibid.

66. Ibid.

67. Montgomery McFate, “Iraq: The Social Context of IEDs,” 

Military Review, Vol. 85, No. 3, 2005, p. 37.

68. Ibid.

69. Ibid.

70. Ibid.

71. Ibid.

72. Ibid., p. 38.

73. Ibid., p. 39.

74. Ibid.

75. McFate interview.
154

76. Ibid.

77. Hedges.

78. National Public Radio, “U.S. Military Works to Combat 

I.E.D.s in Iraq,” November 4, 2005. 

79. Ibid.

80. “General: Insurgents Upgrading Explosives Used in 

Attacks,” World Tribune, June 14, 2005.

81. Ibid.

82. Montgomery C. Meigs, “Unorthodox Thoughts about 

Asymmetric Warfare,” Parameters, Vol. 33, No. 2, 2003, p. 5.

83. Ibid.

84. Adamson, p. 51.

85. George Packer, “Knowing the Enemy,” The New Yorker, 

December 18, 2006.

86. Ibid.

87. McFate and Fondacaro, p. 66.

88. Fondacaro, personal communication with author, 

September 15, 2015. 

89. “Warfighter Support,” USGAO, pp. 13-14.

90. Ibid., p. 14.

91. Ibid., p. 20.

92. Ibid., p. 18.

93. Ibid., p. 19.

94. Ibid.
155

95. Vincent T. Clark, “The Future of JIEDDO—The Global CIED Synchronizer,” Newport, RI: Naval War College, Department 

of Joint Military Operations, October 31, 2008, p. iii.

96. Ibid., p. 10.

97. Fondacaro, telephone interview with author, September 

15, 2015. 

98. John P. Abizaid, Commander, United States Central Command, House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, U.S. 

Congress, Command Posture, Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, March 15, 2006.

99. Ibid.

100. Ibid., p. 55.

101. Ibid., p. 59.

102. John P. Abizaid, Commander, United States Central 

Command, Iraq and Afghanistan, “Hearing Before the Committee on Armed Services,” 109th U.S. Cong., 2nd Sess., Washington, 

DC: USGPO, November 15, 2006, p. 2.

103. Ibid., p. 3.

104. Lester W. Grau, “Bashing the Laser Range Finder with 

a Rock,” Military Review, Vol. 77, No. 3, 1997, pp. 42-48; Lester 

W. Grau and Jacob W. Kipp, “Urban Combat: Confronting the 

Specter,” Military Review, Vol. 79, No. 4, 1999, pp. 9-17. 

105. Grau, “Bashing the Laser Range Finder,” p. 42. I thank 

Michael Davies for referencing this early work to me.

106. McFate interview.

107 . Fondacaro, telephone interview with author, September 

15, 2015. 

108. Ibid. 
156

109. McFate interview.

110. Ibid.

111. Lamb et al., Human Terrain Teams, p. 30.

112. Ibid., p. 31.

113. Michael Davies, interview with author, Washington, DC, 

August 10, 2013.

114. Lamb et al., Human Terrain Teams, p. 31.

115. The phrase “left of bang” is a retrospective of a phrase 

used at that time, but published in 2013 by Michael T. Flynn, 

James Sisco, and David C. Ellis, “’Left of Bang’: The Value of Sociocultural Analysis in Today’s Environment,” PRISM, Vol. 3, No. 

4, 2013, pp. 13-21.

116. McFate interview.

117. Fondacaro, personal communication with author, 

September 15, 2005. 

118. Ibid.

119. Further limiting the program, the funding was approved 

by JIEDDO in June 2006 but only half the funds were released, in 

August 2006, with the remainder provided when progress had 

been proven. Fondacaro interview. 

120. Lamb et al., Human Terrain Teams, p. 32.

121. Clinton et al., p. 61.

122. Fondacaro, telephone interview with author, September 

15, 2015. 

123. McFate interview.

124. Fondacaro, telephone interview with author, September 

15, 2015. 
157

125. Ibid.

126. Ibid. 

127 . Bob Reuss and Steve Fondacaro, “Human Terrain System (HTS) Update to GEN Wallace,” TRADOC/DCSINT, May 

17, 2007. 

128. Lincoln Group, Baghdad Focus Groups, June 6, 2006. 

129. Andrea V. Jackson, “Social Science Research and Analysis: Implementation Plan for Baghdad,” Presentation, June 

13, 2007. 

130. Steve Fondacaro, “EXSUM: HTS Coordination with MG 

Hahn, DCOS, NATO JFC,” January 11, 2009. 

131. Quoted in Allan Nevins, ed., The Strategy of Peace by John 

F. Kennedy, New York; Evanston, IL; and London, UK: Harper & 

Row, 1960, Introduction.

132. DoD, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense, Speech 

as delivered by Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, Washington, DC: National Defense University, September 29, 2008.

133. Ibid.

134. David H. Petraeus, “Learning Counterinsurgency: Observations from Soldiering in Iraq,” Military Review, Vol. 86, No. 

1, 2006, p. 11.

135. Geoff Emberling, “Archaeologists and the Military in 

Iraq, 2003-2008: Compromise or Contribution?” Archaeologies, 

Vol. 4, No. 3, 2008, p. 449.

136. Fondacaro, telephone interview with author, September 

15, 2015. 

137. Ibid. 

138. Kaplan.
158

139. John R. Galvin, “Uncomfortable Wars: Towards a New 

Paradigm,” Parameters, Vol. 26, No. 4, 1986, p. 2.

140. Fondacaro, personal communication with author, 

September 15, 2015. 

141. Human Terrain System, “Concept of Operations 

(CONOPS) for the Mapping the Human Terrain (MAP-HT) Joint 

Capability Demonstration: DRAFT,” October 2009. 
159

CHAPTER 4

TRIAL, ERROR, AND AMENDMENT

The Human Terrain System (HTS) began as a startup program from a proof-of-principle in 2006, with 

the intention of putting two teams into Afghanistan 

and three teams into Iraq. Training and recruitment 

were designed de novo, and continually revised as 

part of an ongoing reflective process.1 As Janice H. 

Laurence notes, the: 

HTS was experimental, and thus the whole HTS program, especially training, was meant to evolve. As a 

learning organization, HTS adjusted to experience on 

the ground as the organization learned how to serve 

the military mission better. Training was iterative; the 

composition of teams was iterative; human capital 

strategies and program and personnel management 

practices were iterative. One might even say that the 

whole war was iterative.2

The original concept of operations for the program 

completed in January 2007 left the role of the embedded team on the brigade staff unspecified because the 

team was a new tool for the U.S. Army, and it was not 

known how best to proceed. However, a brigade commander cited in that original concept had envisioned 

a permanent presence of the embedded team on staff, 

along with other elements deployed to the forward 

operating bases (FOBs). This was how AF1 was configured, with team roles being a team leader, cultural 

analyst, regional studies analyst, research manager, 

and human terrain analyst.3

In April 2007, the concept of operations was refined to provide specific recruitment and new posi-
160

tions for the five Iraq teams, IZ1 to IZ5, which would 

become the blueprint for the Human Terrain Teams 

(HTTs). The roles were now: team leader; two social 

scientists; a research manager; and a human terrain 

analyst.4 As a result of lessons learned from AF1, the 

roles of the HTT were refined and broadly could “improve the human terrain understanding of the brigade 

staff.”5 The structure of the teams and the identities 

and functions of those in it had been difficult to deduce from the beginning. Steve Fondacaro had been 

at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, from May 2006, and in 

2007 took AF1 to FOB Salerno, Italy, for 2 weeks. Despite being immersed, the team roles did not emerge 

as obvious ones, but the HTS wanted social science 

research and thus there was a “social scientist” role 

from the beginning.6 Instructive in the complexity of 

recruitment, AF1 team leader Rick Swisher was hired 

through a BAE Systems subcontractor, Echota.

In a May 2007 brief to outline how HTS filled a “tactical” capability gap, Fondacaro and Bob Reuss note 

that “COIN [counterinsurgency] and 4th Generation 

Warfare has clearly identified people as the Center 

of Gravity in future conflict” and that “at present, no 

capability exists to research, process and apply information on the local population.”7

 To solve the problem, the proof-of-concept objectives as outlined were 

to provide the brigade combat team (BCT)/regional 

command team (RCT) commanders with the means 

to “collect, process, and apply relevant, sociocultural 

data, information, knowledge and understanding” 

and to “integrate that understanding into their military decisionmaking process”; enhance continuity of 

action between units during Relief in Place/Transfer 

of Authority; provide a support structure to “research, 

interpret, archive and make readily available cultural 
161

data, information and knowledge”; and, “Maximize 

effectiveness of tactical operations by harmonizing 

COAs [Courses of Action] with target area cultural 

context (population).”8

The three pillars of support to the brigade were 

divided into collection, analysis, and application. Collection was subdivided into:

Patrol Debriefs (U.S./Indigenous); SOF [Special Operations Forces]; NGOs [Non-Governmental Organizations]; PRT [Provincial Reconstruction Team]; LEPs 

[Law Enforcement Professionals]; CA/PSYOP [Civil 

Affairs/Psychological Operations]; Survey Data; Local Hires; Special Events.9

In order to train recruits in each of the three pillars, 

the May 2007 brief outlines a 3- to 4-month training 

program which would include: 

Social Science Field Research Methods Training; MapHuman Terrain (MAP-HT) Toolkit Training; Area Orientation/Study; Counterinsurgency (COIN) Instruction; Capstone Exercise (BCT MDMP); Basic Military 

Common Skills.10

Training was an iterative process. Complex training elements such as the teaching of advanced military tradecraft—for example, behavior in key leader 

engagements—is “something that HTS in the beginning didn’t have time to do,” and it continued to be 

“hard to develop a way to communicate that uniformly throughout the program, coherently, cohesively, 

over time.”11 The troop surge in Iraq and commensurate expansion of the number of HTTs required in the 

country to support deployed brigades meant that the 

pace of, and demands on, the program did not allow 
162

opportunities to implement fixes.12 Of the primary researchers with the teams, the initial focus was on social 

scientists, the first of which was a cultural anthropologist. The expansion period in 2007 to equip the surge 

is indicative of the malleable and amorphous identity 

of the program in its earliest stages, which gained 

initial funding from both counterterrorism (CT) and 

counter-improvised explosive device (C-IED) sources. 

Under pressure to develop the HTS as a programof-record and given the expanding numerical requirement for embedded teams, it was difficult to address 

problematic contours between the program, its contractor, BAE Systems, and its parent, the U.S. Training 

and Doctrine Command (TRADOC). As a program 

start-up, financing was the core concern and senior 

management was working on that aspect. From his 

perspective as BAE Systems program manager, David Zacharias asserted that Montgomery McFate and 

Fondacaro were a powerful force, driving the HTS 

and securing funding.13 Fondacaro himself notes that 

McFate was able to produce the theoretical social science frameworks, while he provided the operational 

knowledge and understood the military enterprise, 

ultimately tessellating to produce a viable program 

architecture for the HTS.14

The iterative process meant that it became a necessity to formalize lessons learned from the field. These 

lessons were captured from both within the embedded teams and from feedback from the brigade and 

the divisions that were using them—U.S. and coalition partners—and examine the best way to train team 

members specifically and more generally improve the 

program. Some of these investigations were from program resources and some were externally directed; 

they included the West Point study, Paul Joseph at 
163

Tufts University, the Center for Naval Analyses and 

the Institute for Defense Analyses between 2008 and 

2010.15 In addition, the Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) found that the HTS had not used 

“good judgement” on which people “could deploy 

and live in an austere environment and serve there for 

9 months or more.”16

The problem of hiring was not resolved for the duration of the program’s time in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

It created a serious division between the HTS program 

management and its parent, TRADOC, which was the 

recipient of significant funding from both the Army 

G-2 and the Department of Defense (DoD) for the 

sociocultural capability. Screening for the program 

did not involve a specialized team to hire for social 

science positions. This is problematic because social 

science itself is “very fluid; there are many ways to 

be a social scientist. You have to define what the field 

encompasses.”17 Jennifer Clark explains that the program “did not individually select. If I didn’t have the 

background I did, or the personality I have, I would 

have failed miserably. So part of that is personality so 

how do you code for personality? You can’t.”18

Coding for personality is certainly problematic, but 

rigorous interviews are not. BAE Systems had a thin, 

laissez-faire recruitment process, as related by the majority of HTT social scientists interviewed in the book. 

There are four requirements for effective HTT social 

scientists: first, regional area expertise, the knowledge 

component; second, field experience, the practical 

component; third, physical ability, the dynamic component; and fourth, mental adaptability, the psychological component. Interview phases grouped around 

each component in turn would ensure the very highest caliber of recruits to the program. The first three 
164

components are self-explanatory and easy to access 

through examination while the fourth requires further 

refinement for assessment. 

Ultimately, this points to the overriding problem 

of the application of social science techniques to warfighting. Unlike a technological solution, social science cannot be taken out of a box and applied in a 

prescriptive manner to an obvious end.19 Definition of 

success in the application of social science is problematic, and, for that reason, demonstrating value over 

time is arduous, based around unmeasurable dimensions of amorphous notions such as “understanding” 

or “culture.” The problematic application is mirrored 

in recruiting. 

In the summer of 2008, the HTS and TRADOC contacted PDRI, a training solutions company, to assess 

the recruitment and selection process, partly because 

of the difficulty in defining jobs which did not previously exist, partly because of contracting issues. Published in February 2009, the report observed that the 

recruitment process was so dispiriting that it was reasonable to assume self-selection out of the process was 

continuing out of “frustration with a contractor.”20 As 

part of that evaluation, PDRI also created a structured 

interview pilot test on which to evaluate current HTT 

trainees at Fort Leavenworth. The evaluation highlighted that some personnel in training in all roles, 

“provided responses that showed they were unable to 

work effectively with others when dealing with challenging situations.”21 In addition: “Several trainees for 

all HTT jobs provided responses that indicated they 

would have problems dealing with individuals from 

other cultures.”22

For future research platforms that might address 

this complex problem, there is a wealth of experience 
165

resident in former HTT personnel regarding “what 

works” when embedded. Assessing feedback from 

each HTT member regarding every other member 

of that team and coding thematically would allow a 

deeper picture of the ideal social science disciplines, 

ideal level of academic attainment, age, language capability, personality traits, skills, research methods, 

and gender comments to emerge. For example, female 

HTT social scientists, especially in Afghanistan, could 

engage more easily the “forgotten 50 percent” of that 

society. From that detailed picture of 7 years of HTS 

across two COIN campaigns, a picture will crystalize 

of optimum capabilities and psychologies. This will 

resonate beyond the program itself because personality examination has connotations for all Armed Service components concerned with intrateam dynamics. 

To examine what the program management considered to be the optimum HTT social scientist, I investigate the training cycle and its evolution through 

development groups created by the program. Better 

understanding of the role of social scientists in Iraq 

and Afghanistan can be gained by examination of the 

internal investigation of HTT performance conducted 

during the period of program revision. This evolutionary process based on lessons learned, feedback 

from commanders and best practice sheds light on the 

ways in which the U.S. Army, as the primary customer, wanted to utilize embedded teams and thus goes to 

the heart of the question. 

RECRUITMENT 

Why was recruitment for the program problematic? In answering this question, I include material 

from an interview conducted with Zacharias, BAE 
166

Systems program manager for the HTS between 2008 

and 2009. Zacharias, who was the third BAE Systems 

program manager for the HTS and entered during a 

period when the relations between the HTS and TRADOC had already deteriorated, explains that recruitment during the early period incorporated a blanket 

approach, including papers and websites, with most 

of the applicants citing the website advertisements as 

being where they first saw the vacancies.23 From the 

beginning, starting with AF1 team leader Swisher, private contractors were used for teams because of the 

difficulty of recruiting from the existing DoD pool. 

The omni-contractor for TRADOC, BAE Systems, was 

awarded the contracting role without a tender process. 

The recruitment process was laissez-faire. During 

his time with the program, Zacharias estimates that 

there was approximately an 80 percent success rate 

of the people accepted for interview.24 This high success rate was a result of the contract; BAE Systems 

were given no bonus for the quality of the contractor 

and were not forced to bid for the contract. The high 

success rate was also a result of a gulf between the 

program and the contractor. Social science was an abstract term, and there appears no attempt to refine the 

selection process for the social scientist. BAE Systems 

managers were not convinced that the concept of a social scientist held tangible substance.25 HTS managers 

were working from a “best guess” about what might 

work in Iraq and Afghanistan. The HTS management 

in order to define the role of social scientist had given 

BAE Systems a list of graduate degrees that management “believed constituted a social science degree.”26

This list included anthropology, sociology, social psychology, cultural geography, political science including International Relations, area studies, and especially expertise sets related to the Middle East or Central 
167

Asia. Moreover, “field experience” was of interest 

to the HTS management, as was personnel who had 

qualitative backgrounds; showing that the program 

was always configured as primarily a qualitative 

research function.27

The Iraq surge requirements prompted BAE Systems to accelerate its use of subcontractors that had 

their own recruiters, and, as the rapid expansion of 

the number of teams created hiring tensions, David 

Zacharias took over the BAE Systems management 

for the program.28 The contractor assessment has been 

largely obscured in recent studies, with the exception 

of the Center for Naval Analyses investigation and 

thus has value in investigating further here. Highlighting the amorphous nature of social science and 

the difficulty of comprehension, Zacharias observes 

that HTS “needed anthropologists and they needed 

social scientists, but I would say that it was harder to 

come by the anthropologists than it was a social scientists, so it turned into a social science hunt.”29 But, 

from the beginning, the HTS was always configured 

to employ “social scientists” as noted in the original 

blueprints for HTT structure. Moreover, both HTT 

personnel and at least one BAE Systems subcontractor have expressed dissatisfaction at the BAE Systems 

role and function. 

The problematic definition of social science manifests most acutely in the contracting requirement, 

where the disconnect between the HTS program management and the TRADOC omnibus contractor was 

pronounced. As Zacharias notes of his time as BAE 

Systems program manager, “What kind of credentials do you need to be a social scientist? How do you 

choose a social scientist? I don’t know and neither did 

they.”30 This, however, fails to explain the scope and 

severity of the contracting missteps. Returning to the 
168

four components identified as core to an HTT social 

scientist—knowledge, practical, physical, and psychological components—the social science component 

is only one section of the requirement. The program 

still hired physically ill-suited individuals, personnel 

who lacked field experience, and personalities which 

were overtly immiscible in training and when embedded with brigades. The HTS program could not vet 

hires, only reject them when they arrived at Fort Leavenworth to begin the training cycle. With the urgent 

requirement to field teams, this created a dangerous 

situation where there was a necessity to embed personnel, and resulted in the arrangement where many 

former personnel have related teams becoming dysfunctional when embedded in the brigades. 

The dialogue between the program management, 

TRADOC, and BAE Systems became fraught, having a deleterious impact on any attempt to remedy 

the fractious relationship. This disconnect may have 

gone unnoticed in a less visible program, but the HTS 

was the subject of intense media and academic scrutiny. McFate and Fondacaro were not bureaucrats. 

Working effectively with BAE Systems to develop improved selection processes would require significant 

interaction and collaboration. This was a controversial 

program which embedded civilians into combat brigades, and it would have required sustained dialogue 

between both parties—BAE Systems and the program 

management—in order to quickly refine the recruitment process. The opposite occurred, and worsened 

to the extent that, when the BAE Systems contract for 

the HTS was offered to tender, TRADOC did not inform the HTS of the process when it began. 

The HTS management had minimal ability to set 

the job skills or influence the hiring process. Further, 
169

the dimensions of the Iraq surge of forces amplified 

the problem by necessitating a large number of contractors to be recruited rapidly and quickly embedded. 

While the interview process has come in for substantial criticism from former team members interviewed, 

there were positive endorsements of some contacts 

regarding subcontractors, which strongly suggest that 

if the contractor in the first instance had been selected 

carefully, the net effect of the program may have been 

altered, perhaps minimally but also perhaps significantly. One social scientist who deployed to Afghanistan noted that the interview process over the phone, 

the first contact with the program, actually added to 

his or her motivation to join the program because of 

the competent, caring nature of the contact. The social scientist at this point already knew of the myriad 

concerns regarding the program, but the contact gave 

the individual names of people to talk to who were 

already in the program, and engaged in substantial 

conversations about the type of research which would 

be undertaken, the risks, and the negatives in the program.31 Ultimately, the contact was lucid about the 

problems, the serious issue regarding recently issued 

Status of Forces Agreement, such that the social scientist went into the program “fairly well informed.”32

This conversation was with BAE Systems subcontractor Alion, an employee-owned technology solutions 

company. The positive feedback is important as it 

suggests that careful selection of the recruiting contractor could have created more positive feedback of 

the process and prevented many of the hiring missteps. Indeed, PDRI, in its assessment of recruitment, 

stated that: “There is substantial variation in the selection procedures used by contractors after the initial 

resume screen.”33 Moreover, “Several subcontractors 
170

noted that it was often unclear what BAE Systems was 

looking for in a candidate.”34

In addition, the absence of small-team assessment 

protocols or personality assessment protocols in the 

recruitment process meant that there could be myriad 

problems which crystallized acutely in Iraq and Afghanistan to devastating effect. As one former HTT 

social scientist explains: 

If you have this very relaxed recruitment process you 

are going to get a lot of people who don’t belong on 

the program and certainly don’t belong in a war zone: 

and they don’t belong in a small-team environment in 

a war-zone because these are all very stressful things.35

Given the poor suitability of many hired personnel, which deleteriously impacted the reputation of 

the program at best and hindered combat brigades at 

worst, recruitment issues were a singular problem in 

HTS throughout the program’s lifespan in Iraq and 

Afghanistan. As one social scientist explains, “It all 

started with recruitment and selection, and then training, and everything else just piles on top.”36

In practice, the laissez-faire contracting meant that 

there were a number of recruits in the training cycle 

who were ill-equipped whether academically, physically, or psychologically to insert into a combat brigade. The idea and passion of Fondacaro drove the 

program forward, and McFate’s intellect provided 

the pedagogic fabric which conditioned the teams, 

but there were vast tears in the cloth which resulted 

in problems in Iraq and Afghanistan, where, embedded in combat brigades with high operational tempo, 

the deficiencies were magnified. Zacharias notes 

that he could name more team failures than successful teams.37 In context, the quantitative assessment is 
171

purely anecdotal and based on perception from someone removed from the HTS program management, but 

it hints at the magnitude of the failing in this critical 

area. The capability gap was real, but filling it with illsuited recruits did not provide an effective solution. 

Insufficient training of military command structures, 

low standards of recruiting, high pay relative to the 

military units in which they embedded, lack of operationally relevant products and poor interpersonal 

skills could contribute to the problem. When AF5 was 

ordered to leave FOB Shank, Afghanistan, in the winter of 2009-10, to become a battalion support element 

at FOB Airborne, Afghanistan, it was unprofessionalism in the HTT and poor relationships with the unit 

which caused the relocation. The absence of a strong 

HTS bureaucracy or in-country oversight also limited 

the ability of the program to correct problems when 

they arose in theater.

Problems in the program’s natural evolution thus 

stem from this contract hiring process. There was not 

enough oversight of BAE Systems by the program 

management in the beginning of the program, and 

the problems were not solved. BAE Systems was a 

technology corporation, and the services element was 

new and, as a consequence, underdeveloped. In its infancy with such work, BAE Systems should have been 

monitored more closely, and there should have been 

collaboration rather than confrontation. In the end, a 

“jaundiced eye” marked the relationship which was 

increasingly detrimental to the program. This continually placed manifestly ill-suited personnel into the 

training cycle and created this empirically observed 

five-to-one ratio of functioning to nonfunctioning 

teams. The successes of AF1 showed it could be done, 

but they just had to find the right people because, if 
172

they did not do so, a brigade would reject the embedded team at first contact. 

As Fondacaro notes in a memo written during the 

surge of forces in Iraq, screening up until that point 

for HTS had been “somewhat “hand-to-mouth”” and 

that, while BAE Systems had improved its “responsiveness to HTS with regard to applicant screening 

and coordination with HTS staff” there was a need for 

urgent improvement given the expanded scope of the 

program necessitated by the JUONS.38 Fondacaro explains that the HTS managers: 

require additional support. In particular, we need 

people who have appropriate human resource skills 

to screen resumes, engage candidates, and hire HTT 

members . . . We must avoid hiring unqualified candidates because of hasty and deficient screening.39

As the quality of the candidates arriving at Ft. 

Leavenworth continued to be highly variable, it was 

inevitable that the personal relationships between 

the HTS management, the primary contractor, and 

the TRADOC parent would deteriorate, with significant implications for the character of the program 

as a whole. 

Nevertheless, according to Zacharias, in 2008, the 

managers in the BAE Systems team working on the 

HTS program won one of the Chairman’s Awards, 

an annual prize-giving which rewarded outstanding contributions to the profile of the company.40 In 

part, this may have been to capitalize on the intense 

media publicity surrounding the program after positive reports from outlets including The New York Times

and the British Broadcasting Corporation. Zacharias, 

however, remains sceptical of the enterprise today: 

“It was a prestigious award, given because it was so 

unique what we were doing. But it was miss-sold [the 
173

civilian expertise providing sociocultural capability to 

BCTs].”41 Sociocultural capability in war is an abstract 

concept, one which McFate notes has few historically 

comparable examples. To create a recruitment process 

so quickly without detailed guidelines, after the original model for five teams embedded over 2 years had 

been quickly and inexorably expanded, led to strategic missteps. 

By 2009, after the contractor deaths, and negative 

publicity about the relationship between BAE Systems and the program management, recruitment, and 

training, the attitude from BAE Systems management 

hardened irreversibly. For Zacharias, it crystalized 

around the contractor deaths: 

we had three people killed. And that was the overriding factor for BAE Systems; when you pay out six million dollars for each death, it drives home that this is a 

very liable system. You get a bunch of people killed, at 

six million apiece, pretty soon, three hundred million 

dollar program, doesn’t take many people.42

Zacharias attended the funeral of Paula Loyd 

which casts the role of BAE Systems in a strange hue; 

at once it was a human enterprise, but at the same 

time, it was a contractor with a bottom line. The HTS, 

like any other BAE Systems contract, was subject to a 

cost/benefit ratio analysis despite the immense scale 

of the personal tragedies unfolding on the program. 

Lack of bureaucracy hampered the program in 

wider ways beyond the contracting. Going from “zero 

to a hundred miles an hour with no prep time” meant 

that there was little available time for program structure development.43 As McFate explains: 

We didn’t have the personnel to manage a program 

that large, and we didn’t have the budget; the whole 
174

budget that we had was geared towards teams, not to 

staffing. So we had no money, we had no manpower, 

we had no facilities.44

The program office was opened in Newport News, 

Virginia, but the staff was split between Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and Newport News, with the result that upper management were divided from the 

training facility, and, put bluntly by McFate, “that just 

doesn’t work.”45 As well as management facilities, an 

operations cell was created to be staffed 24 hours a 

day, with space made available from the C-IED Operational Intelligence Center, an underfunded initiative 

McFarland had created upon his return from the JIEDDTF (showing again, from a different angle, the early 

relationship between the HTS and C-IED initiatives). 

The program sat beneath the TRADOC Intelligence 

Support Activity in the organizational chart, which reported to the G-2. Ultimately, at this time, it was “live 

and learn.”46 The expansion as part of the Iraq surge of 

forces, while a “catastrophic success,” also enabled a 

wide number of research initiatives on the experiences 

of the embedded teams to be conducted; such that the 

period 2008-10 was about trying to systematize what 

they had done originally in a way that would ensure 

success in the future.47

The program structure and the status of embedded 

team members were complicated by the prohibition of 

private contractors after 2008: The U.S.-Iraq Status of 

Forces Agreement commenced January 1, 2009, prohibited all U.S. private contractors from operating in 

Iraq. Consequently, HTT personnel transitioned from 

contractors to government civilians which exerted a 

profound impact on program hiring. There was no 

obvious corresponding government civilian position 

which had an equivalent remuneration package to the 

HTT social scientist position as a private contractor. To 
175

ensure consistency across both Iraq and Afghanistan, 

the program management applied the status change 

to deployed program members in Afghanistan, as 

well as Iraq at that time.48 The change in status impacted earnings and posed a significant problem for 

an already beleaguered recruitment practice. 

Because of the Status of Forces Agreement, the 

Center for Naval Analyses assessment estimated that, 

at this transition point, the program lost 30 percent of 

team personnel either because they did not qualify for 

the government positions or resigned rather than convert to federal civilians.49 It was also suggested that the 

problematic attrition rate was exacerbated by “limited 

staff support” available to assist in the transition.50 The 

HTS’s own estimate, in a 2010 Congressional Staff Update, was that between April 2009 and January 2010, 

256 personnel (89 percent) converted from contractor 

to Department of the Army Civilians.51 The discrepancy may be because a large number of personnel had 

already departed by the beginning of April, such that 

the HTT core personnel remained, en masse. Regarding the limited staff support, it is instructive that the 

majority of funding had gone toward team staffing, 

rather than expanding the number of program managers. In August 2009, HTS calculated that funding requirements would be composed of Army Base Funding, approximately U.S.$18 million to U.S.$20 million 

between Fiscal Year 2011 and Fiscal Year 2015 as the 

program transitioned to an enduring concept—but 

zero before—had to fund training, logistics, the RRC 

and program management. The majority of the funding, through the DoD share of the Overseas Contingency Fund—requested at between U.S.$93 million 

and U.S.$133 million per annum, Fiscal Year 2009 

through Fiscal Year 2015—was for embedded teams 

in support of Operations ENDURING FREEDOM 
176

and IRAQI FREEDOM, “on a COCOM [combatant 

command] demand basis.”52

The departure rate cited by the Center for Naval 

Analyses, however, is indicative of the significance of 

the remuneration package in motivating many of the 

contractors. Those that remained could be argued to 

be motivated by more altruistic concerns and therefore important to the future prosperity of the program. 

However, the relatively high remuneration package 

in the civilian pay scale generated animosity from the 

government side, asking why HTT personnel were being made federal civilians and, while the program endured, “It was not easy recruiting from then on in.”53

In truth, it had not been easy from the beginning, and 

the Status of Forces Agreement exacerbated an already 

significant problem. Crisis had facilitated the creation 

of the HTS but that febrile atmosphere also facilitated 

a laissez-faire approach from program managers and 

contractors. In part, this was also due to command of 

the teams. TRADOC was the training entity for the 

teams, but when embedded, they were under the authority of the brigade commanders. Hence, after the 

4-month training period at Ft. Leavenworth, when the 

teams entered Iraq or Afghanistan, they were no longer hinged to TRADOC and the brigade commander 

had to understand how to use them effectively. Crises 

hinder as much as they enable. 

To augment military operations, HTTs were 

present to: 

Conduct operationally-relevant, open-source social 

science research, and provide commanders and staffs 

at the BCT/RCT and Division levels with an embedded knowledge capability, to establish a coherent, 

analytic cultural framework for operational planning, 

decisionmaking, and assessment.54
177

For some social scientists, and, tellingly, for the 

convergence of two cultures, it was a necessary experience to have fused theoretical learning with practical understanding of areas in military conflict. Such 

areas are a different country: they do things differently there. War creates its own borders. Ryan Evans 

explains, having recently completed a master’s degree 

at King’s College London, United Kingdom (UK), 

before signing up to HTS, that: 

In my whole career, I had been writing about what 

other people were doing, instead of doing. And so I 

thought it was important to experience what I would 

be devoting my career toward which is conflict and international politics. So I wanted to experience conflict 

and contribute, so the HTS seemed like a good way to 

combine my academic interests with that aim.55

Another social scientist emphasizes the desire to 

remedy disconnects between theory and practice; abstract knowledge and concrete experience, observing 

that “I wanted to get my hands dirty. I felt like if I was 

going to be a peace fellow, I should know what conflict looked like on a firsthand basis. So that was one of 

the big attractors for me.”56

TRAINING

The early training cycles exemplified the ad hoc 

character of the program. Lamb et al. suggest that the 

first team, AF1, received more than 6 months training, but it was not systematic, essentially making it 

up as they went along and, in parts, the process was 

auto-didactic. The only official military phase of 

the training was the pre-deployment training at the 

Combat Readiness Center, Fort Polk, Louisiana, conducted with the 82nd Airborne Division of the U.S. 
178

Army.57 That research, conducted through interviews, 

elucidates a more accurate version of the first AF1 

pre-deployment, as previous material, including an 

account from the HTS, suggests that AF1 undertook 

training at Fort Leavenworth from September 2006 to 

February 2007, which included 3 weeks on social science methods.58 In the subsequent iteration of training undertaken by the next five teams, training was 

developed as a 16-week training rotation and shaped 

to correspond roughly to what commanders should 

want to understand about the human terrain in their 

area of operations and the nature of research which 

could be conducted in insecure and highly insecure 

environments. 

To understand what the HTT social scientists were 

doing in the fields, towns, and cities of Iraq and Afghanistan, it is necessary to understand the character 

of the training. The 16-week training cycle involved 

core courses, and commenced with an “HTT Capabilities Brief” given by Fondacaro and McFate, although 

at least one social scientist asserts that this did not 

happen until later in the program and may have been 

dictated by their availability, given various roles they 

were performing.59 Subsequent courses were “Military Culture and Army 101,” and “Subversion and 

Espionage Directed Against the U.S. Army,” “Intelligence Oversight,” and lessons of Army culture, in 

addition to courses in radical Islam and populationcentric COIN.60 The training cycle was refined again 

after returning IZ1-IZ5 teams gave feedback on the 

process in February 2008 to the Program Development Team, which had been initiated by Fondacaro 

to study and evolve the proof-of-concept program.61

Program improvements included: refining the week 

of in-processing and orientation; 3 weeks of tool training; 3 weeks of COIN, stability operations, and the 
179

military decision-making-process; 5 weeks of social 

science methods; 3 weeks on negotiations, mediation, 

and debriefing; 1 week for the capstone exercise; and 

10 days of Combat Readiness Center training.62

Given the ad hoc nature of the training cycle, the 

inevitable problems, which quickly surfaced, led the 

program to award Georgia Tech Research Institute a 

U.S$8 million contract on September 30, 2008, to redesign the training curriculum after it had originally 

been awarded to BAE Systems subcontractor, Echota, 

as part of the TRADOC contract with BAE Systems.63

According to Lamb et al. on the basis of interviews 

conducted as part of their research, program manager 

Fondacaro had argued that Echota wrongly prioritized military training by former Special Operations 

Forces personnel and minimized academic training.64

In addition, it was believed that Georgia Tech would 

“increase the credibility of the training program in the 

academic community and distance the program from 

McFarland’s influence.”65

In training for the teams developed to meet the 

requirements specified in the Joint Urgent Operational Needs Statements (JUONS) in 2007, there were 

classes with cultural anthropologists such as Jeffrey 

C. Johnson, a cultural anthropologist possessing expertise in research design, research strategies, interview research, and social networks. This was focused 

on team dynamics and basic approaches to cultural 

anthropology.66 After this initial baseline knowledge 

development, there were several weeks of briefs by 

people within the program, developing the concept of 

the HTS. In these earliest iterations, this was difficult 

because only one team, AF1, had embedded. Such a 

small sample, accompanied by the “rose-tinted sunglasses version of what that team did from two individuals on that team” and lacking ability to commu-
180

nicate effectively the research AF1 had actually done, 

along with the functions of the team members, was 

“detrimental to the program.”67

This problem with the returning AF1 cohort was 

indicative of a wider problem which existed through 

multiple iterations—though not isolated within the 

HTS but part of a much broader issue—regarding 

bringing local contextual, relevant timely information back into the training cycle. As one social scientist who began training in April 2009 and deployed to 

Afghanistan noted, “We didn’t read a report or even 

interact with the Research Reachback Center until 

the very, very end when all our classes were done.”68

Teams would divide up into Afghan and Iraqi culture 

classes conducted through contracts with the Center 

for Afghan Studies at the University of Nebraska and 

the University of Kansas, for Iraq studies.69

There was, however, a problem within these country-wide examinations, being the lack of specificity 

of geography for the team. As a social scientist that 

deployed with the Marine Corps to Helmand province, Afghanistan noted the problem was that, at the 

sub-country level, nobody knew the actual regions 

they would be assigned, nevertheless, “These guys 

knew a lot, it was all old, from the 1970s, or whatever, 

it was still much more relevant than the time spent in 

class.”70 Lamb et al. assert that in this aspect of training 

there was, indeed, a lack of current knowledge of the 

areas such that much of the teaching was a “conceptual level,” and, while a “popular program,” it was 

dropped due primarily to cost constraints.”71

One former HTT member that went to the University of Nebraska in Omaha for the Afghan immersion 

training in December 2009, explains that groups split 

up for a month based on whether they would go to 
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Iraq or Afghanistan.72 In Nebraska, the team members 

were taught Dari and had culture lessons taught by 

faculty from the University. Classes consisted of approximately 2 to 3 hours of language and a culture 

class every day, or some different aspect of it. But 

these two countries, Iraq and Afghanistan, for the 

last decade at least, had been largely closed societies. 

However, a singular problem was that the faculty had 

last been in Afghanistan in the 1970s, and, while their 

knowledge of that time was profound, its relevance 

to the current trajectory was necessarily limited. This 

problem, returned to in the final chapter, hinted at the 

difficult nature of sociocultural research, which could 

be deep and thus distanced from the present situation, 

or rapid, thus relevant to the present but of limited 

depth. As one social scientist explains, the lecturers: 

had a lot of information about the politics, pre-Russian 

invasion, and the politics after that, but it wasn’t local cultural information which was useful, especially 

if you are going to Helmand, so much as it was a great 

history lesson.73

While learning Dari was only of limited utility 

when deploying to Helmand, it helped when working 

with the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police who came from the North, “but going to a 

Pashto speaking area,” the social scientist had to learn 

that language skill in theater as well as could be managed.74 The lack of current knowledge of the operating 

environment—an environment which was subject to 

rapid change and extremely insecure—was a problem 

which remained unsolved through the duration of 

operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. 
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Retaining Expertise.

There were two issues regarding the systemic 

failure in the program to retain individual expertise. 

First, there was no out-processing structure, a problem amplified by the program not being located at the 

U.S. Army Forces Command level, the element of the 

United States that deploys operating forces overseas. 

The HTS lacked its own capability to deploy and reinsert, such that HTTs deployed out of Combat Training 

Centers and returned to them, geographically away 

from TRADOC, and the program had no legal or 

regulatory authority to order them back to Fort Leavenworth.75 Second, retention vehicles through which 

to hire returning personnel were absent because the 

program had no control over contracting. This meant 

that there was a lack of individuals in possession of 

experience from the contemporary situations in Iraq 

and Afghanistan teaching in the classroom.76

The transition from contractor to government term 

employee made it “possible to retain those people and 

keep them as government employees on the staff, because the term of contract was 3 years.”77 The transition was about money, but it was also logistical, about 

the number of billets on the organization chart of the 

program.78 Government term employees possessed 

a specific number of billets in the Department of the 

Army Table of Organization and Equipment and Table 

of Distribution and Allowances. Contractors could be 

employed in any number, but in the transition to term 

government employees, the defined billets proved a 

problem for the rapidly expanded program. 
183

Training Two Cultures. 

Despite these granular aspects inhibiting optimum teaching during the cycle, the central problem 

throughout remained the difficulty in successfully 

merging the military and civilian cultures. Tensions 

would be greatly exacerbated in the theater of war. 

Returning deployed personnel integrated into the 

teaching, even if short on the appropriate ethnographic methods used, could be valuable simply for 

answering very simple questions, such as how in the 

military “they pee in front of a bunch of people” and 

other basic elements of life on the functioning military 

base.79 But ultimately, many teams deployed with inadequate knowledge of operational requirements and 

previous reporting methods and processes.80

These iterations of the training cycle involved negligible military learning for civilians, while at Fort 

Leavenworth. This highlighted the tale of two cultures 

because for those with previous military experience, 

basic training was needless, while for civilians about 

to embed with a large-scale military operation engaged in countering an insurgency, it was invaluable. 

As one social scientist observes of training: “everyone always asks, for the training, “Did you ever go to 

shooting ranges?” assuming the whole thing is about 

the military; and there was zero; zero.”81 That social 

scientist explains that military training at Fort Leavenworth was conducted by trainers informing program recruits that this was necessary—carrying the 

weight of a rifle, helmet, etc.—yet “there was no sense 

of military in the sense of being fit, being comfortable 

around firearms, knowing how to shoot one.”82 Absence of military integration experiences in the training structure “sends a really bad message to the military, if you have people showing up who have had no 
184

weapons training, I think it needed to be strong from 

the start,” and likewise the physical element, because 

it would be necessary in the area of operations to go 

out on patrols.83

Research methods and COIN instructors briefed, 

in which Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife, written by 

John Nagl was a key text, and there was a discussion 

on the origins of terrorism and the extremist Muslim 

ideology of Sayyid Qutb. Theoretical discussions, 

however, were of limited utility. Rather, one social scientist remembers of great value the talk given by Dr. 

Christopher King, who would later become Director 

of the Social Science Directorate, speaking: 

at length about this quantitative study that he had 

done; he showed us the statistics, showed us the questions, showed us the methods, and this was one of the 

first times we had really seen what a team was doing 

and what they might be doing.84

The same social scientist remembered an element of 

the teaching, McFate and Fondacaro discussing the 

program and what it was—“the Montgomery and 

Steve show”—and this was a passionate appeal, but 

as that social scientist notes: “I do feel as if that was 

the myth, I saw the myth and it took a while to figure out what the reality was.”85 Practice was of more 

value than theory, but given the sui generis nature of 

the tasks ahead of them, even practical discussion had 

limited utility when the teams embedded. 

Weston Resolve.

Elements of the training cycle are invaluable for 

understanding why social scientists were introduced 

into Iraq and Afghanistan because they demonstrate 
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what management hoped would be achieved. After the 

completion of methods teaching, the capstone event 

called Weston Resolve commenced (named after the 

town in Missouri where the exercise was conducted). 

Over time, the teams in subsequent training cycles 

branched out into other communities in the Leavenworth area, but continued to combine anthropology 

research and integrate that into military staff processes 

with a heavy focus on just the staffing process.86 Conducting this mock field research was valuable, as was 

briefing results to a mock brigade staff, which allowed 

the teams to develop a feel for the military structures 

and operational tempo. For the first time, the academic intake could interact with experienced, retired military officers who had performed these roles in practice. This was also valuable for developing small team 

interactions and working out the dynamics within the 

teams. However, that understanding of the military 

structures could be lost on academics at the time, as 

one social scientist explained: “I did not get it at all, I 

did not get what our point was until I got to Afghanistan, when I got it a little bit more.”87

Despite the obvious value, there were critics of 

that mock field research component. Jennifer Clark 

explains of that “cavalier” time in the program that, 

for the brief moment during Weston Resolve after 

the research element, the program management afforded the teams a period of time to prepare for the 

briefing. However, the teams were advised that they 

would be allowed only a few minutes to brief because 

“the operational tempo was really extreme, and you 

had to be fast.”88 Managers on the exercise gave teams 

“pointers” on the content and delivery, and military 

officers who would offer advice: “be quick; don’t do 

this; do this.”89 The problem for Clark was one of 
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ethics: the briefing had to be interlaced with that of 

the commander’s critical information requirements. 

These requirements were “mostly kinetic in nature,” 

but here the teams were “supposed to read between 

the lines and try and advise them [the commanders] 

on the things they would need to know to help them 

turn into a non-kinetic scenario.”90 However, the team 

wanted to gain information which could be used for 

kinetic targeting, while Clark “was the lone anthropologist, saying ‘that is not our objective’.”91 Experience of the operational tempo was critical to developing in the social scientist mind the rhythm of military 

operations on the ground. It was a necessity for civilian social scientists to learn the operational tempo 

of the combat brigade conducting stabilization and 

enabling operations. However, prior to the Status of 

Forces Agreement in Iraq that was enacted on January 1, 2009, HTT members were all contractors and as 

such were limited by time. In the training cycle, that 

meant that personnel were only allowed on-site for 8 

hours a day, and were between very strict parameters 

on what could be done. This was a shortcoming of 

early iterations of the training cycle: “you cannot do 

an Operational Tempo and learn about that if you are 

confined to an 8-hour work day.”92

Pre-Deployment.

Positive experience, when embedded with brigades, was often amplified by earlier initiative taken 

during training that was focused on developing rapport and relationships with preferred teammates. 

This was due to reluctant “ruthlessness on our part 

in the training cycle, effectively paring people out. 

None of us enjoyed it, it becomes a bit political,” but 

it was necessary because “there were some people in 
187

the training program who meant well and were nice 

people but who didn’t have anything obvious to offer 

to the mission. It wasn’t clear what they were going 

to do once they deployed.”93 Being confident in each 

other’s talents thus ensured that the team leader could 

be hands off with the research elements of the team. 

One social scientist highlighted “a lot of horse trading” by a “very proactive” team leader to ensure that 

he obtained the personnel he wanted in his team, but 

even that “only came together in the last few weeks of 

training.”94

The composition of the team was only known at 

the end of the training process, and, when the program 

expanded beyond the original five teams subsequent 

to AF1, this was also true of the location the teams 

would be sent to, which inevitably had a deleterious 

impact on planning. As Evans explains, local politics 

and local history are the most important aspects of 

pre-deployment knowledge: 

There were people who didn’t know what team they 

were going to until they were already deploying. And 

there were people who thought they were going to 

one place, and by the time they arrived, they ended up 

going someplace completely different.95

This meant that they were often unable to research 

the location of their deployment to the best of their 

ability, creating a mindset that training had been inadequate. Clark explains that it “was so bad” that at the 

end of pre-deployment training, she was supposed to 

be embedding with IZ10 in the south of Baghdad attached to a U.S. Army unit, and it was only during 

departure that Clark learned she had been reassigned 

to the a Marine Corps unit elsewhere in Iraq. So Clark 

was “literally walking onto the plane” when she received “orders to report to al-Anbar,” in effect going 
188

from a Shi’ite community which she had been studying for 4 months “to a Sunni community that was the 

heart of the insurgency.”96 Moreover, Clark was going 

from envisioning her deployment with the Army, to 

embedding with Marine Corps, which is a “whole different bag of beans.”97

Many embedded team members were sent as individual replacements to existing teams. Even when 

entire teams were sent intact, there could be problems 

in the training cycle. One social scientist explains that 

they were sent to the National Training Center at Fort 

Irwin, California, to do a “role-player scenario” with 

artificial towns in the desert. The military integration 

meant that it was “by far the best” part of the training cycle” where 10-15 members of the training cycle 

could feel military equipment, go on patrols in substantial heat, understand the pace of operations, sleep 

on the cots, “just the whole thing—getting in and out 

of a Humvee, all of it was really key to me for understanding really what we were getting ourselves into.”98

However, the social scientist was embedded with the 

Marine Corps in Afghanistan, whereas the National 

Training Center integration was with an Army unit 

heading for Iraq. This highlights a broader problem; 

that the embedded teams were an inorganic addition 

to a brigade which had grown and developed through 

pre-deployment training. In the Marine Corps—more 

centered on personal relationships than the Army—

this made integration even more arduous. As Ben 

Connable explains generally, there was no period in 

the pre-deployment phase during which the HTT was 

able to: 

build rapport with the staff, to establish its bona fides, to establish its role, and so that led to additional 
189

points of friction when the deployments took place. 

And rightfully, there were commanders questioning 

what they were hearing from these people that they 

did not know.99

EVOLUTION

Practical missteps highlighted by deploying members of the program necessitated the creation of two 

different processes to evolve the HTS. The first, the 

Program Development Team, was an in-house lessons learned investigation designed to capture what 

was happening with embedded teams in Iraq and 

Afghanistan. The results would then be fed back into 

the organization in order to advance the program iteratively. The second process was the Operational 

Planning Team, necessary because the program had 

grown too fast relative to the number of systems and 

structures in place such that there was no organization chart spelling out individual responsibilities and 

roles in the program, the character of the training, or 

control over human resources contracting. This lack 

of organizational identity and clarity were “enormous 

problems and very hard for a fledgling entity to deal 

with especially when you are trying to fight with your 

upper management for the right to even run your 

program.”100

Program Development Team.

Created in 2006, the Program Development Team 

was a multifunctional research and management 

group comprised of former embedded team social 

scientists, senior management and military members, 

the latter providing important input on the nature of 

the research required by the primary customer. The 
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development team reporting process was instigated 

by the HTS program manager as a means to absorb 

lessons learned. The development team’s official 

mission was to:

manage organizational transformation through project evaluation and the development of change requirements to ensure HTS remains relevant and continues 

to meet the needs of a rapidly changing environment; 

and to expand the understanding of HTS through engagement with external critics to facilitate the institutionalization of the HTS concept.101

The development team was required because, 

while there were historical models which were “somewhat similar” to the program, such as the Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support program and the Office of Strategic Services field units 

(although mission and structures were different), 

HTS was “basically running an experiment because it 

wasn’t like we had an off the shelf model for what we 

wanted to do.”102

In truth, policy-directed information to capture 

funding was found to be fundamentally disconnected 

from the realities of the field such that, as McFate observes, “we didn’t know what would work, and we 

had to find out what would work based on empirical evidence not because we made it up in the Pentagon.”103 By 2009, it was apparent that lessons learned 

from embedded teams had not been adequately captured; a problem exacerbated by the fact that many 

returning HTT personnel had not been retained in the 

program, leading to a critical departure of field expertise. Variation between theaters and brigades meant 

that there was no “one-off solution”; no “plug-andplay” for training and doctrine which could work 

across the spectrum of embedded teams.104
191

The development team was thus tasked with visiting embedded teams to examine form and function 

in Iraq and Afghanistan using a Doctrine, Organization, Training, Materiel, Leadership, Personnel and 

Facilities framework, an assessment used to identify 

deficiencies in holistic warfighting capabilities. Using 

this framework, the development team captured a diverse array of problems in the field, from not using 

zippers in Iraq because of the sand, to emerging issues 

concerning ethics, to training foci, to requirements for 

extra emphasis on methods teaching.105 A key finding 

of the development team linked specifically to training in that “people do what they have been trained for 

over their lifetime, not what you try to teach them in 

2 weeks” (see Appendix L).106 The decision was made 

to develop experiential learning opportunities so that 

future embedded team members in training could apply skill sets already learned to new environments. 

This meant the requirement to develop highly structured tools for reporting either a long-term research 

process or a short-term research effort of 1 to 2 weeks. 

Specifically, these tools were designed to enable social science research as part of a bureaucracy to enable 

tracking and ethical oversight. The goal was “getting 

the people to understand this is different from writing your dissertation, this is about simple, quick, 

structured communication of what it is that you are 

doing”—in short, operationally relevant reporting.107

From inside the organization, the development 

team’s work was not simply about capturing and implementing lessons learned in order to evolve the program. The HTS was encountering myriad difficulties 

and was the subject of multiple external assessments. 

To defend the program’s record, solidify its existence, 

and propagate funding streams, the development 
192

team was an opportunity from within to generate 

an empirical record which could demonstrate robust 

performances, consolidating and amplifying funding 

requests. According to one member of the team: 

the PDT [Program Development Team] was mostly 

about trying to provide forms of justification for HTS 

to exist. It allowed us to go to our primary customer; 

which were units downrange [in Iraq and Afghanistan] and take their reporting on our performance to 

congress and everyone else for funding.108

The role of the development team as a vehicle to 

facilitate funding was part of a larger modus operandi

identified in the detailed congressionally directed 

Center for Naval Analyses assessment, that the program management devoted most “effort to selling the 

Project [HTS] at the expense of leadership and effective management.”109

Operational Planning Team.

A core component of the program was the training cycle because it prepared team members for a 

role which had no historical analogue. Without prior 

examples to serve as templates, teaching was based 

around educated surmising of the needs of a commander in the unique situations presented in Iraq 

and Afghanistan. Inevitably, then, the training had 

“mushroomed,” based on subjective feedback of idiosyncratic concerns for particular types of training 

from returning HTT members, such that every iteration of the training cycle had been unique.110 Comparison between iterations proved futile, given the 

rapid expansion of the program and unforeseen developments such as the Status of Forces Agreement in 
193

Iraq which led to the termination of the use of private 

contractors. This situation with each training cycle being sui generis was clearly untenable for longitudinal 

development of the program because it did not allow 

for any coherent planning. The training restructuring 

based on evidence could only proceed if it was known 

what the individuals on teams were supposed to be 

in terms of role and performance—individual tasks. 

Individual tasks could only be known if the exact role 

of the team is known—collective tasks. At this time, 

McFate moved to Missouri to work on the HTS Operational Planning Team where she could interact closely 

with Jeff Bowden, who was leading the curriculum 

review.111

During the work of the planning team, two critical problems became apparent which fundamentally 

affected the performance of HTS as an organization. 

First, there was no knowledge management system 

adequate to the requirements of the HTS as a viable 

program. This vacuum necessitated the development 

of a knowledge management aspect to be incorporated 

into the work of the planning team. Second, there were 

clear inadequacies in the social science component of 

the training; the overarching concern being how to 

train social scientists in methods and concepts given 

that the work of the teams in Iraq and Afghanistan 

was largely unknown to recruits in the United States 

who were based in Fort Leavenworth. 

Evidence collated from the development team and 

products which had been provided by HTTs to the Research Reachback Center assisted in this investigation, 

however, there was no broad knowledge of how these 

products were changing across areas of operations or 

across time and which classes of research—economic, 

political, or social—were proving most valuable to the 

commander. McFate stated the problem thus: 
194

Are they being asked to give training to military units? 

Are they being asked to give briefings? Are they just 

sitting by the commander whispering in his ear? How 

are they inputting into the Military Decision-Making 

Process? What kind of analysis are they doing?112

In addition, it was necessary to know what research 

the teams were doing and how they were doing it: 

“Are they coding their notes? How are they analyzing 

their notes? Are they doing any statistical analysis?”113

Ultimately, the task became reflexive: “We cannot 

even answer the question because we have not analyzed ourselves well enough to know what we need 

to know in order to train people to do it more effectively.”114

To do it more effectively, the Social Science Working Group—part of the knowledge management component of the Operational Planning Team—sought to 

shed light upon these processes. The working group 

was tasked with assessing, categorizing and tracking information; and structuring knowledge. Core 

concepts for training were thus identified, along with 

the principle research methods employed in the field 

and identification of the types of analysis that different teams were performing (see Appendix L).115 From 

there, it was possible “to say these are the actual skills 

you need on a team to carry out the mission, and here 

is how we believe the skill sets fall into buckets.”116

Therefore the Operational Planning Team process 

was to proceed via 10 steps: 

1. development of a vision statement; 

2. initiating review of the social science concepts 

and methods; 

3. review of collective tasks (those of the HTTs, 

Human Terrain Analysis Teams, and Research 

Reachback Center); 
195

4. identify knowledge management requirements 

(products and processes); 

5. develop the knowledge management plan; 

6. develop individual tasks for team members; 

7. identify knowledge skills and attributes; 

8. develop terminal learning objectives; 

9. create enabling learning objectives; and, 

10. conduct curriculum design. 

In March 2009, the vision statement was developed: “Providing decision makers with sociocultural 

understanding to enhance achievement of desired 

outcomes across the spectrum of conflict”; and the 

mission statement:

Recruits, trains, deploys, and supports a dedicated, 

embedded social science capability; conducts operationally relevant research and analysis; and develops 

and maintains a sociocultural knowledge base, in 

order to enable culturally astute decision-making, 

enhance operational effectiveness, and preserve and 

share sociocultural institutional knowledge.117

Despite the difficulty in teasing out a definite character of social science research in Iraq or Afghanistan, 

part of its categorization of knowledge, the working 

group separated direct and indirect tasks generated 

by the commander or staff. Direct tasks were specific 

information requirements directed by the command; 

whereas indirect tasks were broad, umbrella concerns, 

such as the problems posed by entering a new area of 

operation, without giving the HTT specific guidance 

for their mission sets, but ascertaining that certain information would be required for the execution of the 

mission in general and executing tasks to achieve that 

for the command. The other mode could be termed 
196

entrepreneurial and would be where the embedded 

team discovered “basic knowledge gaps that the brigade didn’t have, based on their observations of the 

unit they were supporting.”118

A Perfect Storm.

Shaping this research and development was the 

initial inability to define social science knowledge 

which as a corollary obfuscated the role that HTTs 

were designed to perform when embedded in a combat team. The amorphous and poorly understood notion of both social science and sociocultural knowledge 

meant that many embedded teams could fall back to 

the lowest common denominator; merely augmenting 

existing intelligence cells’ techniques, falling back on 

a broad definition of “culture” to explain myriad collection techniques focused on an array of categories 

of information from the economy, to agriculture, to 

demographics. 

The planning team and development team could 

resolve a number of issues within that sphere. For 

example, based on feedback, ideal composition of 

teams were developed for three-, four-, five-, six-, and 

seven-person roles, with three and seven then being 

rejected as too parsimonious and too complicated, respectively. The four-role team would remain the same 

as those which had deployed previously; five-role 

teams would allow specialization with the Human 

Terrain Analyst position, which would separate into 

two, a research-focused Human Terrain Analyst and 

a separate bilingual, bicultural advisor, because the 

problem had been that both types of personnel were 

being hired to the same broad Human Terrain Analyst 

position, but they behaved differently and had differ-
197

ent skill sets when embedded.119 The six-role team 

would allow specialization at the social science level, 

disaggregating quantitative and qualitative social science analysis, where, “because good quantitative scientists and good qualitative social scientists tend not 

to come in the same package, even if they think they 

do.”120 The seven-role team included separating information technology and operations functions in the 

Research Manager role—with the latter serving as a 

quasi-assistant to the team leader—but this team was 

ultimately rejected on the grounds that the differentiation between roles was not pronounced.121

Ultimately however, both the development team 

and planning team failed to resolve who the ideal 

social scientist might be in terms of discipline, level 

of field research, level of education, and preferential 

research modes. The personalities and skill sets of 

the social scientists that had been embedded were so 

broad as to be amorphous and indistinct in terms of 

identification and categorization. Complicating this 

investigation, many of the personalities conflicted, but 

each individual still functioned effectively. In short, 

as a general rule, individuals with excellent interpersonal skills and field research experience might perform well, but there was no black and white answer 

to the question of what made a successful social scientist. This perfect storm may never be resolved because 

even assessment of optimal academic achievements is 

muddied by the broad and changing requirements of 

stabilization environments. The West Point study, for 

example, concluded that: 

Limiting academics to only holders of doctorates may 

be inadvertently missing a talented and eager group 

of academics with master’s degrees who may bring 
198

other needed attributes to the team. While Ph.D.s tend 

to provide ‘deep thinking,’ we have observed a civilian team member with only a BA (and some MA level 

work) providing outstanding analysis and linkages.122

“Infinite Opportunity”: Curriculum Redesign.

Despite the absence of a black and white solution 

to the question of the character and content of the ideal 

social scientist, there was enough research conducted 

by the program managers finally to redesign the training cycle. The process of curriculum redesign has been 

traced back to the HTT Handbook, published in October 2008.123 The handbook, produced by a Doctrine 

Development Team: 

delineated the Mission Essential Task Lists for the four 

roles of the HTTs—team leader, social scientist, human 

terrain analyst, research manager—and presented a 

list of five contributions embedded teams could make 

to brigades in Iraq and Afghanistan.124

The curriculum redesign process then began more 

formally with the creation of the Operational Planning 

Team in December 2008. The team telephoned HTTs 

in the field and in January 2009 developed a document which posed questions to embedded teams to 

assess the evolution of research.125 In order to assist in 

the development of the planning team, the HTS sent 

out a survey research tool to all the embedded teams 

that were currently in the program. This survey used 

a combination of survey methodology and social network analysis to try and isolate what tools were being 

used by what teams, where, when, and why. 

The sample returned was enough to contribute 

to the redesign process, but according to one former 
199

HTT member familiar with the process, the problem 

was that the disparity: 

in terms of what people understood they were doing was so broad, whether you are talking to a social 

scientist, whether you are talking to a military officer, 

whether you are talking to this team, that team. That 

it was very difficult to even code their responses in a 

meaningful way.126

This initiated a series of working groups over the 

subsequent 6 months, which employed strategies such 

as pile sorting and focus groups and fed into the mission to Iraq and Afghanistan. The Program Development Team had used a series of interviews on particular issues that were identified on the working group 

process; the information gathered afforded the opportunity to start developing ideal team structures in the 

future. As Lamb et al. explain as part of their detailed 

study, at the start of 2010, the HTS had produced a 

document “Terminal and Enabling Learning Objectives” and the “document provided a de facto roadmap for program reforms.”127 The HTS held a training 

curriculum review conference from January 26 to February 5, 2010, to assess how much of the HTT research 

was useful to the commander, and if the research is 

“incorporated, in a timely fashion, with the unit’s decision making process.”128 It was also envisaged that 

redesign could allow the HTS to integrate into other 

TRADOC activities such as post-Afghanistan and Iraq 

Brigade Combat Team road-to-war exercises.129

Meanwhile, the first Operational Planning Team 

meeting took place at Oyster Point in January 2009 focusing on the vision statement and mission statement 

for the program, led by Colonel Mark Crisci and developed by Robert Holliday, whose position as Director 
200

of Doctrine Development began in November 2008. 

This initial meeting took the U.S. Central Command 

JUONS and used it to deduce an HTS vision statement, a mission statement, and basic task specialization. The follow-up meeting in March 2009 attempted to generate a collective task list for the program, 

which is what the individual tasks were that had to be 

accomplished by organizations within the HTS. The 

collective task lists composed highlighted that, while 

there were identifiable bureaucratic tasks for people 

to execute, there was lacking actual mission-specific 

tasks that pertained to social science. This was a problematic issue identified by myriad social scientists that 

embedded in Iraq and Afghanistan. To that end, in 

early-2010, the rapidly convened Social Science Working Group attempted to bureaucratize social science in 

the context of the HTS. 

In its formation, the Social Science Working Group 

was intended to review core social science concepts, 

analyze social science methods used by embedded 

teams, and redesign two core courses in the HTS curriculum: the “Introduction to Anthropology” and 

the “Social Science Research Methods.” Broadly, the 

group was convened to attempt to arrive at a common 

set of methods for what the teams were to do when 

they embedded with combat brigades.130 It was found 

necessary to assess what commanders actually wanted to know from the HTTs, in order to work toward 

developing the common set of methods for the social 

scientists. Identification of these core concepts would 

enable teams to conduct more effective baseline assessments, aggregate data from the brigade combat 

team to higher units to develop a common operating 

picture and re-energize social scientist use of the mapping of humain terrain (MAP-HT), the technology tool 
201

brought over and developed from the Cultural Preparation of the Environment, but which was a failure 

like its precursor. 

There were two basic questions from which the 

undertaking could commence. First, answering what 

the brigade commander wants to know about society 

and culture in the area of operations. Second, what the 

commander needs to know about society and culture. 

The answers were deduced from a pile-sort of requests 

made by HTTs to the Research Reachback Center for 

both Iraq and Afghanistan. In developing data categories, the working group examined relevant concepts 

such as: doctrine in Field Manual (FM) 3-24, Counterinsurgency and FM 3-07, Stability Operations; and other 

models maintained in repositories like the Human 

Relations Area Files at Yale University relating to 

areas, structures, capabilities, organizations, people, 

events, political, military, economic, social, information, and infrastructure.

The working group analyzed the main methods 

through which several teams conducted research, 

which were centered on three techniques: semi-structured interviews, unstructured interviews and literature reviews. To a lesser extent, research also included 

social network analysis and rapid ethnography, driveby reporting, surveys, Research Reachback Center requests, pile sorts, and broad observation. Each data 

collection method, and the additional methods of key 

leader engagements, mixed methods and focus groups 

were assessed according to five criteria: the level of security the method required; the scope; the type of data 

produced; the strengths of the method; and cautions 

and caveats. Methods used, however, were not indicative of the brigade needs but rather were the result of 

team competencies (see Appendix L). In combat zones 
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experts stayed with the skill sets they understood best 

and the MAP-HT tool did not allow HTT personnel 

to generate “usable” outputs. This highlights why 

MAP-HT was so difficult to integrate as a tool into the 

HTTs, and led to the proliferation of Microsoft Office 

software to generate research products. The Social 

Science Working Group produced a list of supported 

unit deliverables (finished products) which included 

the structure that different PowerPoint presentations 

and generic reports should take. 

As part of the redesign, an HTS Ontology Working Group was created to produce operationally relevant data taxonomies. The MAP-HT tool based on 

the Cultural Preparation of the Environment was the 

most coherent existing attempt to classify data; being 

by country, ethnic group, confederation (tribal affiliation), and province. Problematic was that many of 

the sub-branches of each category which were developed in order to add granularity to existing data 

taxonomies often overlapped with other sub-branches 

in other levels. It was therefore necessary to redesign 

these main branches and sub-branches in order to be 

more discrete and hence prevent overlap. The recommended categorization became: region or geographic 

area; physical geography; demography; economy; political government; education; crime/justice; history; 

religion; social organization and relationships; and 

culture/material culture. After review by the Social 

Science Working Group, the finalized list became: region/geography; demography; infrastructure; economy; politics and government; security/justice; education; health; history; religion; social organization and 

identity; and general and material culture.

The individual tasks necessary to perform the 

collective tasks were developed, which was accom-
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plished from information collected from the Program 

Development Team, and identified under the team 

structure those individual tasks, finally bureaucratizing the program in terms of social science: who does it; 

how they do it; how they work together; and how they 

communicate. This material became the opening documents to the Knowledge Management Conference in 

January 2011—and was the final layer of the fundamental question for HTS writ large in its relationship 

with the military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan: “If 

this is what we do, how do we train it?”131

The Capstone publication, Joint Publication (JP), 3-0, 

Joint Operations, highlights the necessity for information management because it “is an essential process that 

receives, organizes, stores, controls, and secures an organization’s wide range of data” and is “important for 

the commander’s battle rhythm and the development 

and sharing of information to increase both individual 

and collective knowledge.”132 The conference was thus 

concerned with alloying social science expertise to the 

customer; specifically the types of technology HTTs 

were using to enable communication to achieve these 

tasks set out in the redesign. This involved identification of the customer; data repositories; and future data 

management strategy. The collective tasks are instructive in how the HTS had developed to that point; the 

program now defined operationally relevant sociocultural knowledge as focused not on friends or enemies, 

but on the population and the environment and that 

“operationally relevant” means that the sociocultural 

information has utility for the supported unit and 

their mission, in support of unit requirements and not 

for personal gain.133
204

The new training curriculum was finally executed 

in August 2011.134 Separation of activities occurred 

such that the process was now divided into three 

phases: foundation skills and research operations 

(common training); individual training (specialized); 

and collective training (combined training in collective environment as part of teams, to understand how 

they will work in the field).135 The social science 2-week 

pre-deployment training configured as part of the redesign was still part of the larger training program in 

the collective class. The subsequent team break out 

focused, first, on collective task training as teams; 

subsequent to that were the individual team training 

tasks and exercises specific to the job training. The social science 2-week training period relates to that third 

phase of the training cycle. After this period was a final phase, a team exercise using newly developed skill 

sets, reconvened as a team in preparation for possible 

pre-deployment. 

The primary problems were two-fold. First, because of the range of social science graduates in the 

class, from master’s graduates to post-doctoral trainees, creating a generic level of teaching was difficult. 

Questions inevitably arose, such as: was the cohort 

disposed to quantitative or qualitative methods? Each 

cohort was thus sui generis, in that they had their own 

identities already formed from considerable academic 

qualifications and thus teaching them as a whole was 

problematic. The solution as created by the team was 

to implement practical exercises which afforded the 

students an opportunity to contextualize the skills 

that they already knew, but in the environment that 

they would be operating in. The work undertaken by 

the Program Development Team had shown that the 

training program failed to alter preferred research 
205

techniques already central to the social scientist. As 

one HTS member familiar with the redesign observed: 

even if we tried to teach them new skills, they still 

wouldn’t use them. Because that was one of the key 

findings in 2009—people do what they have been 

trained for over their lifetime, not what you try to 

teach them in 2 weeks. People will try and pull that in 

but what is more important is giving them the experiential learning opportunity so that they can take the 

skills they already know and readily provide those in 

a new environment.136

The training element thus focused on research 

planning and design tools developed under the auspices of the Program Development Team. Ultimately, 

in translating the two cultures, it was about emphasizing a type of research which could best be termed 

“operationally relevant reporting.” 

Familiarization with tools (resiliency training) was 

the first section; the subsequent day was the baseline 

assessment which was a literature review focused on 

the area, if known, in which the social scientist will 

operate in. This provided mission-specific training, 

utilizing academic expertise inherent in the construction of a literature review. It was also considered that 

this document would be organic; there would be an 

existing baseline assessment by the embedded HTT, 

into which this literature review could be integrated, 

and further research, once in place, could be added. 

This thus represented an attempt to develop a form 

of institutional memory, and a coherent central narrative, though this ultimately failed as an attempt and 

points to a severe challenge in the Army’s continual 

quest to develop institutional knowledge.137
206

The dynamic between language and culture training favored culture training because deep language 

training was far beyond the time frame of the course; 

thus Day 3 examined cultural training and included 

a 1-hour familiarization class with MAP-HT. These 

1-hour classes were insufficient to make the equipment central to the team and only the Research Managers got more than 1 hour training with the tool in 

this resource-constrained curriculum. The remainder 

of the first week was for the social scientist to develop 

the baseline assessment. Baseline assessments meant 

that they had familiarization with at least one area in 

Afghanistan (combat brigades had by this time departed Iraq), and they could understand where resources 

exist to get information and further how it would be 

possible to integrate that information into existing databases using instruction.138 Despite the high academic 

standard of the trainees, there were problems discovered, particularly an inability to conduct the literature 

research or an inability to structure thoughts “in a 

way that could be simply communicated.”139 These 

gaps were mitigated by remedial lessons.

The second week focused on research methods. 

Day 1 discussed quantitative research. Teaching 

methods in the abstract, it was found that training 

was facilitated by identifying categories through 

quantitative analysis rather than entering into a discussion over what categories of analysis could be used 

and would be necessary for a discussion of qualitative analysis. That class introduced concepts of survey 

research, but emphasized validity and reliability; in 

short, the challenges in doing combat research. Those 

social scientists that were already trained in quantitative methods were then instructed in some of the basic sources in the military, which were unknown to 
207

the academic community; military databases that an 

operational researcher in Iraq and Afghanistan would 

utilize. Then using the research template generated in 

the previous week, an exercise focused on attempting 

to communicate to a commander the goal of the research project to be implemented. At the core of this 

process was effective communication to a commander 

about what the social scientist is trying to do; to communicate that HTS is ethically sound in its research 

proposal; to communicate to the rest of the team what 

is required of them in the research process.

The subsequent qualitative section created conditions of a conflicted area; to get the social scientists to 

design qualitative research within constraints based 

on the information given. The social scientists would 

then be asked who they would interview, how they 

would interview them, what they would ask, and what 

research material they were expecting to get out of the 

process. Culturally insensitive actions or unrealistic 

goals could be corrected by the training supervisor. 

On the third day of the second week, the social scientists continued the qualitative research design, and on 

the fourth day, they presented papers. The final day 

capstone project incorporated an information brief 

for the area they were going to that would replicate 

a baseline assessment, and then the social scientists 

were allowed to design a research project as appropriate, without supervision, taking “the training wheels 

off” and allowing “infinite opportunity,” such as that 

which existed in the operating environment for HTTs 

when embedded in insecure areas.140 Various designs 

for research to be conducted over the subsequent 9 

months were created and drafted to support the unit. 

At this point, the social scientists for the first time 

developed a baseline assessment in the context of the 
208

province, including a background of what qualitative 

and quantitative methods are possible. Put simply: 

they finally have the opportunity in an Afghan context, real world environment, to say: ‘Oh this is what I 

think my job is supposed to be, this is how I would do 

it, and this is how I would communicate to the team 

what my role is’.141

ETHICS AT WAR

Due in large part to the absence of historical analogies to the program and the sense of crisis in which 

it was formed, when the HTS was created, there 

were no ethical guidelines for the embedded teams. 

Dr. McFate has noted that the OSS served in some 

ways as a basic blueprint, and Fondacaro specifically 

highlighted the Jedburgh teams, as part of the OSS, 

but beyond those basic ideas there was little information upon which to draw. The HTS personnel in Iraq 

and Afghanistan were conducting research in highly 

insecure areas, integrated into the brigade staff, and 

it was not known how this program would develop. 

Broadly, the remit of reducing military and civilian 

casualties was the architecture which would guide actions in an area of operations.142 As the HTS 2007-08 

Yearbook explains, social science was a broad church 

such that a unified ethical architecture beneath which 

all its social scientists sat was unlikely. In addition, the 

HTS Ethics Guidelines were released in 2009, created by 

five former HTT social scientists that comprised the 

Ethics Working Group and incorporated an additional 

group of social scientists who were deployed in Iraq 

and Afghanistan. The problem in formation of the ethical guidelines, however, was instructive of the wider 

problem of homogenization of research and research 
209

methods of the broad net of social scientists: “you had 

an interdisciplinary group, again with different ethical considerations trying to come up with a common 

set of standards, which of course, doesn’t work.”143

On the academic side, given that AF1’s social scientist was a graduate-trained anthropologist and McFate 

possessed a Ph.D. in anthropology and a juris doctor 

degree (J.D.), it was most logical to consider the Code 

of Ethics of the Society for Applied Anthropology, as 

it related to field research and human participants.144

On the military side, the beginning of the program 

was marked by examination of Title 32, Code of Federal 

Regulations (CFR) Part 219, Army regulations pertaining to human subjects.145 As McFate explains: 

there is a big loophole there; you don’t have to do an 

IRB [Institutional Review Board proposal to the Army 

Human Research Protections Office] if certain conditions are met. We were in the middle of supporting a 

war, so the idea that, ‘Stop everything we have to do 

an IRB’ was simply not feasible. It is totally impractical 

and also probably unnecessary.146

Unnecessary, because McFate considered that, in 

the field, social scientists could identify themselves to 

informants, gain permission to interview, code notes, 

and not share those notes, or any names with commanders—the exception being public figures already 

known to the unit—because “you’re not going to say 

“Sheikh X” when the brigade commander was at that 

meeting and he knows the guy’s name.”147

Criticism by the American Anthropological Association of the program inhibited applications from 

a top tier of professional anthropologists while master’s graduates in anthropology would have fewer 

concerns, and those outside that specific discipline 
210

would see only tangential relevance to their own 

fields of study. Instructively, as one bio-archaeologist 

and former embedded social scientist noted, “The 

cultural anthropologist side was the least side of my 

concerns, and so it didn’t really bother me what the 

AAA [American Anthropological Association] had to 

say.”148 Indeed, McFate argued instead that the publicity saw “increased numbers” apply to the program. 

She used an interesting analogy for the effect of the 

American Anthropological Association Executive 

Board’s statement, on applications to work for the 

program, likening the impact to: 

when Google Maps published Barbara Streisand’s 

beach house location, and she sued them. Suddenly 

everybody was on Google trying to figure out where 

Barbara Streisand lives. If she had done nothing, then 

no one would have cared, no one would have noticed: 

so, thank you AAA.149

Social scientists embedded at the patrol level in 

combat units nevertheless presented a particular 

problem to the academy because of their consistent 

proximity to host populations in the presence of coalition soldiers. For Robert Albro, this was a particular problem because the data that is accrued from the 

embedded teams is going to be uploaded to a shared 

system at some point, SIPRNet (Secret Internet Protocol Router Network) for example, and from there, the 

data and information can be used in any way for any 

purpose, out of the hands of the social scientist who 

collected and processed it.150 Highlighting the notion 

of two cultures, from inside the military architecture 

such criticism was seen as hypocritical, particularly 

when: 
211

people in academia underplay from an ethical point 

of view the number of people who have access to their 

research information through FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] requests and everything else.151

According to the Army Human Research Protections Office (AHRPO), Department of Defense (DoD) 

Instruction 3216.02 requires the protections office Institutional Review Board to approve DoD-supported 

human subjects research that is more than minimal 

risk.152 In McFate’s assessment, however, the first iteration—the first five teams—fell into Title 32 CFR Part 

219 exemptions for human research protection and 

thus did not necessitate approach to the protections 

office. Research was exempt beneath Title 32 when it 

involved survey or interview procedures, if the procedures did not allow human subjects to be “identified, 

directly or through identifiers” or when any disclosure of the subject’s “responses outside the research” 

could endanger them.153

In 2007, the program management approached the 

Office of the Judge Advocate General (JAG) at TRADOC citing the nature of the mission, the broad character of the field work, existing legislation, and asking 

for an authorizing letter. Jennifer Clark had returned 

from her role as a Human Terrain Analysis Team 

social scientist in Iraq to become Deputy Director of 

the Social Science Directorate to assist in strengthening the ethics aspect of the program. Clark’s position 

with regard to the protections office was that HTT investigations in Iraq and Afghanistan “did not fit the 

parameters of research as outlined by any of the ethical guidelines.”154 This led Clark to request exemption 

status because the only position at which research, as 

defined by the protections office, was being conducted was at the Theater Coordination Element, because 
212

they were using surveys from the Social Science Research Agency, a survey capability which employed 

members of the host population. After 2 years of approaching the Judge Advocate General quarterly, the 

HTS management received confirmation that the program fell into the exemptions under Title 32. 

Information Versus Intelligence.

In March 2011, Major General Michael Flynn called 

information and intelligence the fire and maneuver of 

the 21st century.155 The observation made is one which 

cuts to the core of the HTS; an apparent discernible 

difference between information and intelligence in 

which both are discrete and separate entities. Yet, in 

practice, is such a conceptualization feasible? One 

Theater Coordination Element social scientist that 

deployed to Afghanistan argued: “Everything is intelligence. Everything in the world is intelligence; depending on who analyzes it and for what purposes. 

But HTS was not designed to provide intelligence in 

the classical terms.”156 Indicating the propensity for 

cross-cultural misunderstanding, one social scientist 

observed that “the term intelligence is special in the 

academic community” without necessarily being well 

understood, and that at the level of the Theater Coordination Element, at least they gathered information, 

but did not collect information.157 The differentiation 

is an interesting one: one analogy is of the woodsman 

collecting firewood; the collector will cut down a tree 

and chop up the trunk into logs while the gatherer 

will find broken off branches on the ground and take 

them away to be used.

The HTTs existed in a grey area physically because 

there was an unresolved issue by mid-2008 of where 
213

to situate the team in the organization of the brigade. 

The original concept had been broadly composed to 

allow flexibility in positioning the teams, such that 

they could be located in any structure deemed appropriate by the brigade staff.158 This was left at the 

discretion of the brigade staff, but it posed a unique 

problem because there were only two possible scenarios. In the first scenario, the brigade commander could 

integrate the HTT into other intelligence assets at the 

level of the S-2 (military battalion and brigade level 

intelligence staff); in that scenario the embedded team 

would likely devolve into providing sociocultural information that was broadly in line with existing military products, in order to integrate them successfully 

and gain leverage. In the second scenario, as social 

science researchers filling a unique gap, they could 

be isolated from other assets and conduct academic 

social science research with hypotheses, methodologies, and caveats, but therein would be the risk of an 

inability to make that research product integrate successfully into the other cells’ products, or influence the 

commander as a consequence. This is a fundamental 

issue and goes to the heart of both the program’s form 

and function in stabilization operations. 

At the program level, the relationship between the 

HTS and intelligence continually shifted throughout 

its time in Iraq and Afghanistan. That is to be expected 

given the sense of crisis which pervaded the U.S. Army 

which thus permitted some scope for the program in 

regard to an aspect of research which was tangential 

at best to operational success. Moreover, war blurs 

distinctions and refashions borders, not just physical, 

but social, ethical, and moral. McFate clarified in the 

training cycle that the HTS was not an intelligence 

program, and that the job of embedded teams was not 
214

to collect information which could be used for lethal 

targeting. The problem, however, was located in the 

reality of the conflicted area; being, how far from intelligence does an HTT stay, physically and ethically? 

Can information from an HTT be given to intelligence 

assets? 

One former HTT member recalls the heated debate 

in the training cycle over a scenario where intelligence could be used to save American lives but which 

would imperil its source. The former HTT member 

draws the analogy of the 1980s television program, 

Ethics in America. In one debate, in 1987, called “Under 

Orders, Under Fire,” a hypothetical scenario is posed 

to reporter Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes in which he 

embeds with a fictional North Kosanese unit which 

is preparing to ambush American Soldiers; Wallace asserts that, as an impartial journalist, he would 

cover the story and not warn the Americans of their 

impending fate, leading to astonishment from other 

distinguished panelists, including Brent Scowcroft.159

The HTT member relates that in training, there were 

several social scientists who wanted such impartiality; 

similar to the ethical debate in 1987. The training class 

considered a scenario where you had information on 

an improvised explosive device (IED): would you tell 

that unit where the IED was? There were individuals 

who said “no” and horrified other people in the class, 

and it made them feel like they were in danger and 

probably should not embed in Iraq and Afghanistan 

at that time, bringing up questions such as loyalty and 

the idea of betraying the most sovereign trust that any 

soldier could have, of being supported on their left or 

right.160

The ethical dilemma heightened cross-cultural 

tensions: as the program evolved, its character crys-
215

tallized such that, while its teams would be doing a 

different job from that of intelligence assets, it was 

necessary to partner with intelligence; to use their 

research as well as to provide them with information 

in a collaborative process as part of the unit. To that 

end, and to avoid confusion and make coherent the 

identity, in 2011, it was made clear that the program 

was an intelligence asset.161 The study of society and 

culture in stabilization and enabling operations cannot be the sole preserve of an HTS; it is also within 

the remit of myriad intelligence cells. Inevitably however, HTS as a fully fledged intelligence asset pushed 

the program further away from academic traditions. 

As a publicly facing asset in its inception, operating in contested spaces continued to compromise the 

program’s identity: 

I think you have to acknowledge that we were in partnership with intelligence, that we provided information to intelligence and drew information from them, 

but that is no different from private companies in the 

United States or academics who willingly publish 

their information in journals which are read by intelligence officers and utilized accordingly. But to label 

us as intelligence, particularly at the beginning of HTS 

and even now, I don’t think the Army has come to be 

able to understand what studying society and culture 

is, to a degree that they are capable of understanding 

how that could be different from current intelligence 

functions.162

According to one former senior member of the 

program, developing it as an intelligence asset under 

Sharon Hamilton meant that the program: 

started to lose its unique identity; where a lot of the 

tool sets that we could have brought to bear were sim-
216

ply left by the wayside because we chose to go with a 

military, bureaucratic version of what intelligence is, 

you lose that value of social science methodology:

Inevitably, however, the U.S. Army could only allow 

the new program to do that for an initial period, “but, 

man, those were the days.”163

Many Hats.

When the House Armed Services Committee directed the Center for Naval Analyses to investigate 

the program after journalistic and academic scrutiny, allegations of severe mismanagement, and three 

contractor deaths, in 2010, the AHRPO contacted the 

program management formally, requesting a visit to 

see the managers, as well as requesting specific documentation. The program convened social scientists in 

DoD from outside and from within the HTS. At the 

conclusion of that consultation process, the AHRPO, 

too, considered that the program was exempt from 

Institutional Review Board checks.164 This served to 

confuse the identity of the program further because 

it had publicly stated it was an information-gathering 

vehicle, but it was not reporting to AHRPO. In reality, however, a full human subject review process was 

impossible because many of the turnaround requirements for HTT research in the field were days, even 

hours, and: 

a full review would have been the equivalent of requiring an anthropology student who is embedded 

in a village in sub-Saharan Africa to contact his committee every time he wanted to conduct an interview, 

which doesn’t make sense even in academia.165
217

There was still a necessity to develop a level of 

review appropriate for embedded teams, which required a “process of negotiation” with the AHRPO. 

As of November 2013, HTS is a full participant with 

the AHRPO.166 AHRPO guidelines are met by an HTT 

in the field developing a research proposal or concept, 

then sending it to the senior social scientist at HTS to 

ensure it meets AHRPO guidelines and report that 

proposal to the office.167 The ethical alterations affected speed of research in both Iraq and Afghanistan, 

with implications for the nature of what HTTs could 

accomplish in the field. The office required “determination for research proposals rather than the entire 

project,” which in form was a questionnaire employed 

to determine if research was human subject research 

exempt and took “two minutes to fill out, but it was 

required before you submitted any proposal to your 

commanding officer.”168 At this juncture and beyond, 

compliance with the result of the collaboration with 

the AHRPO was necessary because Congress had suspended funding, such that diminishing operational 

speed in contested spaces was secondary to restarting 

the funding stream.169

The dialogue with the AHRPO centered on the 

character of HTS as either a social science research 

program or an intelligence function.170 If the program 

was a research asset, then it fell under AHRPO guidelines; but if it was an intelligence asset, it did not. 

How, then, is the program to be defined within the 

Army architecture? This definition lies at the heart 

of the program’s relationship with the Army and has 

central relevance to elucidation of the thesis question. 

In order to afford HTTs maximum flexibility in function, in reality, the character of the program meant it 

possessed a dual personality, possessing the ability 
218

to conduct intelligence or information depending on 

the decisionmaking process of the individuals and 

teams in Iraq and Afghanistan. As one anthropologist 

familiar with the program explains, “There was a fair 

amount of shenanigans with them trying to keep HTS 

away from the review board process.”171 This intrigue 

was necessary in order to allow the fledgling social 

science research program room to maneuver. 

CONCLUSIONS

By 2011, the HTS had evolved to command an annual budget of U.S.$150 million.172 But the program 

was beset by problems resulting in a congressionally 

directed assessment. As one social scientist, who deployed three times with the HTS and also worked at 

the program management level, felt that, while McFate 

and Fondacaro were focused on “building the program,” by 2010, the HTS “had reached the age where 

it was time for someone to come in and introduce bureaucratic structure; standard operating procedures; 

normalization of this weird, new program.”173 Moreover, Fondacaro had ostensibly, if not consciously, resisted the bureaucratization of the HTS into the TRADOC organizational architecture such that significant 

tensions existed between the program and its parent 

organization.174

To prevent escalation in tension, in 2010, Maxie 

McFarland’s Deputy Colonel Sharon Hamilton was 

made interim program manager in place of Fondacaro, 

and subsequently confirmed as the permanent director. McFate also departed the program in September 

2010 to be replaced by Dr. Christopher King who had 

deployed as a social scientist to both Iraq and Afghanistan.175 Hamilton had scientific training, allowing her 
219

to approach this complex problem from a very linear 

trajectory. The emphasis was on developing a bureaucracy which would enable the program to become 

much more in line with other elements in the military 

structure as well as develop a less fraught relationship 

with TRADOC and the main contractor. In addition, 

the program would develop a more coherent and concrete identity, such that, in Hamilton’s words, it was 

now firmly in the intelligence architecture. 

The evolution of the program allows insight into 

the function of the social scientist. Examination in 

detail of training experiences and the work of the 

program management in restructuring that cycle in 

order to better instruct program members is valuable 

in identifying why social scientists were embedded in 

combat brigades in Iraq and Afghanistan. Aspects of 

the recruitment deleteriously impacted the quality of 

the program. This was, in part, a consequence of the 

need to quickly expand the number of teams after the 

U.S. Central Command JUONS (see Appendix F); because the contract with BAE Systems did not include a 

bonus for quality of candidate hired; but also because 

the idea of the form and function of a social scientist 

is something amorphous; it was not entirely understood by the program management, as Jennifer Clark 

has noted, and that incomprehension was larger still 

in the recruiting apparatus. 

Initial training iterations were done on an educated 

guess about what social science teams might require in 

order to perform adequately for their customer in stabilization operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. There 

were no templates and the JUONS expanded the program at such velocity that it was difficult to conduct 

lessons learned on the training cycles adequately, although eventually this was performed. The Social Sci-
220

ence Working Group showed that the HTS was a qualitative research function and that, importantly, social 

scientists performed in the manner in which they had 

already been trained. The ethical examination shows 

that, until at least 2010, social scientists had freedom 

in both Iraq and Afghanistan to structure the research 

as they wished and record data captured in myriad 

forms and for use by intelligence functions. It was 

beneath this broad umbrella constructed by the program management that embedded teams conducted 

research in Iraq and Afghanistan.

ENDNOTES - CHAPTER 4

1. Author’s telephone interview with Bob Reuss, Colonel Lee 

Grubbs, and Dr. Susan Canedy, September 16, 2013.

2. Janice H. Laurence, “The Human Terrain System: Some 

Lessons Learned and the Way Forward,” in Montgomery McFate 

and Janice H. Laurence, eds., Social Science Goes to War: The Human 

Terrain System in Iraq and Afghanistan, London, UK: Hurst, 2015, 

pp. 294-295. 

3. Human Terrain System, “Human Terrain System Yearly 

Report, 2007-2008,” Program Development Team, Prepared for 

U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, Washington, DC, 

August 2008, p. 7.

4. Ibid., pp. 8-9.

5. Ibid., p. 10.

6. Steve Fondacaro, telephone interview with author, September 15, 2015. The role of “Social Scientists” is highlighted in 

a May 2007 PowerPoint brief; Bob Reuss and Steve Fondacaro, 

“Human Terrain System (HTS) Update to GEN Wallace,” TRADOC/DCSINT, May 17, 2007. General Wallace was the TRADOC 

Commander between 2005 and 2008. 
221

7. Reuss and Fondacaro, “Human Terrain System (HTS) 

Update to GEN Wallace.” 

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid. 

10. Ibid. 

11. Former HTT social scientist 1, interview with author, 

location withheld upon request, July 25, 2013.

12. Reuss, interview.

13. David Zacharias, interview with author, Virginia Beach, 

VA, July 22, 2013.

14. Fondacaro, telephone interview with author, September 

15, 2015. 

15. Reuss, interview; Christopher J. Lamb et al., Human Terrain Teams: An Organizational Innovation for Sociocultural Knowledge 

in Irregular Warfare, Washington, DC: Institute of World Politics 

Press, 2013, p. 20.

16. Reuss, interview.

17. Jennifer Clark, telephone interview with author, October 

9, 2013.

18. Ibid.

19. I am indebted to Dr. Robert Johnson for this assessment. 

20. PDRI, “Human Terrain System: Evaluation of the Human Terrain Team Recruitment and Selection Process,” Technical 

Report No. 628, Arlington, VA, February 2009. 

21. PDRI, “Results of HTT Structured Interview Pilot Test,” 

February 5, 2009. 

22. Ibid. 
222

23. Zacharias, interview.

24. Ibid.

25. Ibid.

26. Montgomery McFate, interview, August 1, 2013.

27. Ibid.

28. Zacharias, interview.

29. Ibid.

30. Ibid.

31. Former HTT social scientist 2, interview with author, 

Quantico, VA, July 29, 2013.

32. Ibid.

33. PDRI, “Human Terrain System: Evaluation of the Human Terrain Team Recruitment and Selection Process,” Technical 

Report No. 628, Arlington, VA, February 2009. 

34. Ibid. 

35. Ryan Evans, interview with author, Washington, DC, 

August 6, 2013.

36. Ibid.

37. Zacharias, interview.

38. Steve Fondacaro, “Memo: Human Terrain System 

Personnel Screening and Tracking Support,” n.d. 

39. Ibid. 

40. Zacharias, interview.

41. Ibid.
223

42. Ibid.

43. McFate, interview, August 1, 2013.

44. Ibid.

45. Ibid.

46. Montgomery McFate, interview with author, Newport, RI, 

August 2, 2013.

47. Former HTT social scientist 1, interview, July 25, 2013.

48. Lamb et al., p. 60.

49. Ibid., pp. 76, 141-142.

50. Ibid., p. 142.

51. Human Terrain System, “Congressional Staff Update,” 

March 2, 2010. 

52. Human Terrain System, “FY 09-15 HTS Funding Requirements,” August 8, 2009. 

53. Zacharias, interview.

54. Nathan Finney, The Human Terrain Team Handbook, Fort 

Leavenworth, KS: TRADOC, 2008, cited in American Anthropological Association, Final Report on the Army’s Human Terrain 

System, p. 4.

55. Evans, interview.

56. Former HTT social scientist 2, interview.

57. Lamb et al., p. 221.

58. Human Terrain System, “Human Terrain System Yearly 

Report, 2007-2008,” p. 11.
224

59. Lamb et al., p. 222; Former HTT social scientist 2, interview.

60. Ibid.

61. Human Terrain System, “Human Terrain System Yearly 

Report, 2007-2008,” p. 12.

62. Ibid., p. 11.

63. Lamb et al., p. 50.

64. Ibid.

65. Ibid.

66. Former HTT social scientist 1, interview, August 11, 2013.

67. Former HTT social scientist 1, interview, July 25, 2013; 

Clark, interview.

68. Former HTT social scientist 2, interview.

69. Vanessa Gezari, The Tender Soldier: A True Story of War and 

Sacrifice, New York: Simon and Schuster, 2013, p. 163.

70. Former HTT social scientist 2, interview.

71. Lamb et al., pp. 222-223.

72. Former HTT social scientist 1, interview, July 25, 2013.

73. Former HTT social scientist 2, interview.

74. Ibid.

75. McFate, interview, August 2, 2013.

76. Ibid.

77. Ibid.
225

78. Ibid.

79. Former HTT social scientist 2, interview.

80. Ibid.

81. Former HTT social scientist 2, interview.

82. Ibid.

83. Ibid.

84. Former HTT social scientist 2, interview.

85. Ibid.

86. Former HTT social scientist 1, interview, July 25, 2013.

87. Former HTT social scientist 2, interview.

88. Clark, interview.

89. Ibid.

90. Ibid.

91. Ibid.

92. Ibid; Gezari, pp. 166-167.

93. Nicholas Krohley, telephone interview with author, July 

26, 2013.

94. Evans, interview.

95. Ibid.

96. Clark, interview.

97. Ibid.

98. Former HTT social scientist 2, interview.
226

99. Ben Connable, interview with author, Arlington, VA, July 

15, 2013.

100. McFate, interview, August 1, 2013.

101. Montgomery McFate, Britt Damon, and Robert Holliday, 

“What do Commanders Really Want to Know? U.S. Army Human 

Terrain System Lessons Learned from Iraq and Afghanistan,” Janice H. Laurence and Michael D. Matthews, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Military Psychology, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 

2012, p. 110.

102. McFate, interview, August 1, 2013; Zacharias also refers 

to the Human Terrain System as an “experiment.” Zacharias, 

interview.

103. McFate, interview, August 1, 2013.

104. Clark, interview.

105. McFate, interview, August 1, 2013.

106. Former HTT social scientist 1, interview, July 25, 2013.

107. Ibid.

108. Ibid.

109. Cited in Lamb et al., p. 72.

110. McFate, interview, August 1, 2013.

111. Lamb et al., p. 71.

112. McFate, interview, August 1, 2013.

113. Ibid.

114. Ibid.

115. Ibid.
227

116. Ibid.

117. Human Terrain System, “Vision and Mission Statements,” March 3, 2009. Copy held with author.

118. McFate, interview, August 1, 2013.

119. Former HTT social scientist 1, interview, July 25, 2013.

120. Ibid.

121. Ibid.

122. Cindy R. Jebb, Laurel J. Hummel, and Tania M. Chacho, 

“HTT Trip Report: A ‘Team of Teams’,” West Point, NY: Unpublished report for TRADOC, 2008, p. 8. Copy held by author.

123. Lamb et al., p. 225.

124. Ibid.

125. Lamb et al., p. 225.

126. Former HTT social scientist 1, interview, July 25, 2013.

127. Lamb et al., p. 232.

128. Ibid., p. 227.

129. Human Terrain System, “Training Directorate Information Brief,” December 11, 2009, Slide 25. Copy held with author.

130. Ibid.

131. Ibid.

132. Joint Publication (JP) 3-0, Joint Operations, Washington, 

DC: United States Joint Chiefs of Staff, August 2011, p. III-12.

133. Human Terrain System, “Social Science Working Group: 

Learning Objective 1.2 Provide Operationally relevant sociocultural knowedge,“ n.d. Copy held with author.
228

134. Former HTT social scientist 1, interview, July 25, 2013.

135. Lamb et al., p. 17.

136. Former HTT social scientist 1, interview, July 25, 2013.

137. Ibid.

138. Ibid.

139. Ibid.

140. Ibid.

141. Ibid.

142. Human Terrain System, “Human Terrain System Yearly 

Report, 2007-2008,” p. 31.

143 . Anonymous, interview with author, location withheld, 

July 29, 2013.

144. Human Terrain System, “Human Terrain System Yearly 

Report, 2007-2008,” pp. 31-32.

145. McFate, interview, August 1, 2013.

146. Ibid.

147. Ibid.

148. Clark, interview.

149. McFate, interview, August 1, 2013.

150. Robert Albro, interview by author, Washington, DC, 

August 14, 2013.

151. Former HTT social scientist 1, interview, July 25, 2013.

152. Army Human Research Protections Office, “Policy and 

Guidance,” Washington, DC: Headquarters of the United States 
229

Army, n.d., available from ahrpo.amedd.army.mil/Policy-and-Guidance/FAQs.html, accessed August 16, 2014.

153. Office of the Secretary of Defense, “Title 32—National 

Defense, Part 219—Protection of Human Subjects,” Washington, 

DC: DoD, n.d., available from www.tricare.mil/hpae/_docs/32cfr219.

pdf, accessed August 16, 2014.

154. Clark, interview.

155. Michael Flynn, “Sandals and Robes to Business Suits and 

Gulf Streams: Warfare in the 21st Century,” Small Wars Journal, 

April 20, 2011.

156. Zok Pavlovic, interview with author, Alexandria, VA, 

August 14, 2013.

157. Ibid.

158. Human Terrain System, “Human Terrain System Yearly 

Report, 2007-2008,” p. 22.

159. Former HTT social scientist 1, interview, July 25, 2013.

160. Ibid.

161. Sharon Hamilton, “HTS Director’s Message,” Military 

Intelligence Professional Bulletin, Vol. 37, No. 4, 2011, pp. 1-3; Institute for Defense and Government Advancement, Special Operations Summit 2011, Colonel Sharon Hamilton on “Human 

Terrain Systems, Tampa, FL, available from www.youtube.com/

watch?v=Tl3rNcbjPJE, accessed November 8, 2014.

162. Former HTT social scientist 1, interview, July 25, 2013.

163. Ibid.

164. McFate, interview, August 1, 2013.

165. Former HTT social scientist 1, interview, July 25, 2013.

166. Reuss, interview.
230

167. Ibid.

168. Clark, interview.

169. Ibid.

170. Ibid.

171. Anonymous, interview.

172. Montgomery McFate and Steve Fondacaro, “Reflections 

on the Human Terrain System during the First 4 Years,” PRISM, 

Vol. 2, No. 4, p. 63.

173. Former HTT social scientist 3, interview with author, Alexandria, VA, August 1, 2013.

174. Lamb et al., p. 73.

175. Ibid., p. 74.
231

CHAPTER 5

THEORY AND PRACTICE

In 2008, in Salah ad-Din province, north of Baghdad, a recently deployed Human Terrain Team (HTT) 

joined the Brigade Commander from the 101st Airborne and his personal security detachment on a 

mission. This HTT’s specific purpose was to collect 

information on the Abna al-Iraq (Sons of Iraq). The 

Sons of Iraq were a security force, the bureaucratic 

embodiment of the tribal sheikhs’ uprising against 

al-Qaeda in Iraq. This revolt began in the summer of 

2006 in response to the brutality of the al-Qaeda splinter group which had become entrenched in al-Anbar. 

Understanding the motivation and expectations of the 

Sons of Iraq, the security force pivotal to stability in 

the area, was a strategic priority for U.S. forces as they 

prepared to withdraw from the nation. 

The convoy’s first visit was to an electrical plant 

in Bayji, where members of the embedded team went 

into a side office to interview mid-level plant officials. 

The research manager of the team had an M16 rifle 

rather than an M4 (a result of being armed at a Continental United States Replacement Center and not 

as an infantry soldier) and a pistol. As they walked 

into the confines of the small office, his first thought 

in this, his first engagement with the Iraqi population, 

was that, “This room is way too small for me to shoot 

someone if I have to pull out my weapon, because the 

barrel is too long.”1

Realizing that the rifle was redundant in the confines of the room, the research manager undid the 

catch on his pistol, thinking that “If someone comes 

through the door, I have got to be able to draw my 
232

weapon within this very small space, totally logistically thinking.”2

 The mid-level Iraqi officials in the 

small room looked stunned, and the research manager realized he had made a mistake of judgement and 

perception. While those in the room “glossed over” 

the incident, the research manager observed that there 

were connotations of the: 

role of the pistol as a status symbol of intelligence officers in the secret police in Iraq during the era of Saddam Hussein. To walk into the government official’s 

office and basically do everything but draw a pistol? It 

was incredibly culturally insensitive in so many ways, 

not to mention rude,

such that he realized that this was his “first introduction to “Oh yeah, this is a lot harder to do in practice 

than in the classroom.”3

This situation emphasized a gap between theory 

and practice. It suggests that the experiences of HTT 

members in the field are a necessity in any examination of the Human Terrain System (HTS). For that 

HTT member in Salah ad-Din, it highlighted “the 

importance of experience-based learning”; that:

even with all the 6 months of training and talking, even 

knowing intellectually what was right and wrong, the 

military training and the idea of personal safety somehow made me gloss over all of that for an instant.4

Ultimately, in this reading, “it’s a reflex that you have 

to train out or at least develop some understanding 

of how you use it. It’s very subtle tradecraft things 

like that make all the difference when you are dealing 

with people.”5 

American anthropologist H. Russell Bernard has 

written that, “Good ethnography is about the narra-
233

tion of good stories.”6 In the military environment, 

ethnography is also about developing quickly an 

understanding how seemingly insignificant body 

movements can become inflated in the atmosphere 

of conflict to assume disproportionate problems for 

researchers. There are limits to what a training cycle 

at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, can prepare recruits for, 

because conflict zones possess their own norms where 

the social boundaries in the United States no longer 

exist. The complicated discrepancies between theory 

and practice as related by a former embedded team 

member are exacerbated by the change in the character of the military during forward-deployed operations as opposed to training in the United States. As 

Jennifer Clark notes starkly, “It is a different culture 

over there [Iraq].”7

Theory and practice diverge on two distinct levels. 

First, at the individual level of the HTTs in the stabilization and enabling operations, there is observable difference between the theoretical architecture constructed during their training and the reality on the ground. 

Second, a conflict zone is a unique environment. It is 

a “war culture,” where the system is characterized by 

a tendency toward increasing societal disorder, which 

has its own reality. Prussian military theorist and practitioner Carl von Clausewitz observed that war, as an 

absolute, theoretically tends toward chaos because of 

its intrinsic modality but is constrained from reaching absolute disorder by policy—the goal for which 

the conflict is waged and hence the method used to 

achieve it.8

There is a notable lack of literature on the actual experiences of HTT social scientists in Iraq and Afghanistan, these “war cultures.” I cannot answer why social 

scientists were required by the Brigade Combat Teams 
234

(BCTs) without investigating their involvement in the 

brigades, the research they undertook, and the products they created to plug the sociocultural capability 

gap in operations. This chapter investigates these aspects of the social scientists’ experiences in Iraq and 

Afghanistan. I find that the deep research they undertook was able to augment BCTs’ understanding of the 

battle space. 

To varying degrees, the information could influence planning, but this influence was limited by existing policy, which shaped operations, and the duration of research, which by the time it was produced, 

spoke of a sociocultural picture which was already 

an artifact from the battle space. Therefore, the best 

research was in ad hoc operations devoid of overarching strategy, conducted in synchronization with the 

battle tempo. When that tempo was slow, the deep 

research had greater probability of influence thinking at the staff level. This investigation thus has value 

in ascertaining why HTS might have value as a tool 

for long-range planning, plugged into the strategic 

level of planning in Army service regional component 

commands.

IN CONFLICT

The military enterprise embraced intellectual curiosity, as seen in their doctrine, teaching, exhaustive 

list of publications, and open-source platforms for 

publication. Those products stem from the desire to 

arrive at solutions for complex problems faced in the 

spectrum of threats facing the nation. At first contact, 

however, civilian academic integration into the military enterprise can suffer from seemingly insignificant 

elements such as technical language. As Zok Pavlovic, 
235

who went through training in the June 2010 cycle and 

embedded at the Theater Coordination Element level 

in Afghanistan notes, foremost among these particular differences which create confusion is the aspect of 

language and terminology, words such as “diffusion, 

other scholarly terms; our colleagues [in the academy] 

have to understand that these are not terms the intelligence community would use.”9

 For Pavlovic: 

When you bring an academic crowd into a military 

environment, each side wants to remain in their own 

domain. The military wants to run things the way 

they want to and they are the customer. The academic 

crowd has difficulty adjusting to the customer’s needs 

and that generates issues. It is difficult to adjust that 

working environment to the planning process, to the 

decision making process and to address the issues that 

commanders need.10

These clashes were not predetermined, and it is 

part of the problem with attempts to offer generalization of the HTS that each encounter was sui generis. 

A highly adaptive academic and an engaging brigade 

staff could mitigate such issues. In adaptation, it could 

be the reverse, that academic language was integrated 

into the military decisionmaking process, and valued 

as part of a highly unique solution set. 

The military planner requires objective facts and 

clear language, and this must be made explicit and 

understood by the academic. The military is a highly 

adaptive enterprise because it has to evolve in order 

to defeat its adversaries. Failure to do so costs lives. 

As a consequence, there is no doubt that the U.S. military enterprise learns academic concepts extremely 

well and extremely quickly. There was a deficit of 

sociocultural knowledge in the military in 2006, how-
236

ever, which meant that the HTTs had to couch their 

products in military concepts which already existed 

in order to integrate it into the staff operations process. This strikes upon a wider problem; that existing 

models such as areas, structures, capabilities, organizations, people, and events (ASCOPE) and political, 

military, economic, social, infrastructure, and information (PMESII) were ill-suited to the sui generis challenges facing each HTT, but they were the concepts 

which were widely used in the brigades at this time. 

The adaptive academic sociological requirement of 

warfighting demanded by the December 2006 U.S. 

Army Field Manual (FM) 3-24/Marine Corps Warfighting 

Publication (MCWP) 3-33.5, Counterinsurgency is yet to 

be integrated into the military enterprise.11

Parsimony was very much required. Verbiage omnipresent in scholarship would obfuscate the findings 

of granular research conducted by HTTs. Academic 

orientation toward research for the sake of knowledge 

rather than for an operational end would require curtailment. Moreover, that end product had to be presented in a concise manner which could integrate into 

the military decisionmaking process. The tendency 

in academia was for complex data to be conveyed in 

complex manners. The HTS was an amendment of 

that pathway, taking complex sociocultural data and 

parsing it into intelligible forms. 

This transition was not immediate and required 

the understanding of the brigade while the embedded 

team adapted to operational demands. For the HTT, 

that embedded to plug a capability gap, the burden 

was on that team to adapt to the military customer. 

That required amelioration of language, simple representation of granular research and development 

of products that maintained pace with a fast opera-
237

tional tempo. The HTS had to plug into the brigade 

staff through the team leader, who in the original 

conception would be a retired or reservist colonel or 

lieutenant colonel in order to be of an equal military 

stature to brigade staff, but the HTTs also comprised 

a field element and, as such, had to attach themselves 

to military convoys. They had been trained to conduct 

research in that manner, write up reports, and push 

them to the staff in order to inform the operating picture. Failure was not inevitable in this reading, but required both excellent HTTs and adaptive brigades. If 

those two elements united, then there was every reason to expect the HTTs could significantly augment 

detail of the human terrain. 

Consider Dr. Montgomery McFate’s use of structural functionalism to model and make resonant the 

human environment in stabilization and enabling 

operations. As McFate explains elegantly, the model 

“is predicated on looking at society as a holistic entity and the view that all parts are all elements of the 

society at some function” but importantly, it must be 

thought of as “a heuristic model, not as an accurate 

description. Some way in which to capture a bit of social reality and make it explicable to people who do 

not know what these words mean, it is not such a bad 

approach.”12 Compromise and collaboration are the 

first steps in enabling the conversation between the 

academy and military. Academic verbiage would uncouple the synthesis. Incorporating abstract concepts 

such as “postmodernism” would lead the military to 

reject the modelling out of hand.13

Already, we have visited the fundamental challenge: social scientists had to relate their granular research to a military customer and integrate it into the 

military decisionmaking process. This required subtle 
238

attenuation of academic style. The product had to be 

of immediate value and not something limited to the 

work done by the HTTs: every cell in the brigade had 

to produce coherent products from complex counterinsurgency (COIN) data and present it at a speed that 

it could influence the planning process. It was difficult to prepare for that tempo at Fort Leavenworth because conflict creates its own norms, and each region 

at each time was unique. Indeed, this gets to a larger 

issue in academia in the 21st century; that there is an 

accelerated need for research to resonate beyond the 

academy, that knowledge exchange activities are fundamental to the work of the academic. 

Underpinning research with theoretical context, 

for example, complicated the message of the product. Ultimately, it is the “so what” that matters—as 

much with academic knowledge in general, as with 

academic research conducted for a nonacademic audience. All knowledge requires that “so what?” element. Here was a paradox of the training, because 

it necessarily taught theory in order to proceed onto 

facts, but the theory muddied research products when 

embedded in brigades. Products had to be direct, balanced, and objective, showing research methods up 

front and identifying limitations. Embedded teams 

encountered problems when they delivered a product 

without research context. As Ryan Evans notes, in that 

circumstance, the research became “social science as 

sorcery” and thus difficult to convince the brigade of 

its utility.14 There was a delicate balance to be struck 

that would be successful only with extremely adept 

HTTs that depended largely on the research ability of 

the social scientists. Research had to be transparent in 

terms of how it was created, but the operational tempo did not allow for deep examination of peripheral 
239

theoretical concepts which offered little or no added 

value. Deeply complex information had to be presented clearly and concisely, with the very minimum of 

qualifications to the findings. 

INTELLIGENCE AND INFORMATION 

IN THE FIELD 

Compromise between academic complexity and 

military clarity was only one distinct aspect of the process of negotiation which was evolving between HTTs 

and their parent brigades. The debate seeking to clarify the program as an intelligence or information asset 

lay at the heart of the efficacy of leveraging academic 

research methodologies in Iraq and Afghanistan for a 

military customer. In its earliest iterations, the debate 

was a heated one; one writer, Nathan Hodge, argued 

that because HTS worked for a unit commander, it was 

an intelligence asset because any information could be 

used to improve lethal targeting, and moreover, HTTs 

were co-located with intelligence cells.15

That assertion from Hodge is demonstrably false; 

most information cannot be used to improve lethal 

targeting because it fails to capture any atmospherics 

regarding the insurgents. The certainty of his claim 

loops back to the entrenched positions of proponents 

and critics; that it was often difficult to commence and 

retain a calibrated debate. Ethics were what the individual and, by extension the team, made of them. Information control and personal motivation regarding 

targeting insurgencies were sui generis. In the beginning, the HTS management was uncertain as to where 

to place HTTs—either in the intelligence cell or in the 

nonlethal effects cell (the latter composed primarily 

of Psychological Operations and Civil Affairs units), 
240

and in late-2008 ascertained that the effects cell was 

the best place for the HTT.16 This made Hodge’s argument a moot point. The permanent separation may 

have been done to preserve the academic profile of 

the HTS in order to retain appeal among the scholarly 

community. 

The HTT products could be subject to grey pathways which potentially criss-crossed the channels of 

intelligence and information.17 Under the direction of 

McFate, therefore, training stressed information over 

intelligence, which was one of the “big classroom discussions” for HTS recruits.18 Instructive in the differing mentalities, from the military-trained presence in 

the classes, there were arguments that, if information 

gathered could save lives, it should be used in any 

way necessary. Ultimately, the academic and military 

approaches which clashed in training were symptomatic of the character of research conducted in the field. 

As one social scientist explains: 

that I think was both the most productive and the most 

impactful parts of the training; the very culture-conflict in class is the same as you experience in the real 

world, which is not the culture conflict with Afghans 

it is the military versus the researcher conflict which is 

like—how to do a research project, the slowness, the 

care that you take about, you know, privacy or about 

taking time to understand what somebody says, and 

none of that fits well with the military pace.19

The importance of intelligence versus information was amplified by the population-centric COIN 

tactics enabled by General David H. Petraeus in Iraq 

and later endorsed by General Stanley A. McChrystal 

in Afghanistan. COIN tactics made cooperation and 

support from the host population “at least as impor-
241

tant to our success as combat operations.”20 COIN 

environments where emphasis is in understanding 

the population invert the conventional intelligence 

pyramid, generating the need for a “bubble-up” 

framework where knowledge gleaned at the tactical 

level ought to influence operational character and 

policy direction. Tactical collection of sociocultural 

information can be amplified by embedded academic 

experts, whose research methods are outside army 

capabilities and: 

include classic anthropological and sociological 

methods such as semi-structured and open-ended 

interviews, polling and surveys, text analysis, and 

participant observation. Both qualitative and quantitative methodologies are used, based on the research 

required.21

Those methodologies, now implemented in Iraq 

and Afghanistan, were subject to scrutiny. Application of models to convey cultural information of the 

area of operations (AO) is problematic and contributes 

to the reticence of the military to engage actively and 

continually the “soft” sciences.22 For example, PMESII, 

the most widely used sociological model for warfighting generally, originated from a 2000 wargame, Unified Quest, conducted jointly by the U.S. Department 

of the Army and U.S. Joint Forces Command. It was 

developed “as a means of enabling kinetic targeting 

tangible nodes in a network.”23 Unified Quest was a 

year-long annual wargame, the capstone wargame in 

the U.S. military enterprise, and examined military 

adaptation in the face of several international crises. 

Thus the wargame looked at evolution and concepts 

and models which would most facilitate holistic examination of the changing, complex environment. 
242

Instructively, therefore, PMESII was an analytic subcomponent of a concept known as Operational Net 

Assessment and “meant to provide a holistic view 

of the environment in which military forces will be 

operating.”24

Highlighting the compromise between academy 

and military, and the limitations of existing models, 

the PMESII model suffers three principal shortfalls. 

First, it is over-simplistic, failing to incorporate informal political systems. It is therefore less accurate in 

modeling weak states where illicit economies are a 

substantial feature of the societal system. Second, the 

model is incompatible with social science literature in 

its definition of government, which implicitly spoke 

at how far behind the academy the military enterprise 

was in 2007-13 in their conceptualization of the social 

domain. Third, it only evaluates physical tangibles, 

leaving no room for belief systems or other important 

intangible aspects of human systems.25 McFate, Britt 

Damon, and Robert Holliday sum up the COIN environment thus: “Unfortunately, the tail wags the dog 

far too often in the military-industrial-contractor complex, and systems designed at the joint level rarely aid 

in the company fight.”26

This fundamental disconnect between the rarefied 

doctrinal atmosphere of joint publications and the 

“company fight” was exacerbated by the unforeseen, 

sui generis character of the insurgencies. Inevitably, the 

U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) methods, models, 

and taxonomies spoke to a more regular adversary that 

competed on a battlefield and used standard munitions. The existing models thus had “limited reference 

to the lived experience of commanders on the ground 

that actually used this information in day-to-day planning and execution of operations.”27 In addition, the 
243

input to develop the concepts had come from the top 

level, with little input from the “lowest possible level 

of the command structure.”28 What this means is that, 

for instance, culture courses at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College or the “multi-million 

dollar simulations” at the Joint Training Counter Improvised Explosive Device Center were not responding accurately to the important lessons derived from 

on-the-ground experience.29

HTTs thus offer a rare glimpse into expert experience of the utility of such models at the lowest level in 

the conflict zone. HTS follows doctrine codified in FM 

2-01.3, Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield, in additionally using ASCOPE to define civil considerations 

in an AO. The ASCOPE model is broad enough that it 

has been used by HTTs, most especially as an initial 

baseline assessment. According to the Human Terrain 

Team Handbook, examination of ASCOPE begins with 

analysis of available data, including from Provincial 

Reconstruction Teams (PRTs), Psychological Operations, and information networks.30 The model is 

codified into the 2006 Counterinsurgency field manual, 

which was extremely useful for highlighting to BCTs 

what it was that embedded teams could provide to the 

staff in terms of sociocultural awareness.31 The HTT 

social scientist Marcus Griffin, writing about what 

he did when embedded in a BCT in Baghdad, noted 

that he used the ASCOPE model and populated the 

six categories by visiting the Joint Security Stations, 

staying several days.32 The method allowed him to understand better the exact needs of the brigade in terms 

of knowledge gaps, and research necessary in order to 

fill them. 

While that model was used extensively by HTTs to 

create baseline assessments, use of the method hints 
244

at a particular and paradoxical problem. The HTS was 

created and developed in order to fill a need which 

was nonresident in DoD. This particular need was for 

sociocultural awareness brought in from social scientists who could conduct research in areas of operations to a depth beyond existing military capabilities. 

Using existing military methods, however, particularly ASCOPE and PMESII, meant that the embedded 

teams became in effect an integrated part of the existing military intellectual architecture. Given the fluidity of conflict and the sui generis nature of the spectrum 

of challenges facing embedded teams, this preoccupation with existing structural models and taxonomies 

obfuscates the dynamic character of insurgencies. 

The existing models afford a static structure to 

something which is by definition subject to change 

over time. How can HTTs expect to replicate research 

products across sui generis operating environments? Is 

there enough similarity between the city and the village; the key leader engagement in Iraq and the Jirga

in Afghanistan; the oil refineries and the agricultural 

fields; Arabic and Pashto? The social scientist in the 

HTT should be relied upon to develop sui generis research products which can speak to all levels of the 

brigade and relate to their experiences. Abstract models could miss granularity identified by the social scientist. Structural functionalism, ASCOPE, and PMESII 

were all used by the military already when AF1 embedded in February 2007. Using such models was not 

new. We are thus left to investigate the research modalities of the social scientists in order to understand 

if they were merely filling these models or conducting 

investigations using methodologies which were novel 

in the military enterprise.
245

ATTACHÉ AND RESEARCHER

Integration of theory was entwined with a more 

practical, physical integration. The military enterprise 

in Iraq and Afghanistan was far from uniform and 

HTTs largely depended upon any individual brigade 

commander regarding the level of importance placed 

on the team and their research. For example, there exists between the Marine Corps and the Army subtly 

differing group mentalities.33 This variation in institutional character led to differences in how the two 

components perceived HTTs. 

As early as 2008, Marine Corps feedback on HTTs 

that had been provided by the Army noted that as individual members these embedded teams had been 

useful, but that the teams in their entirety could have 

a net deleterious effect. The Marine Corps “has a lot of 

experience with bringing on individual augments, and 

knows how to do that; I think I probably would have 

been happier with that rather than being saddled with 

this whole team.”34 Additionally, as Clark explains, in 

the Marine Corps culture:

You have 5 minutes to prove yourself. If you are no 

longer valuable in 5 minutes, you are not value added, and they get you out. You have to have a certain 

level of toughness, you have to be willing to stand 

your ground, but also be willing to say when you are 

wrong.35

The difference is not only cultural but organizational. As McFate explains, Marine Corps Regimental 

Combat Teams operate, and are organized, differently 

than that of BCTs: 
246

Marines are like a tribal society with their own norms 

and rules, so we had to select people pretty carefully 

for those teams. The first team that goes into a unit, the 

first unit receiving a team, it is always an uphill climb 

to prove your worth, show what you can do, integrate 

into their battle rhythm.36

Implicit in McFate’s statement, and telling from 

the point of view of the HTS management, is that 

there was less care in selecting the HTT members for 

other teams which would not embed with the Marine 

Corps and goes back to the mutual missteps in hiring between the management and BAE Systems. Interestingly, this comment would suggest that the HTS 

management did not carefully select embeds for the 

U.S. Army, and thus apportions at least some of the 

missteps to the management, rather than the contracting recruiter. 

One of the first social scientists to embed with 

the Marine Corps noted that it is “a whole different 

animal from the Army” and that: 

they are very small, and therefore they do a better job 

of leveraging whatever resources are available. And so 

if they have an enabler come in, if that enabler proves 

that they can be useful then the Marines will leverage 

them and act upon their information.37

Another social scientist found the Marine Corps 

“very insular” and: 

so it really took a lot of effort to prove that you are 

useful, but the Catch-22 is, in order to get resources 

in order to conduct missions so that you can produce 

work, you have to prove you are useful; it’s kind of 

like requiring job experience before you can get a job 

type-thing.38
247

This was part of the practical problem with the remit of the HTS. It had to plug a sociocultural knowledge gap. That knowledge when the team embedded, 

by definition, did not exist. To get the requisite knowledge, there was a requirement to get out into the area 

of operation, but gaining convoy support could be difficult. The ease of gaining convoy support varied according to the unique experiences of the HTT, but byand-large was proportional both to the resources of 

the brigade and the perceived value of the research of 

the team. In the first instance, gaining convoy support 

required networking, which required interpersonal 

skills. It also meant researching any or all aspects of 

the bases on which the teams found themselves. These 

bases could be petri dishes containing the elements of 

the wider environment. 

To prove worth, one social scientist integrated Marine Corps requirements directly into the questions 

used for initial team surveys, “getting what the Marines needed but also getting what [the] State department needed, so it was two birds with one stone.”39

It also necessitated an inexhaustible ability to share 

that information between the Department of State 

and the Marine Corps, facilitating conversation and 

collaboration because “there was a surprizing lack of 

coordination between those two.”40 Absence of coordination between service components was far greater, 

however: 

The Marines and Army do not communicate in theatre. They even have two different networks which 

they use. So the Army had TIGR [Tactical Ground 

Reporting System], CIDNE [Combined Information 

Data Network Exchange], and the Marines had [other 

systems].41
248

In practice, this meant that embedded teams across 

Army and Marine components possessed a horizontal character that the Armed Services lacked at the 

official level. HTTs could thus communicate between 

brigades, across different areas of operations, while 

the Army and Marine Corps “didn’t talk to each 

other and although some of the Marine and Army 

counterparts would talk to each other, they did not 

do it frequently and their mission objectives were 

different.”42

Organizational and cultural discrepancies were 

complicated by sui generis attitudes to the teams at the 

brigade staff level. Like other social scientists, Clark 

worked by integrating her research with information 

operations and civil affairs, the closest groups resembling her team, networking at every opportunity with 

teams such as the Iraqi Advisor Task Force, and leveraging language expertise to assist in messaging. The 

Iraqi Advisor Task Force was created in 2006 and was 

comprised of former U.S. Army Special Operations 

Forces (SOF) personnel, host population and Iraqi 

expatriates, charged with analyzing host media and 

conducting polls in order to assist the COIN campaign 

through knowledge of Iraqi society. 

Networking was critical to getting the team noticed. Clark went to every command meeting that 

she was able to, with the result that “more and more 

people wanted us to do working groups, more people 

coming in saying, ‘Hey, I just want to read through 

your database, how do I get to it?’” That led to the 

task force, working on a full assessment of the hospital 

system in the area requesting assistance with cultural 

information, specifically asking for Clark.43 Working 

on the hospitals explains why that individual, if not 

the team, became useful; Clark was able to leverage 
249

research from the hospital system, including information on gender relations and the nursing college 

training system, which hinted at larger problems in 

the community, trading that information with other 

assets in the brigade and requesting convoy space for 

further missions.44

Differences also existed not just between services, 

but between nations. This was granular nuance that 

could not be taught in training because not only could 

combat unit configuration be amended in theater, but 

U.S. Army trainers would lack specific knowledge of 

coalition partner brigade structures, especially their 

function and arrangement in theater. As a consequence, HTT members were flying blind when initially embedded. For example, Evans noted that British 

brigade headquarters were ordered differently than 

U.S. brigades, which, in turn, were similar to the Danish battalion. Having embedded with both coalition 

partners, Evans observed a lack of communication 

within the Danish battalion, finding that “the right 

hand often didn’t know what the left hand was doing, 

and how much information they already knew,” and 

so they had to interview Danes as they would Afghans 

to develop the information the HTT required in order 

to perform as per the requirements of the customer.45

Interestingly, then, such were the unique identities of 

combat brigades that the first ethnographies necessary to be undertaken were of the coalition forces. War 

truly recreates societies anew on every level. 

Special Operations Forces Augments.

Gathering information at the tactical level, the remit of the HTS meant that some social scientists embedded in smaller units than brigades. Indeed, Lamb 
250

et al. in their seminal study of HTTs have argued that 

the program would be best situated within the U.S. 

Army’s Special Operations Command. They note 

the command’s familiarity with small cross-cultural 

units and the continuing centrality of special operations to irregular warfare.46 Reinforcing this assessment, according to intelligence officials at the U.S. 

Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), 

the Joint Special Operations Command has expressed 

interest in HTS assets, but by the end of 2013, there 

was no formal collaboration between the HTS and the 

command. 

In practice between 2007 and 2014, official HTS 

collaboration with special operations units was largely limited to Afghanistan, primarily to support Combined Joint Special Operations Task Forces when the 

Village Stability Operations program began in early-2010. For these operations, it was of special import 

that the social scientists sent were physically capable 

of performing the role due to the remote locations, 

lacking infrastructure and engaged in arduous work 

as part of a daily routine.47

As well as official embeds, there were individual 

augments to SOF units based on entrepreneurial activity from HTT and Human Terrain Analysis Team 

members. For instance, Clark worked with SOF in 

Iraq though she found them “more insular, even than 

Marines.”48 Clark had originally embedded with II 

Marine Expeditionary Force division as a Human Terrain Analysis Team social scientist before attaching 

to Regimental Combat Team 8 in the North of Iraq to 

concentrate on Sinjar. Indicative of the variety of social scientist experiences, to conduct research, Clark 

was given convoys that would also deliver supplies.49

The resources had been provided after a Fragmentary 
251

Order from the II MEF G-2 to fill the sociocultural gap 

for the division.50 Approximately half of the locations 

visited during the work were chosen specifically by 

Clark and her Human Terrain Analysis Team. During 

the course of her work with II Marine Expeditionary 

Force, Clark worked with SOF. It is the insular identity of the SOF and the rigorous physical demands of 

special operations that may limit HTS integration in 

the future. 

One unnamed social scientist that deployed officially to a SOF unit in Afghanistan found the relationship with the unit they worked with to be much more 

dynamic than with regular Army units, in terms of 

the size of the team itself—there were 12 members of 

the unit—and the demanding character of the tasks. 

Those tasks included involvement in the Community Defense Initiative (which would migrate to Village Stability Operations and Afghan National Police 

[ANP]), which both ensured and required constant 

access to the population. As two other former HTT social scientists and an Army Civil Affairs Officer note 

of their work with those platforms: 

Stability practitioners that reside at a more local level, 

such as USASOC [U.S. Army Special Operations Command] teams, may live in a village their entire tour, 

with near total access to the nonverbal behaviors required to make more substantive judgments of norms 

and group identity.51

The research was of a similar modality to their previous work with the regular Army unit but the scope 

was reduced because the resources were more limited 

by the size of the team. As the social scientist explains, 

it “was a pretty unique setting” camped out in a village, living in an Afghan house, “right on a main road, 

with mud walls around us.”52
252

The austere living conditions and rudimentary 

security were positive in that:

 You would get folks who would come by and knock 

on your door each day, so you would get access to 

a lot more people; but me being by myself was certainly challenging. Being an outsider on those [Special 

Operations Forces] teams is exceptionally hard, to be 

accepted within the units themselves.53

Integration was achieved by earning the trust and 

respect of the small unit, and the social scientist recalls 

an important rule made by one member of the unit 

for them: “There was a good line when I got there, 

‘You don’t have to do guard duty because you’re a 

civilian, but I want to let you know you cannot stay 

here unless you help us out with guard duty’.”54 To 

that end, the social scientist’s experience was a wide 

spectrum of involvement from “hooking a local up to 

an IV [intravenous drip], filling sandbags, shoveling 

dirt, constructing houses, to digging holes.55 The social scientist also found value in their Arabic language 

skills, translating some of the religious verses for the 

population. With SOF, reputation and rapport with 

the population were critical: 

It is a force-multiplier for them when they have that 

capability to count upon, locals for intelligence, development projects—they need the support of the local 

community. So, bringing a different, random skill set 

is not only important for them, because you’re capable 

of doing something that is a little bit unique, a little bit 

different and in turn you can go into a town and talk 

and having a language skill set like that which is totally different, but you get into a setting where you’re 

in a mosque, or wherever it may be, and you can talk 

to Quranic verses [sic]; rapport building; not a lot of 
253

substance behind it but it could be a huge advantage 

because you are perceived as someone who can understand the community; that can understand the culture a lot better. They are not just seeing someone who 

is stopping through their villages.56

Integration into the unit was critical, because of the 

small size—there was a central question, as an outsider, but also as a civilian, will the social scientist be a liability? The difference between SOF and regular units 

was pronounced, as the social scientist explained: 

If you are in a battalion or a company, there are plenty 

of guys that pick up the slack; but if there are 12 guys, 

you are out on patrol with six people, they have got to 

know that you are going to be able to hold your own.57

Other social scientists reinforce this view. Two other 

social scientists that worked on village stability observed: “On some of the most remote combat outposts, 

civilian social scientists can be quickly labeled ‘dead 

weight’ if they fail to participate in camp cleanup, 

solidify defensive positions, or participate in guard 

duty.”58

Ultimately, the social scientist interviewed judged 

his or her efforts and those of the unit as a success, 

based on the observation that the area had the first 

successful Afghan Local Police (ALP) team in the 

country.59 As “the human terrain guy” attached to 

the SOF unit, the social scientist had reach-back support from the HTS which was of utility. In addition, 

“coming from the civilian side you do have that flexibility. However, it is very difficult to integrate with 

those guys, it has to be the right personality, and you 

just have to be really flexible with the teams.”60 This 

distinct skill set meant that social science expertise, is 
254

“something that is a little bit vague in lots of ways” 

you can still influence outcomes, such as shuras, relationships with locals, which is the human terrain, and 

is “enormously beneficial” because “most of the time, 

we don’t know what the hell is going on out there. You 

can chip away at that a little bit, and have a positive 

impact.”61 Although that was a plus, problematic elements existed because of the team size, perhaps five or 

six people on a tactical mission—key leader meetings 

with the governor or the mayor were logistically challenging. But a larger team would be a double-edged 

sword, which is “too big; it requires too much red tape 

and bureaucracy” to do flexible engagement with the 

population.62

With the Special Operations units:

you get a really short proposal and you can get buy-in 

from your company commander or the team leader or 

whoever it is and they say, ‘okay if that’s your call, 

make the call, go for it.’ Being on the tactical level like 

that is a pretty beautiful thing to see.63

HTS in areas where the incumbent exercises hegemonic or complete control would thus most likely 

operate in a similar manner but without the SOF character because of the arduous process of integration. 

HTS in this iteration, therefore, would be small teams 

in the field, a section of which operate close to local 

populations, ensuring integration and collaboration 

at the societal level; while the military team leader 

would operate in an advisory role, in the “hip pocket” 

of a combatant commander. Working for the small 

unit will bring with it the inevitable cost of detached 

objectivity; however, social scientists “should be an 

integral part of the team but at the same time maintain a level of autonomy and independence to conduct 
255

substantive fieldwork. These two prerequisites are not 

easily met.”64

OPERATIONALLY RELEVANT REPORTING

In practice in Iraq and Afghanistan, the highly 

contested character of the spaces in which HTTs operated gave them an entrepreneurial character. This 

was because of the unique requirements facing each 

team that led to sui generis research agendas. Nicholas 

Krohley embedded with a BCT managed overall by 

the 4th Brigade, 10th Mountain Division in southeastern Baghdad in February 2008. As the social scientist, 

Krohley was broadly responsible within the HTT for 

research design, the overall management of fieldwork, 

and the analysis and presentation of collected data. 

From the early program training cycle, Krohley drew 

the impression that the social scientist’s role would be 

part of the staff element, possessing a research team 

of other analysts to fill information requirements as 

needed; attend meetings and, facilitate reconstruction 

talks. 

But arriving in the eastern edge of Baghdad at the 

beginning of 2008 and embedded with a brigade which 

had three districts of the city within its responsibility, 

the brigade found one of the districts, Tissa Nissan, 

“in chaos basically—the local government didn’t really meet, and when it did meet, nothing really did 

happen of any use, efforts to develop local relationships weren’t going anywhere.”65 Absence of physical 

security meant that: 

people were getting killed—both Iraqis killing Iraqis, 

people killing the Iraqi police, and also American soldiers were getting killed, in roadside bombings, par-
256

ticularly the EFPs [explosively formed penetrators] 

that were coming in . . . Those were a big deal, in our 

neck of the woods.66

From the classroom at Fort Leavenworth to the 

combat zone in Baghdad was a sizeable transition. On 

the ground, instructively, Krohley notes that:

there was no mission, clearly-defined, beyond being 

‘useful’—in quotes, for Human Terrain Teams at the 

outset. There was a purpose to fill, but it wasn’t clear 

how you were supposed to do that. It was a case of 

‘you have these skills, go out and make yourselves 

useful’.67

Because there was only one district which required 

deciphering at the societal level, the “traditional model of being sort of a meeting-driven, staff-driven asset, wasn’t going to work, just because we didn’t have 

answers to the questions that were being asked.”68

Knowledge of complex Iraqi history such as that the 

social scientist possessed was inadequate in meetings 

where the problem set was specific, fluid, and contemporary. Put succinctly, the question was why was this 

one particular neighborhood in conflict, when around 

it there was relative calm? The team structure was 

organized to generate an answer; the team leader remaining at the brigade staff level and the remainder of 

the team dispersing and embedding at the company 

level; going “neighbourhood to neighbourhood, often alone, but sometimes in pairs, and language ability was the real determinant there” where the “really 

good Arabic speakers we [Krohley’s team] had were 

effectively turned loose.”69

How had this arrangement of the team, different 

from that of the function and roles envisaged in the 
257

training cycle, occurred? The military structure is by 

design a kinetic machine which leverages overwhelming physically destructive assets to compel, coerce, or 

defeat an adversary by killing. Even within a COIN 

framework, there may still be present an overwhelming predisposition—through training, belief, and experience—to triumph in combat through kinetic means 

against an identifiable enemy through that preferred 

mode. As such, for there to be an appreciation for sociocultural awareness in the high levels of the brigade 

structure, the “commander has to truly value diversity of ideas, through his actions as well as his words, 

and he has to truly value the criticality of cultural 

knowledge and the importance of non-lethal effects in 

general.”70 Arrangement of the HTT in the command 

structure, as befitted the operational tempo, pertinent 

problems, intrateam and interteam relationships and 

perceptions of mission were therefore fundamental to 

the character of the research conducted.71 As Krohley 

explains generally of leveraging sociocultural experts: 

“You are told why you were being sent, and why the 

job existed, and there is a general understanding of 

the utility of this service, but there were no specific instructions regarding, ‘Well, when you get there, what 

the hell you do’.”72

Part of the problem was the sui generis character 

of operating environments. As a consequence, there 

arose different identities which a team could assume 

when conducting research for the BCT staff, crystallizing around two forms: first, the investigator operating 

among the population; second, the staff-centered advisor who advised on the base. These identities were 

mostly shaped by the goal of the commander; an investigator would go out and find answers as part of 

a field-situated unit—a collection platform—whereas 
258

the staff-centered advisory team would influence the 

hierarchy of the military to ask the right questions, and 

“seed in” social science thinking of academic character to as many staff functions as possible.73 In the staffcentered approach, social science thinking would filter downward into the field, through the generation 

of hypotheses to allow for specific research, through 

social science elements to written orders, and the tasks 

given to units in the field.74 Ultimately, in the early iterations of the program, with teams sent to crisis environments, these heterogeneous characters of embedded teams were not resolved and suggest an inherent 

difficulty in generating a uniform template for team 

models across areas of operation or across time. 

Despite this core problem, there were broad similarities in research methods between teams, based on 

the operating environment and the necessity of integration into the brigade structure. In order to enhance 

the reputation of their HTT and capture information 

about the operating environment, Krohley’s team began by interviewing U.S. Soldiers in the AO, many of 

whom had been in the AO for nearly 2 years because 

of the extended surge deployments. There was value 

in gaining understanding of the customers and their 

mindset: 

some had insights, many had impressions mostly; it 

was very interesting. It was essential to view how different aspects of the military viewed the place they 

were operating in because you had to speak to that 

when you have answers, when you gave insight and 

guidance.75

Processing and analyzing the impressions and observations of the soldiers allowed the construction of 

4-page neighborhood profiles (see Appendix P); sim-
259

plistic representations intended to clarify the problem 

faced in the neighborhood. 

From that base, more detailed research plans could 

be compiled which filled gaps in the data: What’s 

wrong? What’s missing? Where are the conflicts of 

opinion? Where do people see different things? Different question sets were thus constructed which formed 

the research plan tasked ultimately with answering 

the question as to why the conflict was persisting in 

Tissa Nissan, which then allowed research to proceed. 

This account provides a fascinating insight into the 

construction of a research agenda to answer a question where the baseline of knowledge upon first examination of the human terrain was negligible (see 

Appendix M). The basic landscape was mapped from 

initial reconnaissance by the brigade and research 

on what the Army was doing there—how they were 

operating—was ascertained. From that, the venues 

in which it might be reasonable to assume data could 

be collected were mapped: Were there useful government meetings? Were there civil society groups asking coalition forces for money? Were there locally recruited policeman who are part of the national Iraqi 

police force that could be engaged? Were there lots of 

door-to-door searches ongoing, which would allow an 

avenue for interviewing the population? 

This methodology was a binary dynamic between 

collection requirements and collection opportunities, 

with a plan built around executing both. Krohley:

built this out in more detail, probably in more detail 

than was used. Because in the end reality intercedes 

and you end up making the most of your opportunities, but it was a useful mental exercise and planning 

exercise to build this plan; basically to turn a research 

plan into a collection plan.76
260

Colleagues within the team were only contacted 

periodically, as little as once a month, via telephone 

or a SIPRNet email connection, and meetings with the 

team leader were of a similar frequency—the reason 

was not a personal one, rather “logistics were challenging enough” without having to take an additional ride in a convoy to sit down in an approximately 

30-minute meeting where nothing necessarily might 

be learned.77 The structured research plan, even if not 

strictly adhered to, was specific guidance on what was 

to be done and how it was to be done, enabling the 

dispersal of the team to achieve the research goals. 

In relatively secure sections of the area, language 

skills allowed the possibility of deep social research. In 

2008 in Baghdad, Arabic language skills afforded the 

opportunity for those proficient team members in IZ4 

to develop substantive, long-term relationships with 

people, to go into different meetings, sitting down in a 

room in a chair, sitting across the table from someone, 

or on the phone, allowing collection from the same 

source repeatedly over a period of time, cultivating a 

relationship. At the other end of the spectrum were 

deeply insecure areas, where the local neighborhood 

council either would not collaborate because they 

were overtly hostile to the American presence there, 

or were dubious research partners in that their information provided would be compromised; mostly 

because of their desire in “milking the U.S. Defense 

budget, or whatever the State Department budget was 

for reconstruction, to feed money to their buddies.”78

Those “dead ends” meant collection opportunities 

were limited to street-level encounters, dictated by the 

contemporary, evolving character of mission activities 

and conducted on an ad hoc basis. 

In practice, the character of missions determined 

the modality of the research. Krohley notes that an 
261

important development for him occurred over the 

summer of 2008 when weapon ownership in residences became illegal for Iraqis as part of the terms of 

a decree which initiated large numbers of search and 

seizure missions across Baghdad. Sections of neighborhoods would be cordoned off: 

and you would have a few dozen Iraqi national police, 

a platoon or two, going to house to house, you know 

soft knock, ‘Hello sir. How are you? Are you aware of 

the new law? We need your rifle’.79

Searching the house allowed an approximately 

10-minute conversation—a one off—but over the 

course of that day, perhaps 30 or 40 conversations in 

total. Instructively, the research method changed dramatically, first letting the interviewee lead the conversation, which inevitably focused on lack of electricity, 

or explaining who the social scientist was, which meant 

that the social scientist would “effectively spend the 10 

minutes doing PR [Public Relations] for the Army, and 

they would say: ‘Ah, that’s an interesting programme, 

it’s great that they are doing this’.”80

The absence of structured methods in this situation accomplished little of operational relevance, so 

the methods developed rapidly to incorporate various 

lines of questioning routed in specifics which were 

known about a particular neighborhood and patterns of movement and migration. In this scenario, 

understanding the chronological context of the place 

did matter; knowledge of the historical trajectory at 

the granular level, which expert social scientists possessed, helped frame the research questions, allowing 

the outsider to relate to the local area (see Appendix 

O). As Krohley explains, eastern Baghdad: 
262

had been created in the second half of the 20th century 

in the migration which had occurred of mixing the 

populations, and knowing something about local history and the dynamics of local settlement was a very 

useful frame of reference for questioning; for talking 

to people.81

Why was this valuable? Iraq was in the grip of a 

civil war, and Baghdad was in the middle of a war 

which had split along sectarian lines. It was fast-moving and complex, requiring deep understanding of the 

historical fractures and the identities which had crystallized as a result. It also required integrating that expert historical knowledge into understanding of how 

the demographics of the city had changed as a result of 

the U.S.-led invasion, for which there was no existing 

census data as a result of the insecurity (see Appendix 

M). Capturing the changing character of the districts 

could only be possible through interviews. These interviews also shed light on the problems and concerns 

of the citizens and the groups with which they identified. Understanding the units of identity which were 

forming during the conflict allowed the staff to understand the best way to combat the insurgency. 

Personal Choice.

The laissez-faire approach to guidance concerning 

HTT conduct in Iraq and Afghanistan engendered different approaches to ethics. The permissive protocol 

for team members allowed them to adopt their own 

idiosyncratic methods. Clark conducted ethically-rigorous research but observes bluntly that there were 

“plenty of teams that went to the dark side.”82 Clark 

was brought into the Social Science Directorate on her 

return from Iraq to recalibrate the ethical modalities of 
263

research. Another social scientist stated that it was always possible to pass on information regarding insurgents to the intelligence cell, suggesting that, at times 

at the discretion of the individual and team, the line 

between information and intelligence could become 

blurred.83

The truth of ethics in the program in Iraq and Afghanistan is that, in its design and execution, it was 

perfectly feasible to conduct ethical research from 

which the resulting information would not compromise the safety of those members of the population 

they engaged. For example, in gaining information 

“atmospherics” of eastern Afghanistan, AF1 in 2008 

used a broad semi-structured interview template for 

the population (see Appendix N). In no way do the 

question sets compromise those interviewed or enable 

information gleaned to be used for kinetic targeting. 

Informed consent for research conducted on medical 

care in Iraq highlights the calibrated character of the 

research modes used by social scientists in teams and 

also shows the quasi-nongovernmental organization 

(NGO) character of the program and a way forward for 

the HTS should it transition into a more strategically 

oriented asset; to assist the Department of the Army 

in sociocultural planning concerns such as healthcare, 

agriculture, or commerce. As source protection could 

be ensured, if it was not at any time that was a misstep 

in the recruitment and training cycles, exacerbated by 

the psychological burden of conflict which stressed 

that the primary duty of the HTT social scientist was 

to the military unit in which they were embedded. 

Concerns that the HTS was a clandestine intelligence asset are demonstrably false. Krohley offers a 

balanced assessment of the program and its activities: 
264

The program itself was not the Phoenix programme—

we were not there to target and kill people, but that 

being said there are ethical challenges to doing work 

in this kind of environment because you’re not impartial: we are on a side, we are not unbiased, neutral 

academic researchers looking at conflict; we are paid 

servants of the U.S. Army, there to help win a war, 

as corny as that may sound. It creates a tension but it 

does not, I think, create an impossible contradiction. I 

feel very comfortable that I did ethical work.84

There is nothing “corny” in that assessment. The 

only point of the HTS was to help the U.S. Department 

of the Army win a war. The improvised explosive device (IED) crisis had ushered in the program to help 

win a war that was being lost, and now in that “anything goes” environment, there was the possibility of 

either protecting a source or not.

Bluntly, source protection—which was the core 

ethical concern of social scientists in HTTs—could be 

accomplished if there was a desire to achieve it. For 

instance, in Iraq, individuals in HTTs cultivated longterm relationships with Iraqis who were typically 

already well known to the Army: local government 

leaders; prominent civilians, with names and telephone numbers already listed.85 Generally, the ethical 

dimension of the encounter could be controlled by 

calibration of the research method which, in practice, 

meant the material discussed with the population and 

the character of the questions asked of them.86 Effective team members, possessing good language skills 

and rapport with the population, might be sought out 

by locals with intelligence information. Such a scenario is “inevitable” without it being “an ethical catastrophe” because the individual could be referred to 

an intelligence officer.87 In terms of targeting, the character of the information gleaned was largely inappli-
265

cable. HTS was not about identification and naming of 

insurgents. Instead, the program was concerned with 

tribal dynamics and the social conditions of a particular community, truly a complete transition to a COIN 

tool rather than a counter-IED asset. 

HTS as a COIN tool therefore created a modus operandi of teams of nonkinetic information gathering. In 

one-off “house collection,” Krohley, for example, never asked for people’s names nor did the notes made 

in the notepads constitute intelligence and helping 

the military customer in this manner, but with ethical 

limitations, meant that the relationship with the Army 

structure was not contested or adversarial: 

The notes we had—when it came time to write these 

neighbourhood profiles—I had various colleagues 

email me their field notes that were typed up. Even 

those that had established long-term relations, they 

didn’t send names with it; it would just have their 

(the team member’s) initials (at the top) and “Source 

Number 1.” There would be a little bit of contextual 

information of the person insomuch as that helped me 

understand the background to the information insofar 

as they were a policeman for example or a government 

official or a displaced person or whatever. That was 

that. The military never asked for us for anything that 

they shouldn’t have asked for, and frankly we didn’t 

have much to give them in that respect, in terms of 

targeting information.88

The same conclusion is drawn by the West Point 

study which observed that the line of demarcation 

seems to be “running a source”; which is the point 

where the HTT should hand over the collection to 

intelligence agents should the team inadvertently 

uncover a “likely intelligence source.”89 Given the 

research questions from AF1 in 2008 and the Iraqi hospital research, it is unlikely that, in conducting that 
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research, information on the insurgency allowing targeting would arise. It has become, in essence, a quasiNGO. 

Developing explicit limits regarding the possibility of targeting is a core theme for social scientists 

concerned with the ethical character of their research. 

Clark notes that, in her work with a SOF unit, each 

night they would go through mission objectives, because even though they often aligned, occasionally 

they were not the same. According to Clark, while 

there was an implicit understanding that there was a 

broad need to identify insurgents because that would 

reduce coalition casualties in the long term, that was 

not the job the HTT and to do so would thus ethically 

compromise her as a social scientist.90 Both Clark and 

Krohley had the ostensible motivation for their work 

to facilitate their unit to make more informed choices at 

the tactical and operational levels in a COIN environment. This mandate allowed ethical research. Ethics, 

however, are a black and white issue; either a source 

was protected or it was not. HTS, as a program for 

COIN, allowed ethical research; if ethical research was 

not done, that was the compromised ethical stance of 

the HTT individual or whole team, which could be exacerbated by pressure applied by a unit commander. 

Embedding with a unit, particularly a small unit 

such as many of those used in operations by SOF, in 

which rapport and obvious, immediate utility were 

critical to value, meant that loyalty to the customer 

might come first and outweigh other considerations. 

In this environment, strength of character could be a 

critical factor in determining the ethical content of interactions with the population. This is an inevitable 

occurrence of embedding with a group in a highly 

contested space prone to violence. As one social scien-
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tist in Afghanistan made clear of work with SOF, their 

primary import was in supporting the unit. The ethical boundary could easily be crossed, in which case 

you could side with the military or, according to the 

social scientist: 

say ‘I’m just not comfortable with this.’ I was lucky in 

that I had two really great SF (Special Forces) teams, 

and they would say ‘are you okay with this?’ ‘I’d say 

I’m not on board with this’ And they were very generous and gracious with me backing off, and they’d say 

‘okay, no problem’.91

Despite indications of teams going to the “dark 

side,” in the course of this research, there emerged 

few indications that any team did so. There is probably a professional reluctance to identify teams that 

did, or identify that they themselves conducted unethical research. One social scientist that worked in 

Afghanistan admits that they “ended up doing a lot 

of intelligence” because of the nature of the questions, 

which yielded information on Taliban movements, 

which they passed along to the military, “very quietly 

and discretely; I would tell them, ‘I am not the right 

person, I will get you in touch with right person’.”92

If intelligence personnel were in close proximity, this 

referral could be done quickly, but if not, because it 

was difficult for intelligence personnel to gain convoy 

support, then contact information would be taken. 

The questions often yielded intelligence, not something social scientists could easily walk away from, 

as to do so would be putting American lives at risk, 

“even though it doesn’t go with what we were professionally supposed to be doing.”93
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Function and Acceptance. 

The value of embedded teams in stabilization and 

enabling operations was to provide an understand 

function which existed outside the traditional bounds 

of military hierarchy. The team was plugged directly 

into the brigade staff and could thus facilitate military 

comprehension. This was an operational need, evidenced by multiple Joint Urgent Operational Needs 

Statements (see Appendices C-H). The resulting untested proof-of-concept plan developed in 2006 which 

went operational in 2007 immediately experienced a 

high operational tempo. 

The high operational tempo required a strong ability of any HTT social scientist to communicate granular research in a concise manner with clear, actionable 

insights attached. As one social scientist observed:

the military is very focused on succinct, strong communication. Statements must be backed up with solid 

evidence. If you don’t know, admit it. Assumptions 

are deadly. Using qualifiers such as ‘I think’ or ‘I believe’ will get you eaten alive in a briefing.94

To that end, early iterations of training marginalized 

cross-cultural training between academia and the military, but one social scientist notes that by 2011, a large 

component of training: 

focused on giving briefings to commanders. Retired 

colonels and generals would tear us apart during presentations, trying to pull us down rabbit holes where 

a bad presenter would start to conjecture and only dig 

himself deeper.95
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This is an example of training evolution bringing 

important value to the classroom. What had obviously 

occurred—implicit in this training revision—was a 

broad inability of HTTs to convey academic knowledge to the military staff in a manner which was 

coherent, balanced, authoritative, and actionable. This 

speaks to the problems of academic complexity in that 

the military encouraged actionable insights based on 

balanced and nuanced analysis shaped into easily 

presentable forms. It is implicitly a robust critique of 

academic presentation rather than a concern about the 

character of military thought. In conflict zones, there 

was no room for the “narcissism of minor differences” 

or “hollow verbiage masquerading as profundity” 

resident in the academy and academic texts.96 The HTS 

thus refined academic expertise into packages which 

entered the operating cycle and could plug into the 

military decisionmaking process of the brigade. 

In answering the crux question of the book, therefore, the military wanted social scientists for academic research which attached actionable outcomes. 

Compilation of taxonomies and theoretical context 

complicated the military decisionmaking cycle. Qualified assessments had utility, if relevant to operational 

planning. HTS was an ambitious Department of the 

Army enterprise to integrate academics into that process, funded through the U.S. Government to wed 

academic praxis to the military cycle. The onus was 

on the social scientists to make their research relevant. 

That their research was relevant shows the structural 

possibility of developing these refined academic research modalities in conflict zones. 

Team failure was a result of the inability of the HTT 

to refine their research to integrate into the operating 

tempo. As the social scientists with the SOF in Village 

Stability Operations observed, the burden was on the 
270

academic to adapt and prove utility; that was their 

remit, and they were paid to produce demonstrable 

utility. If the social scientists failed to recalibrate their 

expert modality, either through choice or an inability 

to refine their work, then that was a recruitment and 

training misstep. The gap requiring an asset which 

conducted deep sociocultural research existed; it was 

a question of filling it effectively. Given the laissez-faire

recruitment and the demands of a conflict zone, some 

teams failed to fill that gap. 

Adapting to demands of the military unit was 

arduous in the conflict zone. Social scientists found 

that in order to function effectively and add value, 

it was necessary to integrate, “becoming much more 

direct.”97 This speaks to both the challenges of the 

academic in the conflict zone and the broader direction of academia more generally, as it seeks to ensure 

relevance in the social sciences in the 21st century. 

The military was a culture, in the words of one social 

scientist, “weird and totally antithetical to how I’d 

grown up—in order to bond, I had to tease and ridicule.”98 This affords insight into the lack of training 

which the program gave to academics. The carefully 

delineated boundaries of individuals in academia are 

unrepresentative of team relationships in the civilian 

sector more broadly, and the military even more so. 

There is a question here regarding the core challenges 

posed in training sets to integrate, both physically and 

psychologically, from the isolated academic environment to the team environment of the military unit. 

To be accepted was to be functional and to be functional was to be accepted; this required an acceptance 

of military values. At the granular level of the soldiers 

in the company or platoon, this included respecting a 

fallen comrade and partaking of menial chores, such 

as filling sandbags or observation in a Mine Resistant 
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Ambush Protected vehicle while on a mission. Team 

members were earning wages much higher than the 

soldiers and enjoyed more freedom, which could 

breed tension if not held in check by communal participation in menial work and adoption of the lifestyle; 

small things such as eating the same food; wearing the 

same fatigues; and not be seen killing time in relaxing 

environments such as “the base Green Beans” (U.S. 

coffee house company with a contract with the U.S. 

military). “Then maybe you’ll get enough goodwill to 

be able to request convoy support.”99 Deaths of fallen 

comrades were particularly hard if team members 

were embedded in small Forward Operating Bases, 

affecting everyone on the base. 

These events could be made harder by the remit of 

the teams, as explained by a social scientist regarding 

his or her experience in Afghanistan, because:

then the next day I went and had to interview the family of the Afghan policeman who had shot the soldier 

at point blank range. I quickly learned that every commander is going to prioritize the lives of his men over 

everything—and rightly so. But I had to show that I 

was factoring it into my mission requests.100

The customer was the unit leader, and successful 

teams were those that contributed to successful missions. To that end, missions or projects developed by 

the teams had to be conveyed to the commander in a 

way that showed the social scientist was considering 

the risk versus the reward, and that assigning soldiers 

or being granted convoy space were going to be worth 

the returns. In developing requests, especially in the 

early stages, the military language was critical because that culture is “so acronym heavy and, just like 

provincial dialects, every service, every unit, every 

tiny little team has its own language.”101 Each deploy-
272

ment came with a radically new language set as units 

moved in and out of a brigade, and the HTT had to 

adapt to those. Teams were timed to enter the theater 

of operations during brigade tours so that they could 

assist in unit transitions. The problem was that they 

then had to learn the new unit’s structure and prove 

value over again. Certain commonalities existed but 

even as much as the language is a hurdle, so, too, was 

adopting the correct mentality.

“A Street Fight They Couldn’t Quite Understand.”

Part of the remit of the 4th Brigade in which Krohley embedded in 2008 was to re-establish robust governance in Rusafa, Karrada, and Tissa Nissan districts 

and to that end worked with Iraqi security forces, 

neighborhood and district councils, the technical and 

administrative offices of the Baghdad municipality, 

and civil society in order to accomplish the strategic 

goal of a transfer of authority for the area to the Iraqi 

government across 2008 and 2009. Initial assessment 

highlighted that Tissa Nissan, and particularly its area 

beyond the Army Canal, possessed much higher levels of insecurity for coalition forces than its neighboring districts, and this district was thus the subject of 

focus for the team. Juxtaposition to Sadr City meant 

substantial activity of the Jaysh al-Mahdi and other 

Shia groups in the district. In the Saddam Husseinera, it was almost entirely a Shia area of the city, poorto-working class, with pockets of middle-class and 

minority settlements. 

The 2003 U.S.-led invasion and subsequent stabilization efforts fractured the human urban structure in 

Baghdad which had previously exhibited a degree of 

structural stability. This is an important point for social science work in conflict zones; qualitative research 
273

conducted before a war, no matter how recent, will be 

rendered largely outdated by forced mobilization of 

the population induced by systematic acts of violence. 

If the conflict is characterized by a highly insecure environment, the fluidity of these structural changes to 

the social fabric makes any deep analysis of the area 

a cultural relic. By the time the analysis has been rendered into a product, the tempo of violence has reduced the research to an examination of the past. The 

current of change in eastern Baghdad was pronounced 

after the invasion, which disrupted and then resulted 

in the disbandment of the Iraqi Army. The Jaysh alMahdi formed in an attempt to guarantee the security 

of Shia populations in the midst of sectarian violence, 

conducted a campaign of forced displacements such 

that the population of Tissa Nissan by 2008 was principally Shia, and the insurgency was being countered 

by Operation FARDH AL-QANOON, begun on February 13, 2007, as part of the surge.

In September 2008, the incoming team leader described the three districts, Rusafa, Karada, and Tissa 

Nissan as highly heterogeneous and intricate; the 

team answered operationally relevant questions and 

the “key is that the research must be operationally relevant. While general in nature, the guidance must be 

clear enough to allow the team to construct a sound 

research design.”102 The research conducted by the 

embedded team in eastern Baghdad had augmented 

the operational picture of the sociocultural environment (see Appendices O, M, and P). At the higher level, however, the influence and impact of this research 

was constrained by the strategic picture of the surge 

in 2008, with plans for the drawdown of forces having 

already been developed and major operations having 

already been planned. In addition, the surge of forces 
274

was a strategic push which had a distinctly political 

character and a set narrative: COIN, tribal engagement, and the transitioning of security control to the 

Iraqi government.103

The political dimensions of the COIN mode constrained the HTTs effect in 2008 in Baghdad. U.S. forces 

had developed a strategic mandate which emphasized 

the central role of the Sons of Iraq and district councils in developing high enough levels of security that 

there could be an effective transition. With these plans 

pinned at the political level, IZ4’s (Krohley’s team) research on the likely failure of the Sons of Iraq program 

in Tissa Nissan and the limitations of the district councils was unable to influence the strategic direction of 

operations. Within these political dimensions, IZ4 

could only assist the brigade in understanding why 

events were unfolding in a particular manner; that understanding could not change the strategic direction 

of the brigade or the configuration of operations.104

Those research methodologies conducted by IZ4 

were dictated by the needs of the customer. The problem set as Krohley explained it: 

wasn’t Machiavellian politics among competing 

elites—it was a street fight that they couldn’t quite 

understand and the only way to fix a street fight is to 

get on the street and figure it out. So it was a different 

approach, which stemmed a lot from the difference of 

circumstance.105

Research was situational, dictated by the operating environment. If the customer’s problem dictated 

that the street was the answer, then that also avoided 

lot of the interpersonal issues and intrateam problems 

which were exacerbated by people in close proximity 

on base. HTTs were sui generis but success—augment-
275

ing the brigade’s sociocultural picture—was achieved 

through a combination of adaptive research, team 

configuration, and a receptive brigade staff. Team configuration was fundamental to success: for instance, 

to respond to the challenges of Tissa Nissan, IZ4 split 

the team into deep research components, and only the 

team leader remained on staff. This suited the expert 

field research skills of the team members. 

Team configuration was an element which could 

have been better analyzed in the training cycle. A 

central problem of the HTS had been that it went operational without a proper development phase that 

would have evolved optimum selection and training procedures for embedded teams. The original 

Human Terrain System model wove into the design 

a 24-month proof-of-concept phase based around a 

handful of teams. Under Fondacaro, bureaucracy was 

sidestepped, despite the fact that the military itself 

places enormous emphasis on intrateam compatibility and harmony, selecting teams, pairing individuals 

and paring certain personality types, as one former 

HTT social scientist presents it, “focusing a great deal 

on the team elements of work, particularly when you 

get into small units doing ambiguous missions.”106

A small group given an intellectually challenging and ambiguous mission that they are meant to 

resolve without a particular and explicit reliance on 

the hierarchical structure around it required detailed 

planning by the HTS management. Put simply, “HTS 

didn’t do that” and “a lot of it traces back to problems 

in the hiring places.”107 Krohley once had a colleague 

offer the opinion that: 

the hardest part of HTS is HTS. The war and the Iraqis 

are the least of our troubles most days, it’s the pro-
276

gramme management or it’s our teammates, and that 

all stems back to hiring issues and the crafting of the 

teams, both of which could have been a lot better.108

There were limits to the requirement for deep qualitative analysis of the kind offered by HTTs and their 

bespoke toolkits. In Baghdad during 2008, the IED 

was among the most pernicious of weapons utilized 

by the insurgents. IEDs were on the two arterial routes 

that bisected the AO, and the main access roads to U.S. 

Army outposts, which was not a complex observation 

requiring the compilation of social data. IEDs were 

placed on the major highway which ran north/northeast through Diyala province to Iran, which splits just 

before Sadr City; and on the other, which ran into the 

heart of Tissa Nissan. These were obvious sites for insurgent action, due to the volume of traffic, making it 

a target-rich environment. That analysis was purely 

qualitative, providing the necessary explanation of 

the environment. 

The centrality of the IED to the military problemset in Iraq had brought the MAP-HT toolkit into existence, because of an “aspiration to build this programme that somehow combined IED incidents with 

sociocultural demographic information” to enable 

patterns to emerge, against which to allow the military 

to predict and plan.109 Krohley argues that the theory 

was unlikely to be workable in practice.110 Instructive 

for the IED crisis which brought HTS into existence, 

Krohley suggests that visualizing sociocultural data 

for the Department of the Army would not impact the 

IED problem in any discernible way.

In practice, MAP-HT could not augment the qualitative analysis of the operating environment. For 

example, Krohley notes the investigation of indirect 
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fire sites. These were sites where munitions were 

launched even though the U.S. targets could not be 

seen directly. Many of these sites were not located in 

the militia strongholds themselves but in other areas 

of the districts with high concentrations of displaced 

people. Such areas provided an: 

atmosphere of chaos where people didn’t really know 

one another, there was no atmosphere of community, 

there was no one in charge and there were always a lot 

of people coming and going, so if a team came in, in a 

couple of trucks or a pickup, they could come in, shoot 

a few mortars, and leave.111

An understanding of demographics combined 

with “just a basic idea of line of sight in a district” allows mapping with a great deal of certainty of the locations of indirect fire sites.112 This comprehension of 

the sociocultural layer combined with military knowledge was being done well before the entry of the HTS. 

While the Army may not have appreciated every aspect of the social environment on the ground, they did 

capture the point of origins for mortar attacks with a 

great deal of specificity, and they knew where the IED 

hotspots were, with a great deal of detail.113

Instructively for the limitations of populationcentered COIN doctrine in practice, the response is 

limited by the necessity to mitigate collateral damage. 

The U.S. Army can launch countermortar strikes; firing mortars into uninhabited areas of the city at night, 

acting on probabilities that there may be a mortar being set up; but that could not be done in a residential 

dwelling or an internally displaced persons’ camp.114

Kinetic response limited not by ability but by a necessity of responsibility is of import for any wider investigation of responsible parameters when employing 
278

COIN tactics. Here is the dichotomy of the military 

enterprise conducting population-centered activities, 

because in preventing mortar strikes, to neutralize a 

key aspect of the insurgency would require an atrocity; the destruction of the internally displaced persons’ 

camp. Low-intensity conflict expert Thomas Adams 

has observed that “unless a military force is willing to 

commit something close to genocide, it cannot destroy 

the opposing force.”115 Disproportionate use of force 

beneath the auspices of a narrative which foregrounded justice and humanitarian ideals was never a realistic response. Without a kinetic response approaching 

something close to genocide, then the military, despite 

augmented sociocultural knowledge, can only employ 

tactics which attenuate insurgent activities, lessening 

the effects, rather than confronting and neutralizing 

the insurgents themselves, often indistinguishable 

from the section of the population that has not taken 

up arms.

A Different Country.

War reshapes societies, fashioning new, warped 

demographics and propagating fluid shifts in groupings, narratives, and identities. Social layers shift; transitioning more quickly in more environments where 

selective violence is higher. After the U.S.-led invasion 

and occupation of Iraq, the power vacuum left by the 

collapse of the Ba’athist regime and the unpopularity 

of the incumbent Shia-dominated government generated intense sectarian violence. Religiously centered 

conflict caused large numbers of Iraqi Christians to 

flee the country, and by 2008, artificially induced by 

conflict, the Yezidis, a sect following a pre-Islamic 

tradition, became the de facto largest non-Muslim 

minority in Iraq.116
279

Historically, the Yezidis dispersed across various 

borders when political and administrative boundaries 

were redrawn in the Middle East as a consequence of 

the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the aftermath 

of World War I. By the time of the U.S.-led invasion 

in 2003, the largest number of Yezidis was in Iraq, 

some 400,000, concentrated around the Sinjar region 

of Nineveh governorate. In Nineveh the Yezidis were 

outside the jurisdiction of the three Kurdish provinces, 

but subject to pressures from both the Iraq state and 

Kurdish political actors, the latter seeing the group 

as practicing anathema of religion, centered on their 

worship of a deity with the same name as a Satanic 

figure in Muslim theology.117

The Yezidi belief system draws from both Islam and 

Christianity, with a central deity being an archangel 

most closely resembling a peacock. English-language 

literature on the group is limited, made rarer by the 

insecurity for researchers during the Ba’ath-era in Iraq 

and which continued, if not increased, after the fall of 

the regime. Apparent heretical practices represented 

apostasy and in the Hadith, the sayings of the Prophet, 

heretics can be punished with death for abandoning 

their religion. In 2007, the Islamic State of Iraq issued 

a fatwa for the killing of all Yezidis, which accelerated 

a refugee crisis. By October 2007, it was estimated that 

70,000 Yezidis had left the country.118 The majority of 

these were from the cities, leaving many in remote 

regions of Nineveh still exposed. 

In this period of intense population movement 

centered on identity, Clark was a social scientist researching the Sinjar during 2008. Kurds were pressing 

for autonomous regions in the north, but the boundary lines were disputed by the Iraqi government, and 

tense diplomatic negotiations were exacerbated by 
280

the presence of oil in the region of Mosul. The Yezidis 

straddled the Sinjar mountain range, a single ridge, 

which, according to another social scientist working 

in the area, was “basically in the zone of conflict of 

where that line was going to go if they had autonomy 

and therefore control the oil revenues.”119 Therefore, 

there was a question regarding the identity of the 

Yezidis about their inclusion in Iraqi or Kurdish territory and which may have had implications for oil 

resource allocation. While studying the issue, Clark 

understood that there was friction in the area, without 

comprehending the particular granularity, an absence 

of understanding compounded by the lack of military 

presence in the Sinjar range.

Clark immediately focused on Sinjar, attaching 

to convoys which were conducting stabilization missions in the Yezidi area, allowing the team to conduct 

interviews in towns where the demarcation was under dispute. Through interviews, a picture emerged 

of the Yezidis pressured by both the Kurds and Iraqi 

local political structure, which included economic incentives (payment to improve schools and infrastructure) but also coercion through violence in instances, 

explaining, at least in part, the victimization of the 

Yezidis during this period. 

The Yezidis are clan-oriented and thus insular, 

rarely marrying outside of their culture, making them 

an easy, identifiable, and homogeneous group to target. To protect themselves, the Yezidis set up checkpoints around the towns, but physical coercion from 

both Iraqis and Kurds meant that other military forces 

were in the area; most particularly the Iraqi Army, 

Kurdish peshmurga, and other paramilitary groups. 

Research allowed the social scientists to tease apart the 

details of that conflict. From that research, the Marines 
281

deployed additional presence there and may have 

been responsible for a reduction in violence.120

The pace of population change meant that products produced by HTTs were often relics in the sense 

that the maps or other types of qualitative data captured spoke of a moment in the trajectory of the region which was already in the past. Back-filled team 

members would often have to conduct research on 

areas which had already been mapped previously, in 

order to understand the character of the changed societal environment. In Paktika, Afghanistan, one social 

scientist’s early study was undertaken at the behest of 

a team leader, to have each district of Paktika province mapped at the socio-economic level, to include 

information on agriculture and urban settlements. 

On September 14, 2008, AF2 had requested from the 

Research Reachback Center a comparison of Iraqi and 

Afghan tribal structures, because the team had noted 

that many military units in Afghanistan were trying 

to transpose Iraqi cultures and tribes into the new AO. 

The report included a detailed social network analysis 

of tribal presence in Paktika’s government. 

This report drew on seminal research conducted 

by HTTs, including Michael Bhatia with AF1, but 

was confined to 2007. This 2007 research had been 

catalyzed and facilitated by Operations ATTAL and 

SHAM SHAD in the last 2 months of the year, where 

convoy support allowed the teams to interview the 

population to map the terrain. In addition, another 

team member in AF1, Audrey Roberts, based at Forward Operating Base Salerno had contributed to preliminary research and integrated that into the much 

broader area of Khost, Paktia, and Paktika combined, 

which was the area of operation for the 4th BCT of the 

101st Airborne Division. 
282

The rate of change coupled to the large area under 

the geographical remit of the team meant that there 

was continual need for further investigation, often of 

the same issues. It was the role of the HTT to plug 

the sociocultural capability gap by repairing holes 

in military understanding, making abstract complex 

concepts comprehensible, and integrating information into actionable planning scenarios. A later social 

scientist in Paktika assessing the needs of the military 

customer observed broadly the central role of irrigation in the agricultural system. Integrating understanding of the complex role of irrigation in exacerbating situational insecurity was one of the many roles of 

the HTT. The military staff at that point understood 

that “water is a very complicated concept” but lacked 

the tools to explore the issue further and concentrated 

on other more tangible and understandable aspects of 

the operating environment.121

As the research proceeded, it emerged that the societal structure for co-managing resources had broken 

down as a result of chronic conflict in the area, and 

there were no longer governance mechanisms for resource allocation. Government and tribal leaders had 

been killed, and the small underground well system 

(kariz) had been damaged by both physical movement 

and ordnance. In addition, ad hoc well digging, to offset the problem, had exacerbated the scope of the issue by lowering the water table, making the kariz less 

functional. Interviews with stakeholders on the canal, 

principally agriculturalists, allowed the social scientist to brief the military and the Department of State, 

who had previously been apathetic toward regulation 

of the kariz, seeing it as a problem principally for the 

local population, with minimal impact on livelihoods. 

After this research, the Department of State could 
283

increase water management projects to improve agriculture and give greater chances of employment for 

the vulnerable male population who could join the 

insurgencies.122

Granularity was as relevant in this instance for 

the Department of State as for the principal customer, 

which was the military unit. This shows the absence 

of deep sociocultural research across all components 

of the U.S. Government in conflict zones. While overall, the social scientist knew that the primary customer 

was the unit in which they were embedded, and that, 

if the customer was not satisfied, they could “go home 

now,” their embedded team also stressed the need to 

network extensively with all organizations in the theater of operations.123 Networking was necessary because of the entrenched stove-piping of organizations: 

United States Agency for International Development, 

Department of State, Psychological Operations, Special Operations Forces, Marines, and Army are stovepipe systems; groups which have the potential to share 

data with each other but choose not to do so. Despite 

different systems being located on the same base, even 

in the same building, even in the same room, “they 

are not sharing their information at the level of fidelity 

that needs to happen in order to say ‘so what?’”124

As a broad example of the problem, there is intelligence and information collation required to assess the 

impact of IED events in an area. If one intelligence cell 

is collating IED events while another cell is calculating 

the number of cars crossing roads into the area, unless some entity in the unit is pooling the information, 

it is largely irrelevant individually. Systems, such as 

Intellipedia and the Tactical Ground Reporting System, serve to collate information at the ground level, 

but, in practice, there is nobody designated to pool 
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the data in order to aggregate it into information of 

value. These disconnected pools of data and knowledge made the research process of embedded social 

scientists more arduous. Lack of sharing is a common 

theme in the recollections of social scientists; between 

armed service components; and between units, cells, 

and individuals. As such, in order to show value, the 

social scientists would share team products with any 

pertinent organizations with presence in the AO.125

Granular investigation at the local level had a 

number of customers who were more receptive to 

such findings than the military unit in which teams 

were embedded. As well as the Department of State, 

HTTs often worked with PRTs in Afghanistan. The 

creation of the PRTs centralized the role of development organizations in Afghanistan. HTTs could often 

engage in collaborative research processes, such as 

that outlined by an HTT member embedded in Ghazni in 2010. At that time, because of the physical scope 

of the AO, there were multiple districts for which the 

Research Reachback Center possessed no written material, because no one had been there to write reports 

previously. The team could use secondary source material—reports written by NGOs and historical documents such as academic articles—but contemporary 

knowledge of the region did not exist. The first mission of the HTT located there partnered with the PRT 

in that the governor had residence in the center of the 

district but would sometimes stay in his home village 

on the border of an area experiencing violent instability. Effective stabilization operations would require 

comprehension of these districts as yet unknown; 

the HTT leased vehicles from the Afghan Police and 

engaged in ad hoc reporting. 
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The area of the district was prohibitive to deep 

analysis, being about half the size of Rhode Island, but 

the team tried to cover as much as possible in 2 days 

before returning to the district center.126 This research 

was conducted during the September 2010 parliamentary elections; fortuitous as the team analyzed the 

campaign posters in each village, as a proxy for identifying which candidates could mobilize people and 

possessed resources. This investigation highlighted 

key individuals, many of them already known from 

previous research done before the team deployed. 

During the 2-day investigation, the team identified a dam which was cracking, requiring reinforcement. In order to start this process, the team returned 

to the district center and organized a key leader engagement with the governor. Earlier networking from 

team members who had been in the HTS for several 

years facilitated subsequent leveraging of resources 

required from the PRT. The team met with a local 

business leader in order to glean a history of the dam 

project, and a personal history of the individual, and: 

that was one of those moments where you realize, 

‘Yes, this is so different. This is so different from anything I will have ever been taught as an intelligence 

officer, that I ever would have been capable of doing, 

this is valuable, this is important on so many levels, 

God I wish we could do this more often’.127

During the talks, the Afghan related that he had 

heard of significant flooding in a remote area of the 

district that the team had not visited, and that those 

floods were having a significant humanitarian impact. 

Identification of this secondary, deep problem led to 

a change of mission, in which the team was broken 

into two groups, with one group of the HTT taking 
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unarmored civilian vehicles into the mountains, with 

the governor, a driver, and a small private security detachment, and an engineer. This group examined the 

impact of the floods from a humanitarian perspective. 

Resources were going to Pakistan to respond to the 

floods there, meaning that the United States had no 

presence in this area, highlighting that: 

not only do we ignore the people that are in need to 

some degree because of national interests, which are 

often driven by the fact that people are trying to blow 

us up, but our inability to direct assets to areas—to 

be informed—was shocking. No one knew that there 

were tens or perhaps hundreds of thousands of people 

in these upper valley areas whose lives—who were 

already living on the edge—but their lifestyles had 

been decimated, simply because no assets were ever 

applied there. And it points to a failing of the military 

intelligence process as well as its capacity. If it is not 

deliberately looking for something, it will never see 

it. And it simply does not look for things like this humanitarian crisis that was going on.128

Identification of the unfolding crisis meant that the 

HTT coordinated with the World Food Program for 

the delivery of food aid delivered to that district. 

During that period of research, the HTT also visited archaeological sites to attempt to catalogue archaeological theft; they had a Polish archaeologist embedded with the Polish PRT. Archaeological theft was 

a major source of funding for insurgencies and criminality, though poorly understood by people on the 

ground and to date in literature: “the military simply 

overlooks it, because they don’t look for it, they don’t 

understand how it works and they don’t respond to 

it.”129 In this area of low operational tempo, when 

there is not day-in and day-out fighting, civil-military 
287

partnerships can make a difference and meaningfully 

impact societies outside of incredibly violent insurgencies and general warfare.130

This is at the heart of the HTS. Meaningful impacts 

on societies can be made when there is low operational tempo. What would it take? While there is joint 

planning at the strategic level, this joint execution on 

the ground in countries would require a complete reconceptualization of the conduct of foreign policy and 

“some very powerful things would come from it.”131

The U.S. military enterprise has been engaged in a 

de facto stabilization project since the demise of the 

Soviet Union. It, however, has been slow to acknowledge that fact or understand how to develop a posture 

which is optimized for stabilization. While the HTS 

was a small program, the lessons from it are that civilmilitary partnerships which stabilize societies in areas 

of low operational tempo are possible. 

Where violence enforced displacement, HTTs were 

the obvious tool for assessing the novel societal structures, allowing the decoding of both urban and rural 

environments. This was a common theme across Iraq 

and Afghanistan; for example, while embedded with 

a Danish battalion, Evans conducted research on Gereshk, the second largest city in Helmand and poorly 

understood at the time, which stood out as being particularly valuable to the Danish military structure in 

which he was embedded. Interviews with various 

members of the city afforded analysis of the societal 

structure of the city: From those initial conversations, 

it was deduced that the urban framework was composed of a number of villages which had bled into 

each other. Each neighborhood had a malik, such that 

understanding this, it became possible to understand 

the different populations within the city, geographi-
288

cally, and their adherence to each malik. The boundaries also aided understanding: 

the fluid nature of what was going on in the city, in 

terms of who was moving and who was moving out, 

and understanding the influence of poppy networks 

and the narcotics trade on the city, and how the politics of the mujahideen era were still very much relevant to what was happening to current day power 

struggles in the city.132

Fluidity of urban population patterns catalyzed 

by conflict required and still requires comprehension. The absence of deep knowledge of urban centers 

was not limited to Gereshk; it is a constant of conflict. 

Krohley noted the requirement for knowledge of the 

urban planning history of Baghdad proved critical 

to understanding insurgency activity; Pavlovic notes 

that “in a period of 10 years, Kabul grew from about 

one million, to over five million people; knowing 

where ethnic boundaries are and how they fit into 

the stability and security and development was very 

important to us.”133 War occasions the redrawing of 

national, regional, and local boundaries, both formal 

and informal, and the understanding of transformed 

demographics requires comprehension which recurs 

in interviews with social scientists that embedded and 

attempted to decode the alien human terrain.

Deciphering of the social environment on the 

ground was of a modality characterized by reporting 

rather than ethnography. Evans explains that the standard mode through which the team members gained 

access to the population was to walk through villages 

and fields and enter into conversation: 

there was no sophisticated sampling method, the environment didn’t allow for that. We would up and talk 
289

to people, sit down and have a conversation. I would 

know what data points I wanted to get to and I would 

try to structure a conversation around that.134

While the population was mostly receptive to the 

team members, Evans sort of “got a sense about when 

they were holding back about sensitive security issues; that wasn’t most of what we were asking about 

so that was not a big issue.”135 The population was 

not receptive to the team members if there had been a 

security issue, which highlights that, with increasing 

insecurity for incumbent forces, there is an inversely 

proportional relationship to the fidelity of the data 

acquired. 

Perhaps more than Iraq, Afghanistan presented 

a series of granular differences: Languages, dialects, 

and heterogeneity of cultures and identities rendered 

the human terrain particularly opaque. Ghazni alone 

had over a thousand villages, each with its own structure of leadership. Blanket generalizations would obscure granular nuance, but that nuance would obscure 

effective blanket planning. In the midst of this paradox, many effective research projects in Afghanistan 

were conducted at the atomic level of the village, as 

explained by one social scientist who worked with 

SOF in volatile areas where there was an emphasis on 

establishing the ALP. 

The ALP had been created as a stop-gap measure 

in 2010 to hold security at the level of the village long 

enough to give the Afghan National Army (ANA) and 

ANP time to build up capabilities and expand into 

that area; the U.S. elements of the program were coordinated by the Combined Forces Special Operations 

Component Command—Afghanistan. The Soviet 

Union had tried similar programs, as had the Inter-
290

national Security Assistance Force previously, but all 

programs eventually failed, with varying degrees of 

interim success.136

The ALP had the most high profile of several 

pseudo-militias created by the International Security 

Assistance Force where the official Afghan National 

Security Forces were unlikely to permeate for some 

time. By the middle of 2012, the force was 13,000 in 

number, with plans to increase to 30,000 by the end of 

2014. That surge of ALP is similar to the effort of the 

Soviets who had raised militias based on the Afghan 

tribal system to stabilize the country to the extent that 

they could conduct a phased withdrawal. After the 

U.S.-led invasion, pseudo-militias such as the Afghan 

Auxiliary Police, the Afghan Public Protection Program, and the Community Defense Initiative had all 

been attempted in the regions now occupied by the 

ALP but Vanda Felbab-Brown, a Senior Fellow with 

the Brookings Institution indicates that the outcomes 

of these militias was “cumulatively negative.”137 Given 

the historical legacy of failure, the social scientist was 

tasked with examining what was happening in the 

communities where the ALP was being established; 

what had happened to it and its history according to 

academic papers, military histories, and the memories 

of the local people. 

The project conducted by the social scientist was 

necessary because, given the historical legacy of similar programs, if there were no nuanced corrections 

offered, then the ALP project was set up for failure before it had commenced.138 The research was from both 

secondary (existing literature on previous analogical 

programs) and primary sources; understanding what 

the locals remembered of the previous programs. This 

research was undertaken in combination with analy-
291

sis of factors in the villages that would cause them to 

support the ALP and, conversely, factors which might 

lead to loss of support for the police, as well as examining what was said regarding alleged abuses committed by the police and other security forces. 

ACTIONABLE AND INFORMATIVE

Research was only the raw dimensions of the work 

of embedded social scientists. The research needed 

to be packaged into a project which was comprehensible and thus actionable. Teams were undoubtedly 

hampered in their efforts by this lag within the military enterprise in sociological knowledge, and, as a 

consequence, fell back on rigid frameworks such as 

ASCOPE and PMESII. Given the flexibility of the successful social scientists, however, I ask exactly how 

the HTTs produced their research and what effect this 

research had on the BCT staffs. HTT products: 

are developed through analysing and synthesizing 

human terrain data gathered in the field and through 

debriefs/interviews. Products are the documentation 

of the team’s human terrain knowledge of specific topics that are of particular concern to the unit, or should 

be. Together with input to working groups, this is the 

primary input to the human terrain team portion of 

the commander’s Common Operating Picture.139

An Institute for Defense Analyses study on the 

HTS observed that human society: 

does not yield to the same type of empirical methods 

as experimentation that is common in the physical 

and biological sciences. There is no way to quickly 

measure changes that take effect over a generation—

researchers just don’t live that long.140
292

The onus was on the social scientists to conduct 

research which would then be of value to the commander, rather than having the character of their studies dictated by the commander. Because of the low 

priority of embedded teams until they proved their 

worth, they would often have to use transport assets 

that were used for missions other than their own, and 

would have to conduct research which fit around the 

tactical tempo. From that point onward, there was no 

research plan; no doctrine; no template for fieldwork. 

Instead, it is called a mission statement “in the corporate sense”: go out and be useful, socioculturally: 

“You know, what the hell does that mean?” Even 

though procedures and guidelines were incrementally 

developed by program management, “there were not 

a set of procedures and guidelines that would have fit 

every particular experience, you know every type of 

place that was encountered.”141

What did social science research in the conflict 

zone look like? Krohley gives insight into the initial 

stage of the process:

to build a rapport with the soldiers—you want to get 

out and talk to as many of them as possible, particularly those who have been there a long time, to get their 

perceptions, their thoughts on what is happening, because that is actually the base line for everything.142

The methodology was to visit the joint security 

stations and combat outposts and the forward operating bases to conduct interviews, spending 2 to 3 days 

there attending ongoing missions, enabling a constant 

stream of ad hoc interviews with Iraqis. This broad 

introduction was focused on assessing the tone and 

lasted for the first 6 weeks. A core limiting factor was 

the logistics: 
293

The work itself could have been done in three weeks, 

but you can’t always get from one place to the next, 

you know. That was the biggest operational challenge 

throughout—it wasn’t getting the Iraqis to talk to you, 

it wasn’t finding the right missions to go out on, it was 

actually getting to the facility you needed to get to in 

order to get out on the mission that was happening the 

next day.143

The team integrated into existing convoys, rather 

than attempting to gain their own car service or private security detachment. Integrating into the military 

structure was important in order to gain acceptance 

which would optimize the relationship and facilitate 

research opportunities. As Krohley explains: 

for every other hour of the day we weren’t doing human terrain work, we would try and contribute, to be 

soldiers basically. I think that worked very well for us, 

in terms of the buy-in we got from the Army, people 

liked us, people liked having us around, we weren’t a 

burden that needed to be looked after.144

Initial research conducted by social scientists often 

simply was broad survey work. This was necessary 

because team members arrived in the areas of operation with a baseline of knowledge limited to secondary sources and information provided by the Research 

Reachback Center prior to departure for the relevant 

theater. Both in Iraq and Afghanistan, this departure 

from a baseline of knowledge to more valuable information was often made in the same manner. As one 

social scientist embedded in Afghanistan explains, 

acute insecurity for coalition forces outside the base—

a flare in violence—confined the team to interviewing Afghan nationals that were working on the same 
294

forward operating base for the first 3 weeks after the 

individual embedded. 

This survey was comprised of 20-30 interviews to 

get a better understanding of what respondents’ attitudes and perceptions were toward the people that 

were there, but also toward “fear,” “threats,” “insults.”145 Questions asked were: “When was the last 

time you felt threatened?” and “Can you describe it?” 

The team transcribed each interview and coded it by 

the frequency of the words that were being used. This 

was a rudimentary approach, but allowed the construction of a product which could highlight common 

themes such as how the local nationals perceived the 

coalition forces operating there. This allowed comprehension of the perception of how the Afghans were being treated by the military forces; answers placed into 

the categories “‘good,” “bad,” “neutral,” “mixed.” 

This in turn facilitated the commander’s understanding of how he could engender better relationships with 

the population. The scope of the survey also assessed 

perceptions of the Taliban, criminal networks, the extent to which they felt threatened by each, and how 

the population dealt with grievances. That product 

was presented, with an executive summary and recommendations, as a PowerPoint presentation “which 

was a pretty common way of delivering that sort of 

stuff, to the battalion commander.”146 Ultimately, of 

that particular product, the executive officer “was not 

too receptive of it” because: 

a lot of it was quite critical of how they (the Afghan 

population) were being treated, disrespected, those 

types of things. The battalion commander saw the 

utility of it; the XO [executive officer] was providing 

justification as to why they were wrong, which was 

certainly kind of troubling.147
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Such was the broad, diffuse forum of sociocultural 

knowledge and sociocultural concerns that myriad research methodologies could be developed by teams in 

Iraq and Afghanistan. For Evans, while every product 

was different, he made a conscious decision to examine 

thematic issues developed through interviews, some 

recorded with audio equipment, others documented 

by note-taking before returning to base to produce the 

reports. Evans’ team designed interview grids listing 

a person’s name and basic demographic data, such as 

occupation, gender, age bracket, tribe, grid location, 

and birthplace, and interviewed each on a variety of 

topics from agriculture to politics. In the product, that 

data would be in the appendix of the report so that the 

customers could check the provenance of the information. This transparency was noted as being useful 

from at least one customer of the HTT products.148

The depth of material offered in the report offered 

the chance to check the HTT homework, basically so 

that the military was not under the illusion that the 

team was “just using social science as sorcery.”149 The 

British brigade was structured differently than U.S. 

brigades, with staff groupings under the command of 

lieutenant colonels designated SO1s. Evans’ team was 

situated within the intelligence, surveillance, targeting, acquisition, reconnaissance (ISTAR) group. The 

J-2, the intelligence cell, was embedded within that, 

because they own what the British call the “understand function” and the HTT was tasked with comprehension of the population, situated there but not 

integrated into the personnel structures tasked with 

targeting insurgents.150 Moreover, targeting cells were 

in a compound that the HTT lacked clearance for, 

despite being situated in the same command structure, 

but the team did develop close relations with some of 
296

the groups, including Psychological Operations and 

reported up through that ISTAR unit. The first tier 

above was the J-2 cell, to which the report would go 

for review and then subsequently brigade-wide release. During the period that Evans was embedded 

with Task Force Helmand, he was with two different 

British brigades, each functioning differently; with 

the first brigade there could be a brief to the brigadier 

from the team leader. In the second brigade, with the 

Royal Marines, there was a more open communication system, in which the embedded could communicate more directly to the chief of staff, the brigadier, 

and the colonels.151

The first several reports conducted were for different battalions, five in total in the AO. In order to 

assume relevance, the HTT visited each battle group, 

stating broadly: 

Here are our capabilities, here is what we can do, here 

is what we can offer. What do you want to know about 

the population in your Area of Operations?” And we 

would look at the CCIRs, which are the Commander’s 

Critical Information Requirements and PIRs, Priority 

Information Requirements, basically their intelligence 

gaps, what they wanted to know about their AO. And 

we would look at the ones that had to do with the 

population. And we would say, “according to your records you wanted to know this, is there anything else 

you wanted to communicate to me?”152

From this identified gap in the brigade knowledge 

architecture, it was possible to construct a research 

design. The HTT went into the British systems to examine the institutional information they had collated 

regarding the AO, and incorporated that information 

as background into the research design. With objec-
297

tives and resources required, this request was sent to 

the battle group for approval and, at this point, the 

battle group could modify the design if required. As 

Evans explains:

that was already a product in and of itself; it was basically a literature review. And then we would go out 

and execute it in the field; anywhere from a few days 

to 2 weeks; foot and vehicle patrols where we would 

conduct semi-structured interviews.153

To expand the baseline of knowledge, HTTs would 

often out of pragmatic necessity conduct surveys as 

a way to capture a wide range of opinions in a structured manner. HTT IZ9 conducted deep research in 

2008, generating one of the first products in which its 

team was engaged, based around a survey of the Sons 

of Iraq, the bureaucratic embodiment of the Anbar 

Awakening which spread through the Sunni-dominated areas in Iraq. The Sons of Iraq was a local community policing initiative paid for by the U.S. military 

and credited with ushering in stability to al-Anbar 

and subsequently the rest of Iraq.154 Because of the 

militia character of the force, the Sons of Iraq, led by 

tribal sheikhs, endured a frictional relationship with 

the Iraqi government. The government, however, was 

in the process of assuming responsibility for the Sons 

of Iraq program as part of ongoing integration. The 

purpose of the survey was to identify their expectations for post-insurgency employment; to ascertain if 

they were going to be transitioned successfully from 

militia into the police force or other fields of work. The 

research was carried out from September 14, 2008, to 

October 25, 2008, and consisted of 503 interviews carried out in Salah al-Din province and examined the 

character of the transition of the Sons of Iraq into the 
298

elected government. Survey data was recorded at Sons 

of Iraq checkpoints and salary payment locations, with 

approximately 100 interviews in five different sections 

of the BCT’s AO, and of the 503 people interviewed, 

471 were Sunni. 

The research was conducted because the brigade 

was attempting to transition nearly 3,000 Sons of Iraq 

from the militia structure into the Iraqi Police. It was 

thus invaluable that IZ9 work through social science 

research methods to understand what would happen 

to the Sons of Iraq that were not integrated into the police force, because there was an assumption that those 

not transitioned would accept more menial work, 

rather than take up arms against U.S. forces. Followup research was conducted in and around Samarra 

from December 12 to 16, 2008. The research analysis 

concluded that the programs offering employment to 

the Sons of Iraq were imperfect, and some individuals had unrealistic expectations of the positions they 

could attain because of the Iraqi government’s position on reintegrating such individuals. There was a 

likelihood that a minority for which it was an issue 

would return to criminal activity or the ongoing multifaceted insurgency if the program was completely 

stood down.155 This transition was of primary import 

to the military customer, and this research proved the 

value of an HTT in that area. Indicative of the extent of 

the Sons of Iraq issue, IZ11 also examined the implications of the transition. 

The frequency of products was dictated by the frequency of missions. As one team member embedded 

with U.S. brigades noted, each product from every 

mission would be emailed out to personnel in the unit 

as well as posted to SharePoint. Research considered of 

pertinence to a wider audience would be entered into 
299

the Combined Information Data Network Exchange 

database. Echoing other units whose expertise grew 

over time, as the tour ended, there was the ability to 

write major reports, summaries of everything undertaken and achieved, and what was then known about 

the area. Such was the knowledge gained by the last 

months of the embedded tour that the content of interviews done previously were then linked to broader 

themes which were trying to be addressed in these 

major reports; these were again emailed and added to 

the SharePoint. As well as this, networking was crucial to ensure the dispersion of the product, such that 2 

hours a day were spent walking the base, networking: 

“Although it was time consuming, it was the way you 

know it was going to get used.”156 The team member 

applied a grounded theory approach, using a by-area 

breakdown of selected sampling based on a stratification of who they believed was in the area, to try and 

identify key themes and, from that, build a better picture of the human terrain: “a quasi-anthropological approach.”157 Because of the limitations of logistics, this 

approach was “driven sampling-wise more by targets 

of opportunity rather than targets of choice in a lot of 

cases.”158 Largely obscured from existing literature are 

the differences between Iraq and Afghanistan at both 

the national and local levels. For instance, in Afghanistan, the same team member found that surveys were 

unrealistic because there was no way to get access to 

the sampling size necessary with reliable sampling to 

do a survey approach. 

There were also discrepancies in research dictated 

by the character of the unit in which the social scientist 

embedded. Products generated for conventional units 

were often of a better quality than those produced 

for SOF because of the greater resources available in 
300

the former, more downtime and greater connectivity 

with information technology. With the regular unit, 

a product could be produced every 3 weeks while 

with the SOF team, there would be blending of previously produced products into “teaching lessons” to 

give them a better understanding of the human terrain.159 The delivery with SOF was, in one account in 

Afghanistan, in the form of “fireside chats” given once 

or twice a week to afford the SOF personnel information on the regional or district issues concerning them 

and their operations. This could include a breakdown 

of mosque structure, and key players and important 

people in the population. Much of this knowledge 

was drawn from previous research conducted when 

the social scientist had previously embedded with a 

conventional unit. 

The social scientist identified one problem describing a nomadic people who were removed from the 

village structure in which they were located. The misnomer for them prevalent among the SOF was kochi; 

which described a large, pre-existing group of mostly 

ethnically Pashtun nomads. The social scientist, in interviewing them as part of extended research, realized 

that these people were not nomadic kochi, which was 

in fact used in a derogatory sense, rather they were 

recently internally displaced peoples. Writing this research up as a product generated valuable information 

on the chain of events that led to their displacement, 

including landownership issues and blood feuds.160

To be of value, the products had to be tailored to 

the client’s requirements. For the military customer, brevity of content and speed of delivery were of 

critical importance. One social scientist describes a 

detailed report which was produced prior to 

Operation MOSHTARAK. The research had entailed: 
301

trying to get the atmospherics without being there, so 

we did a lot of atmospherics on reports, and we went 

to Lashkar Gah, and we tried to interview people 

there, and we interviewed actual Afghans who had 

supposedly interacted with the players there.161

The report was considered of value from the perspective of the HTT because there were missteps in 

the planning which were highlighted in the report; 

but ultimately for the customer “in the end, it was too 

long.”162 Generating and presenting valuable products 

on sociocultural analysis absent detailed oversight 

from the command structure involved a degree of entrepreneurial ability. The HTTs were given “task and 

purpose”—these were not orders, rather it was a description of a requirement on which to focus, “and the 

military had no expectation on what we would do or 

what we were going to give them and how, so we had 

to figure that out on the fly as well.”163

The products themselves could be differentiated 

precisely into two types. The products were unclassified, but their delivery and presentation in the duration 

of Krohley’s deployment were on classified networks, 

mainly SIPRNet. The first type of product was neighborhood profiles, necessary because of the absence of 

knowledge of existing demographics (see Appendix 

M). There was a first version of these profiles which 

would be mainly for internal consumption, analysis 

of all the different neighborhoods within Tissa Nissan. 

These were not shared widely—because it was what 

the military already knew—and were checked with a 

number of people in the military and the brigade specifically in order to gain “affirmation effectively” that 

the teams “were on the right track.”164 Demonstrating 

how knowledge could increase over time, at the end 

of the deployment, Krohley: 
302

rewrote those neighbourhood profiles to become 7- to8-page narratives with maps and pictures, and they 

were meant to be a legacy document. So the brigade 

that we had supported left right around the time I left, 

I think the end of 2008.165

These legacy documents allowed the incoming brigade to gain understanding of the neighborhood in a 

brief, accessible 6- to 8-page document. 

Legacy documents were unclassified and did not 

name individuals in militias or among the general 

population. These documents, however, did identify 

government officials, analyzing some of the complexities of those persons: “Public figures are fair game for 

an unclass(ified) paper, and we weren’t making wild 

allegations, we were just talking about reality.”166

Through the tour, the social scientist conducted a 

series of briefings, both for brigade staff and for the 

brigade commanders. It was unnecessary to brief at 

the company level because this was the level at which 

they were embedded day-to-day, and therefore talked through the material informally on a daily basis. 

The second type of product was thematic, produced 

across the duration of the tour—1-, or at most 2-page 

write-ups of a particular issue which had relevance to 

the broad problems seen in the district (see Appendix 

O). In the thematic products, it was possible to identify and disentangle complex trajectories of issues not 

readily seen as relevant to the security situation. For 

example, in the familiar vein of urban planning, there 

was an investigation of the creation of eastern Baghdad, which became an assessment of city demographics. Rather than growing organically, it evolved as a 

series of planned communities, grouped around identities and organized by the state, entirely by profes-
303

sions, meaning that pronounced demographic divides 

were evident from one neighborhood to the next. This 

result of urban planning resulted in heterogeneous 

levels of violence across the neighborhoods as well as 

radically divergent social atmospheres.167

This product was the first piece of research presented at the staff level and won goodwill, affording 

understanding of why there was such variance in 

violence, discrete by neighborhood. Previous Army 

understanding of the neighborhoods in eastern Baghdad had characterized them simply as mixed. Other 

thematic products considered the Sadr family and the 

Sadrist ideology. There was a concerted effort in the 

military to look at Iraq as a tribal place; “tribalism” 

became fashionable in the wake of the Anbar Awakening and the evident successes that were witnessed 

in western Iraq, where according to the dominant narrative, the U.S. military worked through local tribal 

groups to turn the tide against al-Qaeda in Iraq, turning the locals away from the foreigners. 

If there was any paradigm in the COIN mode 

dominant in Iraq and later Afghanistan during the 

period, it was the perceived need to work with the 

tribes in order to restore stability. This tribal paradigm 

evolved because of the apparent success of U.S.-sponsored sheikhs in countering complex insurgencies. As 

Krohley notes: 

The extent to which that (the Anbar Awakening narrative) is true, I don’t know, but what came out of that 

effectively was standing orders for everyone in the 

U.S. Army to go and find the local tribal sheikh and 

work with them.168

That modeling of the environment as a tribal system 

had severe limitations, however, and broke down in 
304

several geographical sites. In Tissa Nissan, for example, there was no evident tribalism, no sheikh, which 

was symptomatic of why the U.S. forces were experiencing such problems. Civil society had unraveled; 

degraded by migration and movement and by Saddam Hussein’s government of the area in which he 

had killed or co-opted key communal leaders.169

Krohley thus pushed back against the tribal lens 

and briefed two papers which attempted to make the 

Army understand what the community looked like, 

what had happened to tribes in eastern Baghdad, and 

their broad interactions over the past 4 to 5 years and 

also the longer trajectory of the past 50 years. These 

products “were tricky to write and tricky to brief because you don’t want to go too academic, but at the 

same time these are very smart guys you are talking 

to; you cannot dumb down.”170 Presentations had to 

be tailored to the venue, and briefers usually would be 

afforded 5 minutes (pushed to 7 minutes by the team)

at the nightly shift change briefings with the brigade 

commander and senior staff sitting in the operations 

center. There would be an audience of 50 people and 

perhaps seven or eight cared about the research; senior 

operational commanders, intelligence personnel, and 

civil affairs personnel. A 1-page narrative was placed 

in the brigade server for download, and a PowerPoint 

presentation which would be a maximum of five slides 

focused on the core issues (see Appendix P). After the 

presentation, questions would be taken, and then the 

presenter, usually the team leader, departed, with a 

target of one such presentation at the night briefing 

every 2 weeks.171

War is entropic; armed conflict increases the disorder of a dynamic system. As such, the problems in 

identifying the urban plan were exacerbated by the 

post-invasion movements, where people scattered 
305

to avoid communal violence. There remained cohesive elements in Iraq which were identified, such as 

the tribal sheikhs that led the Anbar Awakening. At 

worst, however, in the cities, there were no obvious 

authority figures. Moreover, because of the culture of 

largesse propagated by profligate coalition forces in 

the “anything goes” atmosphere of that period, the 

monies led to various figures identifying themselves 

dubiously as key leaders at this time. Each area was 

sui generis, possessing its own possibilities for leader 

engagement. 

Because Krohley had rejected the tribal model as 

irrelevant to his AO, it posed a critical problem. There 

was minimal social order in any of these neighborhoods that anyone could tap into: “you had a sort of 

chaos where no one is really in charge and there isn’t 

anyone obvious to work with, and it was a major issue 

in our work, why this one district wasn’t responding 

to treatment.”172 On the one hand, it had heavy militia 

activity by virtue of demographics—it had been left 

after the violence an overwhelmingly poor Shia area, 

so it was naturally receptive to the security offered 

by the Mahdi Army. There was excellent connectivity through highways to Iran and to Baqubah in the 

north, so it was very easy to get explosively formed 

penetrators and militants in and out of the area. Unlike Sadr City which had the same connectivity, there 

were Americans to kill in Tissa Nissan. 

An upsurge in violence in March 2008 in Sadr City, 

including rockets fired on coalition forces’ positions, 

had been met with a response from U.S. forces and 

implementation of a wall building operation in the 

southern quarter of Sadr City. A ceasefire on May 11 

crystallized a May 12 agreement under which U.S. 

forces would have a presence limited to a southern 
306

quadrant of Sadr City, defined by the erected wall. As 

a result of that agreement, there were no U.S. forces 

in the northern section of Sadr City and, as a consequence, violent attacks migrated to Tissa Nissan because insurgents from Sadr City could travel to the 

area, erect an explosively formed penetrator array 

and leave. 

Because of the absence of civil society in Tissa Nissan, winning over the population in order to detract 

from the insurgency was problematic. Krohley and his 

team elucidated the chaotic political structure through 

conversations which were: 

quite mundane and quite simple, talking about community and family, you know: where do you come 

from? How did you get here? Who are your neighbours?—not who are your neighbours by name—

you know, talk to me about your neighbourhood 

effectively.173

Reporting in this environment using key interviews led the team to ascertain that the high level of 

physical insecurity meant families were taking cover 

in their houses, which reduced the level and function 

of civil society. As a corollary, there were no obvious 

community leaders to engage with for the purposes 

of COIN, or indeed conversely for the Jaysh al-Mahdi 

to rally a substantive, grass roots campaign. This was 

the essence of the effective social scientist in the HTT; 

qualitative analysis through operationally relevant reporting at the company level such that: 

a very simple series of sitting-in-the-living-room 10 

minute conversations with people, eventually built 

into a substantive insight into why certain things 

were happening. And you could piece all these things 

together over time based on a lot of data.
307

Instructively, Krohley also notes the spectrum of approaches possible, based on the security of the AO: 

It goes back to the contrasting approaches I guess, if 

you are going to be in a more stable area where there 

are lots of sources you can repeatedly meet with and 

develop, you can get a depth of information, but that 

is not achievable in areas of greater insecurity. Instead 

of having four or five really good sources, you have 

70 or 80 or 100 short-term encounters with people, 

who you weren’t going to follow-up with and whose 

names you didn’t know and who were protected by 

anonymity in their encounters with you. And that 

works; frankly, I think that works pretty well.174

Insecurity for incumbent forces on the ground affecting the ability to report effectively suggests that 

there were limitations in the field which transformed 

ethnography into reporting. 

CONCLUSIONS

Research was conducted in order to be valuable 

to the customer, but identification of the particular 

modes of investigation and subjects of study were the 

preserve of the HTTs themselves. Methodologies varied by unit, emphatically when the variation was between general purpose and SOF, by place, and by circumstance. Insecurity, or security, meant employment 

of different methods often based around the ability to 

get convoy space. The products had to be created in 

order to fit with the clarity of planning necessary to 

the customer and, indeed, in harmony with the operational tempo of the unit in the AO. 

The sociological requirements of the 2006 FM 

Counterinsurgency entrusted a unique responsibility to 

the HTTs. As the custodians of academic social science 
308

research skills and experience, they were tasked with 

identifying the sociological dimensions of the battle 

space. The particular requirements depended on the 

needs of the commander, but in general, the HTT was 

tasked with identifying cause or effect in the social domain. Krohley, for example, was tasked with finding 

the cause of the effect that had left one district, Tissa 

Nissan, extremely disordered and insecure, while the 

two other districts were relatively calm. When understanding the causes for known effects were required, 

this type of research facilitated social science expertise 

which could test research against several hypotheses. 

It was these complex causes and effects in disordered 

societies in conflict zones which necessitated the introduction of HTTs. Civil Affairs and Psychological 

Operations both were encumbered of limitations on 

their research abilities.

Beneath the remit of deciphering sociological 

cause or effect, the product had to be attenuated to 

the requirements of the operational tempo. In practice 

that meant theoretical elements of the research were 

omitted, and the conclusions were stated simply. If 

the social scientist could not communicate properly 

the research for the customer, this was the fault of the 

social scientist, not the military staff. The product also 

had to fit existing U.S. Department of the Army thinking. The Army is an adaptive enterprise, but the ability to learn current sociological expertise takes years, 

requiring integration into the training of junior officers who then progress through the ranks.

The cause and effect research explains the remit 

of the HTTs. The academic bridge to the military customer explains how the research was produced. The 

“why” and the “how” have thus been investigated, 

but it leaves us with a further problem. HTTs have 
309

delivered research which demonstrates their utility in 

COIN environments, but after Iraq and Afghanistan, 

the HTS parent organization, TRADOC, planned to 

transition the program into a long-range strategic asset in areas where the incumbent exercises complete 

or hegemonic control, and where, correspondingly, 

there are relatively low levels of insurgent-initiated 

violence. If the HTTs were successful in COIN operations, why is such a transition necessary? 

The initial concept plan for the HTS included theoretical arrangement for a spectrum of operations in 

areas where the incumbent exercises are full to negligible control of the environment. However, ongoing 

operations in Iraq and Afghanistan necessitated focus 

upon these operations characterized by high levels 

of insurgent and incumbent violence.175 According to 

TRADOC, when the HTS was developed, it was argued that the program’s greatest benefit was in the 

conduct of theater security cooperation at the strategic 

level, where attempts are made to avoid escalation and 

where teams would work with combatant commands. 

When tasked with developing an enduring concept, 

therefore, TRADOC had to consider what a strategically postured program would look like, post-Iraq 

and Afghanistan. There would be smaller numbers 

of teams due to declining resources. But questions 

also had to be answered about where those teams 

most likely achieve the greatest benefit in both staff 

planning but also the ability to deploy forward with 

Regionally Aligned Forces.176

The U.S. Army Concept for Regionally Aligned 

Forces calls for a division or a brigade or a corps in the 

Army to be aligned regionally to a specific Army service component command. An HTS pilot took place in 

2011 with support to U.S. Army elements in Africa.177
310

Army forces were available to the theater security operation plans, which constituted the team oriented to 

a strategic posture intended to influence long-range 

planning rather than brigades at the tactical level. It 

is in this strategic posture that TRADOC considered 

the HTS: 

could bring a maximum benefit of not just understanding our partners and how they operate and their 

professionalism, but also providing further understanding of the operational environment where our 

partners are operating.178

At the end of 2013, the HTS had pilots at four locations that were supporting Army commands for 

U.S. Central Command, U.S. Africa Command, U.S. 

Northern Command and U.S. Southern Command 

(South America and Central America, absent Mexico) 

at the strategic level. In that iteration of the HTS, social 

scientists serve at the command and support the planning effort for long-range theater campaign planning. 

If required, the social scientist could also deploy to the 

field to support the collection of social science-type information to inform the combatant commander’s decisionmaking. To that end, TRADOC has focused on 

recruiting social scientists with deep regional expertise, a requirement when fulfilling regional-alignment 

requirements. TRADOC concedes that continent-wide 

expertise is problematic but recruiting, for example, 

French speakers, Swahili speakers, or Arabic speakers who have spent a lifetime studying that continent 

as well as possessing social science expertise, fulfills 

the mandate of the human capital element of the 

combatant command concept plan.179
311

Environments where the incumbent exercises full 

or near complete control with correspondingly high 

levels of security for aligned forces were noted to be 

those in which HTTs would be most effective, concluded the authors of the West Point study. In this ideal 

landscape, teams “help prevent conflict while providing creative tools and ideas to the commander to help 

build governmental capacity and legitimacy.”180 The 

authors, with foresight, argued that placing a team 

at the level of the combatant command level, while 

violating the currently successful “bubble-up” methodology of HTS at the tactical level in a COIN environment, “would be more effective in this role and environment.”181 HTTs could still contribute at the lower 

levels within Army service component commands 

such as U.S. Army Africa, but they must be considered 

primarily in locations such as U.S. embassies, working 

with defense attachés and army attachés, only embedding with subsequent deploying ground elements if 

required by the brigade.182

The perceived increased effect of teams at the strategic level means that their effects in COIN operations 

were deemed to be of a lesser magnitude than the possible benefits to broader theater security. As a corollary 

of this chapter, therefore, it is necessary to go beyond 

assessment of the research remits and products. It is a 

requirement that I examine the limitations of HTTs in 

operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The generic conflict zone is both a permissive and a limiting environment for social science research. Conflict legitimates 

the presence of the social science researcher working 

as part of the U.S. Department of the Army; it also 

enables teams to gain convoy support because of the 

frequency of convoys as part of ongoing operations. 

Conflict makes a critical need to understand cause and 
312

effect in these operations, making the requirement for 

teams to fill the sociocultural knowledge gap. At the 

same time, there are inherent limitations in the ability 

of a human to research society in inherently insecure 

environments.

ENDNOTES - CHAPTER 5

1. Former HTT social scientist 1, interview, August 11, 2013.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid.

6. H. Russell Bernard, Research Methods in Anthropology: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches, 4th Ed., Lanham, MD: Alta 

Mira, 2006, p. 199.

7. Jennifer Clark, telephone interview with author, October 

9, 2013.

8. I am indebted to Michael Davies for this observation. 

9. Zok Pavlovic, interview with author, Alexandria, VA, 

August 14, 2013.

10. Ibid.

11. See also Ryan Evans, ‘‘’The Population is the Enemy’: 

Control, Behaviour, and Counter-Insurgency in Central Helmand Province, Afghanistan,” David Martin Jones, Celeste Ward 

Gventner, and M. L. R. Smith, eds., The New Counter-Insurgency 

Era in Critical Perspective, London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, 

pp. 257-259. 

12. Montgomery McFate, interview, August 2, 2013.
313

13. Ibid.

14. Ryan Evans, interview with author, Washington, DC, 

August 6, 2013.

15. Nathan Hodge, Armed Humanitarians: The Rise of the Nation 

Builders, New York: Bloomsbury, 2011, p. 243.

16. Human Terrain System, “Human Terrain System Yearly 

Report, 2007-2008,” Program Development Team, Prepared for 

U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, Washington, DC, 

August 2008.

17. Cindy R. Jebb, Laurel J. Hummel, and Tania M. Chacho, 

“HTT Trip Report: A ‘Team of Teams’,” West Point, NY: Unpublished report for TRADOC, 2008, p. 6. Copy held by author.

18. Former HTT social scientist 3, interview with author, 

Alexandria, VA, August 1, 2013.

19. Ibid.

20. Bryan N. Karabaich and Jonathan D. Pfautz, “Using Cultural Belief Sets in Intelligence Preparation for the Battlefield, 

Military Intelligence Professional Bulletin, Vol. 32, No. 2, 2006, p. 40; 

Jennifer Clark, interview.

21. Nathan Finney, The Human Terrain Team Handbook, Fort 

Leavenworth, KS: TRADOC, 2008, cited in American Anthropological Association, Final Report on the Army’s Human Terrain 

System, p. 4; Audrey Roberts, “Embedding with the Military in 

Eastern Afghanistan: The Role of Anthropologists in Peace and 

Stability Operations,” Walter E. Feichtinger, Ernst M. Felberbauer, and Erwin A. Schmidl, eds., International Crisis Management: 

Squaring the Circle, Vienna, Austria, and Geneva, Switzerland: 

National Defense Academy and Austrian Ministry of Defense 

and Sports in cooperation with Geneva Centre for Security Policy, 

2011; Headquarters Department of the Army and Headquarters 

U.S. Marine Corps, Field Manual (FM) 2-01.3, Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield, Fort Huachuca, AZ: U.S. Government, 

October 15, 2009.
314

22. Susan K. Numrich, “Human Terrain: A Tactical Issue or 

a Strategic C4I Problem?” paper presented to the Critical Issues 

in C4I Symposium, Fairfax, VA, George Mason University, May 

20-21, 2008. 

23. Montgomery McFate, Britt Damon, and Robert Holliday, 

“What do Commanders Really Want to Know? U.S. Army Human 

Terrain System Lessons Learned from Iraq and Afghanistan,” Janice H. Laurence and Michael D. Matthews, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Military Psychology, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 

2012, p. 94.

24. Ibid.

25. Ibid.

26. Ibid., p. 93.

27. Ibid.

28. Ibid.

29. Ibid.

30. Finney, p. 55.

31. McFate, interview, August 2, 2013.

32. Marcus Griffin, “An Anthropologist among the Soldiers: 

Notes from the Field,” John D. Kelly et al., eds., Anthropology 

and Global Counterinsurgency, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago 

Press, 2010, pp. 218-220.

33. Paula Holmes-Eber, Culture in Conflict: Irregular Warfare, 

Culture Policy, and the Marine Corps, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2014; Carl H. Builder, The Masks of War: American 

Military Styles in Strategy and Analysis, Baltimore, MD: Johns 

Hopkins University Press, 1989.

34. Anonymous, interview.

35. Jennifer Clark, interview.
315

36. McFate, interview, August 1, 2013; see also Holmes-Eber.

37. Former HTT social scientist 3, interview.

38. Ibid.

39. Ibid.

40. Ibid.

41. Jennifer Clark, interview.

42. Ibid.

43. Ibid.

44. Ibid. See also the more detailed personal account in Jennifer A. Clark, “Playing Spades in Al Anbar: A Female Social Scientist Among Marines and Special Forces,” in Montgomery McFate 

and Janice H. Laurence, eds., Social Science Goes to War: The Human Terrain System in Iraq and Afghanistan, London, UK: Hurst, 

pp. 141-185. 

45. Evans, interview.

46. Christopher J. Lamb et al., HTTs: An Organizational Innovation for Sociocultural Knowledge in Irregular Warfare, Washington, 

DC: Institute of World Politics Press, 2013, pp. 216-219.

47. Author’s telephone interview with Bob Reuss, Colonel Lee 

Grubbs, and Dr. Susan Canedy, September 16, 2013.

48. Jennifer Clark, interview.

49. Ibid.

50. Jennifer Clark, personal communication with author, October 17, 2014.

51. Matthew P. Dearing, James L. Jeffreys, and Justin A. 

Depue, “Entry Point: Accessing Indigenous Perspectives During 

Complex Operations,” Special Operations Journal, Vol. 1, No. 1, 

2015, p. 11.
316

52. Former HTT social scientist 4, interview with author, 

Newport, RI, August 1, 2013.

53. Ibid.

54. Ibid.

55. Ibid.

56. Ibid.

57. Ibid.

58. Dearing et al., “Entry Point,” p. 15.

59. Ibid.

60. Ibid.

61. Ibid.

62. Ibid.

63. Ibid.

64. Dearing et al., “Entry Point,” p. 16. 

65. Nicholas Krohley, telephone interview with author, July 

26, 2013.

66. Ibid.

67. Ibid.

68. Ibid.

69. Ibid.

70. Jebb, Hummel, and Chacho, p. 4.

71. Lamb et al.
317

72. Krohley, interview.

73. Ibid.

74. Ibid.

75. Ibid.

76. Ibid.

77. Ibid.

78. Krohley, interview; also noted by Howard Clark, 

telephone interview with author, January 25, 2014.

79. Krohley, interview.

80. Ibid.

81. Ibid.

82. Jennifer Clark, interview.

83. Former HTT social scientist 3, interview.

84. Krohley, interview.

85. Ibid.

86. Ibid.

87. Former HTT social scientist 3, interview; Krohley, interview.

88. Krohley, interview.

89. Jebb, Hummel, and Chacho, p. 6.

90. Jennifer Clark, interview.

91. Former HTT social scientist 4, interview.
318

92. Interview notes held with author.

93. Ibid.

94. Former HTT social scientist 3, personal communication 

with author, November 14, 2013.

95. Ibid.

96. The phrases are, respectively, from Sigmund Freud and 

Michael Inwood, Fellow of Philosophy, Oxford University. Inwood was debating the merits of the scholarly texts of the German philosopher Martin Heidegger. I am indebted to McFate 

for referencing the former, in personal communication with the

author. 

97. Former HTT social scientist 3, personal communication 

with author, November 14, 2013.

98. Ibid.

99. Ibid.

100. Ibid.

101. Former HTT social scientist 3, interview.

102. Jonathan D. Thompson, “HTT Operations in East 

Baghdad,” Military Review, Vol. 90, No. 4, 2010, p. 78.

103. Nicholas Krohley, personal communication with author, 

October 2, 2014.

104. I am indebted to Dr. Krohley for this assessment of the 

operational and strategic pictures in Baghdad during 2008. 

105. Krohley, interview.

106. Ibid.

107. Ibid.

108. Ibid.
319

109. Ibid.

110. Ibid.

111. Ibid.

112. Ibid.

113. Ibid.

114. Ibid.

115. Thomas Adams, cited in Jennifer Taw and Robert C. 

Leicht, The New World Order and Army Doctrine, Santa Monica, 

CA: RAND Corporation, 1992, p. 18.

116. Sebastian Maisel, “Social Change Amidst Terror and Discrimination: Yezedis in the New Iraq,” The Middle East Institute, 

Policy Brief, Vol. 18, 2008, executive summary.

117. Ibid.

118. Alissa J. Rubin, “Persecuted Sect in Iraq Avoids Its 

Shrine,” The New York Times, October 14, 2007.

119. Former HTT social scientist 3, interview.

120. Ibid.

121. Ibid.

122. Ibid.

123. Ibid.

124. Ibid.

125. Ibid.

126. Former HTT social scientist 1, interview, August 11, 2013.

127. Ibid.
320

128. Ibid.

129. Ibid.

130. Ibid.

131. Ibid.

132. Evans, interview.

133. Pavlovic, interview.

134. Evans, interview.

135. Ibid.

136. Vanda Felbab-Brown, Afghanistan Trip Report V: The Afghan Local Police: “It’s Local, So It Must Be Good”—Or Is It? Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, May 9 2012, available 

from www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2012/05/09-afghan-policefelbabbrown, accessed September 12, 2014.

137. Ibid.

138. Former HTT social scientist 4, interview.

139. Finney, p. 86.

140. Numrich.

141. Krohley, interview.

142. Ibid.

143. Ibid.

144. Ibid.

145. Former HTT social scientist 4, interview.

146. Ibid.
321

147. Ibid.

148. Evans, interview; Howard Clark, interview.

149. Evans, interview.

150. Ibid. For the development of the “understand function” 

in British military thought at this time, see, for example, Mark 

Phillips, “Exercise Agile Warrior and the Future Development of 

UK Land Forces,” RUSI Occasional Paper, May 2011; and, Headquarters, British Chiefs of Staff, Joint Doctrine Publication 04, Understanding, Shrivenham, UK: The Development, Concepts and 

Doctrine Centre, December 2010.

151. Evans, interview.

152. Ibid.

153. Ibid.

154. See, for example, Stephen Biddle, Jeffrey A. Friedman, 

and Jacob N. Shapiro, “Testing the Surge: Why Did Violence 

Decline in Iraq in 2007?” International Security, Vol. 37, No. 1, 

2012, pp. 7-40. 

155. Former HTT social scientist 1, interview, August 11, 2013. 

156 . Ibid.

157. Ibid.

158. Ibid.

159. Former HTT social scientist 4, interview.

160. Ibid.

161. Former HTT social scientist 2, interview with author, 

Quantico, VA, July 29, 2013.

162. Ibid.
322

163. Krohley, interview.

164. Ibid.

165. Ibid.

166. Ibid.

167. Ibid.

168. Krohley, interview.

169. Nicholas Krohley, The Death of the Mehdi Army: The Rise, 

Fall, and Revival of Iraq’s Most Powerful Militia, London, UK: Hurst, 

forthcoming.

170. Krohley, interview.

171. Ibid.

172. Ibid.

173. Former HTT social scientist 4, interview.

174. Krohley, interview.

175. Author’s telephone interview with Bob Reuss, Colonel 

Lee Grubbs, and Dr. Susan Canedy, September 16, 2013.

176. Grubbs, interview.

177. Lamb et al., p. 81.

178. Grubbs, interview.

179. Ibid.

180. Jebb, Hummel, and Chacho, p. 7.

181. Ibid.

182. Ibid.
323

CHAPTER 6

AT THE LIMITS OF KNOWLEDGE

Babaji, Central Helmand, had been under the 

control of the Taliban in the winter of 2010, but company-level counterinsurgency (COIN) operations in 

early-2011 had driven the Taliban from the region. 

The area had been an insurgent stronghold, resisting a 

significant combined Afghan and British offensive in 

the summer of 2009. When the COIN initiative proved 

successful in late-2010 despite other areas remaining insecure, the Human Terrain Team (HTT) social 

scientist Ryan Evans was tasked by the 2 Scots commander with discovering why those company-level 

COIN operations had been successful in Babaji over 

the past 6 months. It was hoped as a consequence of 

the research in and among the population that Evans 

would “hit on some lessons or a model that could be 

learned elsewhere.”1 Evans’ hypotheses to be tested 

were three-fold: first, that operational-level COIN had 

won hearts and minds; second, that COIN operations 

had killed, detained, or driven out the insurgents; and 

third, that COIN operations had changed the decisionmaking calculus of the population to side with the 

Afghan National Security Forces and the British Task 

Force. In the study, Evans conducted over 30 semistructured interviews with residents in Babaji.2

 The 

result was confirmation of the third hypothesis, that 

the “main factor determining local behavior was the 

population’s perception of who was in control of the 

area, which drove their decision-making calculi more 

than other variables.”3

Societies disordered by conflict require continued 

assessment in order to understand the character of the 
324

change over time which has been catalyzed by physical insecurity. In more secure environments where 

the incumbent exercises near full control, more permissive than Afghanistan or Iraq between 2007 and 

2014, there is the opportunity for even deeper research 

which does not just investigate cause but also anticipates effect. It is that ability to examine effect which 

will allow the Human Terrain System (HTS) to influence planning at the strategic level. Societies must be 

relatively ordered to do so. Given the Training and 

Doctrine Command’s (TRADOC) preferred application of HTTs to these pre-deployment environments 

where the program would work at the broad level 

of theater-wide security, I investigate limitations to 

those teams that worked in Iraq and Afghanistan. I 

draw on the experiences of social scientists in both 

Iraq and Afghanistan to assess the problems encountered. I examine limitations in the field and problems 

with developing institutional memory of the human 

terrain. I investigate the dynamic between qualitative 

and quantitative research in Iraq and Afghanistan, 

with reference to the spatial turn in the social sciences. 

LANGUAGE

When Montgomery McFate wrote eloquently upon 

the anthropological dimensions of the British COIN 

experience in Northern Ireland for her doctoral dissertation in 1994, she was considering a conflict in which 

antagonists and population were united by a common 

denominating language. Moreover, cultural variation between insurgent and counterinsurgent was 

minimal. Two decades later, the differences in culture 

and language which would confront United States 

and coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan were, by 
325

contrast, deeply problematic obstacles to overcome 

in conducting operationally relevant research. Interpreters that accompanied the social scientists were a 

necessity for conducting valuable research with the 

population both in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

HTTs travel with interpreters, employed independent to HTS but who are “nevertheless vital for successful interactions with the local population.”4

 Evans 

had undergone language training which made him 

proficient at the basic level, but argued that he could 

not have accomplished his qualitative research without his interpreter. The interpreter allowed him to hold 

a sophisticated conversation. As the tour progressed, 

his understanding of the languages encountered increased, but not so in his speaking, consequently, he 

relied heavily on the interpreter dedicated to the embedded team. The interpreter for that team was native to the country and had been working with British 

forces in Helmand for 4 years. While Evans observed 

that many other interpreters were translating inaccurately, or would summarize too rapidly, he believed 

that his own specialist, fluent in Dari and Pashto and 

who fit the physical Army mold as he was in his early30s, was invaluable. 

There was a pool of interpreters on every forward 

operating base, and it “is sort of a mixed bag whether 

you get a good one or a bad one—one who is just there 

for the money.”5 In interviews, it was unanimously 

observed that the quality of the interpreter helped to 

define the quality of research in terms of what information could be leveraged from the population. Interpreters could also be used to refine social scientists’ 

research methodology. After the social scientist had 

formulated a list of questions, the interpreter could 

be asked about phraseology and formulation, and the 
326

questions could then be reconfigured according to the 

feedback received. 

The importance of the interpreter was common to 

all teams. In Iraq, Jennifer Clark developed a robust 

professional relationship with one of her interpreters. This enabled the interpreter to know what Clark 

wanted from her research, the character of the research 

problems, and the methodology she was employing. 

Moreover, it allowed the interpreter to know Clark’s 

ethical stance so that research could be conducted 

appropriately. A second interpreter, female, allowed 

greater access to Iraqi people in homes because of the 

ability to talk openly without a foreign male presence, 

and this atmosphere facilitated deeper information 

gathering. 

After conducting research which spanned both 

Iraq and Afghanistan, one social scientist found that: 

it is a myth that these cultures won’t talk to a women. 

You have to have a good interpreter, but more so than 

that, they are just eager to have a voice. They don’t 

care what the venue is for that voice; they just want to 

be heard.6

Clark notes a situation that arose where the women 

in a village told her about smuggling operations; the 

information was nonkinetic in nature, because they 

learned that the reason for the smuggling was to earn 

money (approximately U.S.$10 a day) to buy clothes 

for villagers. According to Clark, this was a smuggling 

culture which was rooted in history and not peculiar 

to the post-invasion landscape.7 In lifting this information from the environment, the military gained greater 

understanding of the illicit networks and the motivations behind peoples’ contributions. 
327

Interpreters were not included in the training rotation at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, so it was a “pick and 

mix” for the HTTs when they were sent to Iraq and Afghanistan. This had both positive and negative effects. 

Positively, picking up an interpreter that has been in 

the field for months, if not years, to then leverage gives 

the HTT an expert in the dynamics of the local population.8 Negatively, it means the embedded team cannot 

train with the interpreter to build up robust team relationships before entering the area in which the combat 

brigade operates. Moreover, once embedded after the 

brigade has already deployed and because they are 

augments to units, the teams often found they were 

given the interpreters nobody else wanted.9 Often, 

the situation regarding interpreters was political in 

character; as one social scientist explains: the military 

had first choice, followed by the Department of State. 

Even when interpreters are rejected by multiple units, 

the contracting company wants to keep them hired 

and so goes to lengths to ensure they have an application, which often meant work with an HTT. Finding 

interpreters who added value to the HTT, enhancing 

research, and keeping them in the competitive environment was very much a potentially limiting factor 

in the work of the team. 

One social scientist explains the potential pitfalls. 

In Iraq, a Kurdish interpreter was taken out to assist in 

the conduct of research with the Yezidi, during which 

time he told the social scientists that in the Yezidi dialect, the word for “angel’—shaytan—is the Arabic word 

in the Qu’ran for Lucifer and which formed part of his 

prejudices against the sect. The interpreter’s body language was aggressive to the locals, and, as a result of 

his personal prejudices, the research conducted during his time with the HTT was so tainted that it was 
328

rejected.10 Effective research which could be treated as 

objective to a workable degree was based on efficient 

relationships, key among them being that of the interpreter with the research subject. In Afghanistan, there 

was a different problem for the same social scientist 

working in the south of the country: the HTT would 

enlist the assistance of young men from northern Afghanistan, Kabul, many estimated by the team member to be no older than 18 years of age. These young 

men spoke fluent Dari but only enough Pashto to pass 

a very simplistic language test. To add to the complexity, regional dialects are extremely heterogeneous, so 

that “unless you have an interpreter from that area, he 

is not going to be able to grasp what is being said. And 

I say ‘he’ because 99 percent are men, it is impossible 

to get women.”11

The problematic character of the youthful interpreter in this environment was exacerbated by challenging perceived cultural norms. The Afghan culture 

respects age, particularly, in the words of the social 

scientist considering a meeting with tribal elders: 

If you don’t have facial hair, you can’t even sit in the 

room with the guys. And so here are these super clean 

shaven young guys, they are with the Americans so 

they have adopted wearing shiny clothes and sunglasses, hair slicked back and cut short, no beard. And 

then you expect them to sit down with this tribal elder 

and be able to convey information appropriately and 

accurately? No way.12

Moreover, Afghans used many proverbs in conversation to illustrate any particular point, and the lack 

of deep language skills resident in the interpretation 

rendered the meanings lost in translation. In addition, as with all augments, in insecure environments, 
329

interpreters could be scared such that they did not do 

“enough to build rapport.”13

ZERO NINE LIMAS

Given the character of the operations conducted 

in Iraq and Afghanistan and the nature of the human 

terrain, the military necessarily began to emphasize 

language capabilities as early as 2004. There is in 

foregrounding that solution an inherent difficulty in 

terms of time and expense in building up significant 

language capability among specific military personnel, for nations and regions which may only possess 

ephemeral import. One attempt to circumvent this 

problem was the March 8, 2006, establishment of Lima 

Company, 111th Military Intelligence Brigade at Fort 

Huachuca, Arizona. This company was unique in design and character, being the single unit dedicated to 

culture and language in the Department of Defense 

(DoD).14 The company was created to recruit nonAmerican citizens into the U.S. military because of an 

advantageous cultural background and language proficiency, to then go through training and deployment. 

On June 1, 2007, the company was renamed the U.S. 

Army Translator-Aide Detachment, with the army 

designation of their function being termed Zero Nine 

Limas. The unit was short lived and was terminated in 

October 2008 when the members transitioned into the 

51st Company at Fort Irwin, California, where the U.S. 

Army houses its National Training Center.

During the period in which the unit was active, 

its members were received by HTS, often serving as 

Human Terrain Analysts, a role which demanded language skills.15 Zero Nine Limas were assigned to their 

primary unit and then attached to HTS for a year for 
330

their specific mission. The short-lived nature of the 

unit suggests that it met with as many difficulties as 

successes, and this is borne out by testimony of team 

members in the field. One key member of HTS who 

deployed to both Afghanistan and Iraq was “very impressed with them.”16 This impression was received 

because they already possessed a degree of U.S. military discipline which facilitates their integration, although there were exceptions which detracted from 

the overall view of the unit. Problematic were Zero 

Nine Limas who had no experience of the American 

system (education and social) to begin with and thus 

were starting from a disadvantaged point from which 

it was difficult to make headway. 

One research manager observed that the Zero Nine 

Lima assigned to their team “was the most intelligent, 

best qualified” he had worked with, “was absolutely 

amazing in several ways” and “just an absolutely outstanding individual, both in his professional reactions 

as well as his military behavior. Some of the others 

were okay, but experiences varied.”17 The Zero Nine 

Lima that Nicholas Krohley worked with, the only one 

during his tour, was a brilliant addition to his team; 

ethnically Sudanese, and had been raised in Egypt, 

so spoke fluent Egyptian Arabic and had done one or 

two tours with the Army previously, so was already 

inculcated into the U.S. military culture. 

Institutionalizing language capabilities as nonorganic additions is a difficult process, however. At the 

brigade and battalion level, when Zero Nine Limas 

were working for senior staff, there were a number 

of these translators “who were not all that tactically 

proficient.”18 U.S. interest in geographies, and therefore languages, is “ephemeral and episodic” (a phrase 

I have borrowed here from Dr. Kerry Fosher, Direc-
331

tor of the Translational Research Group, Center for 

Advanced Operational Culture Learning, U.S. Marine 

Corps) such that it becomes problematic to maintain 

a permanent reservoir of translators when the next 

threat to face the Department of the Army is so uncertain. Reaching proficiency in a non-native language 

takes years of work, while military crises can arise in 

weeks or months. HTTs were often as good as their 

language skills because, in short, how else does one listen to the population? Outside the scope of this book, 

but important for future policy-directed research, institutionalization of language skills is an important 

problematic for the Department of the Army. 

MOBILITY

In order to conduct research outside the bases, it 

was necessary to utilize transport mechanisms: “a 

commander isn’t willing to give up a dismount—

which is essentially places we were taking—which 

is a guy with a gun who can provide protection, because convoys are so limited.”19 For instance, in eastern Baghdad, Krohley observed that he and the Zero 

Nine Lima conducted research independent of the 

rest of the team, and, in their area of research in Tissa 

Nissan, there was no obvious structure to tap into to 

collect information; there was no obvious set of meetings, events, or government institutions which could 

be worked through to undertake research. In this 

environment: 

it was more a case of getting out on the streets and 

turning over some stones and seeing what we could 

find and have lots of shorter conversations with people in their houses and on the streets. So we had more 

of an expeditionary feel to what we were doing.20
332

The method was knocking on doors by Iraqi National Police to interview householders, with U.S. 

forces present in oversight capacity. The house clearances offered opportunities for research. These environments were calm, uncontested, part of the “mundane realities of occupation and war. It wasn’t unusual 

for an American with a rifle to be in your living room, 

as weird as that sounds.”21

These searches for illegal weapons in households—part of Nouri al-Maliki’s plan of limiting legal 

firearms possession to registered guns or those belonging to security forces—that were unfolding across 

Baghdad were ideal opportunities for research, thus 

the opportunity was present if transport could be 

negotiated. The answer for Krohley in this situation 

was to ride the logistics convoys which would resupply food and water to the various outposts between 

2-week intervals and every 10 days. Problematic was 

the speed of the convoy; it moved extremely slowly 

and would stop to unload for up to an hour at a time, 

such that it was: 

a cumbersome, inefficient way to get around. If you 

were in point A and you wanted to get to point B, 

point B wasn’t necessarily the first stop that the resupply convoy was going to make, so you could be on that 

thing all day trying to get around.22

The other solution was the route clearance convoys; mechanical transport dedicated to improvised 

explosive device (IED) identification and disposal, 

particularly focused on the significant explosively 

formed penetrator threat on the main roads. The two 

arterial routes in the district were swept for IEDs. The 

work by nature was dangerous, detecting and neutralizing the main threat to U.S. forces directly, and so 

space on the convoys was often available, such that: 
333

it was an easy solution to what could have been a big 

problem of logistics, and they were always happy 

to have someone ride along and dismount and walk 

around a lot, talking to people. It wasn’t a great collection opportunity but it wasn’t a bad one.23

When a possible device was spotted, the convoy 

stopped, and dismounts could further investigate. As 

Krohley explains: 

if you are stopped long enough, Iraqis will start popping out of their shops provided they don’t think there 

is a bomb there and you could talk to people. And that 

was, you know, a conversation of opportunity every 

now and then. But it goes to the broader point of our 

team, as taking a basic philosophy: we were there to be 

useful at all times.24

The mobility was a limiting factor to the most efficient way to conduct the HTS mission, which was 

to be out on the streets at every possible opportunity, 

because there can arise spontaneous opportunities to 

talk to members of the population. The list of people 

who can be engaged on the forward operating bases 

or even smaller combat outposts which are in theory 

embedded in the terrain is limited. All of the myriad 

land building brigade activities were appropriate 

times to get outside the forward operating base, but 

with convoy space as a limiting factor.

Anthropologist Ted Callahan, in his candid

account of research in Khost with AF1, observed the 

difficulty in getting support for research in the province. Moreover, its size meant that to get to a location, 

it may take as much as 3 hours driving. In all, with 

preparations accounted for, Callahan calculated that 
334

there could be a “ratio of 1 hour of interviews for 10 

to 12 hours of effort,” and that as a consequence, operationally relevant research was going to be an arduous task.25 Travel time in large areas had a deleterious impact on the ratio of interviews to effort. As a 

consequence, and empirically observed, social science 

in dense urban environments may produce greater 

volumes of interview data in less time, given the reduced requirement for transport time beyond the 

military bases. 

As a new HTT or new personnel transitioned into 

a brigade, their worth to the commander had not yet 

been observed which meant that mobility assets could 

not be freed up for them, generating a “Catch-22” situation. As one social scientist explains of the U.S. Marine Corps in Iraq, there was no initial convoy support 

available, therefore it was necessary in such handicapped circumstances to conduct interviews with the 

local population entering the bases, in this case, hundreds of Iraqi construction workers coming onto the 

base every day. Each worker had biometric information taken, at which point, in the queue of 5-20 people 

sitting waiting for this process, it was possible to conduct population surveys, with informed consent and 

the option not to participate. This survey, designed to 

prove value, was conducted with both Department of 

State and U.S. Marine Corps input. 

As the social scientist recalls, for a brigade constructing a post-Ba’ath party economic system, information such as traditional money movements, the 

distribution of farm equipment, and other resource allocation amounted to “bubble up” information of potential worth. Interviewing the population as opposed 

to the key leader engagements favored at that time 

through the tribal system model gave the HTT infor-
335

mation on what was happening in the actual population.26 After demonstrating baseline value to both the 

Department of State and U.S. Marine Corps entities, 

the brigade could make available space on convoys 

in order to conduct wider research among the population. From there, the U.S. Marine Corps emphasizing key leader engagements and the Department of 

State and the United States Agency for International 

Development emphasizing humanitarian work, convoy support with both necessitated incorporating key 

concerns into the research structure, to justify convoy 

support. This was, as all interviewees have suggested, 

about serving the customer. 

Proving initial worth on the base was common 

across areas of operations and across time. One social 

scientist in Afghanistan began with a project interviewing all the Afghan drivers coming onto the base. 

Whilst security procedures were in place to check the 

vehicles, some of these drivers could be interviewed 

at length. From this research, which included analysis 

of tensions between the drivers and those conducting 

the security checks, the knowledge could be leveraged 

to gain permissions and resources for off-base projects, and the social scientist argued that the Marine 

Corps was adept at this, that HTTs: 

were never side-lined, if we figured out how to do it 

we were on. And you know getting on convoys, going 

from patrol base to patrol base, a lot of times battalions, 

when they knew who we were, sort of ‘we’ll radio in 

to get you guys.’ We were never stranded anywhere.27

Any deterioration in relationships between members of the HTT and the brigade would commonly 

lead to blacklisting in the unit, and, as a consequence, 

convoy space would be more difficult to obtain. Also, 
336

the conduct of one team member reflected on the team 

as a whole, meaning that the group was compromised 

by any single underperforming individual. Ultimately, across teams, “movement was one of the biggest 

challenges.”28

TEAM FUNCTION

Team composition and function could create obvious limitations on the efficacy of research conducted, 

as noted comprehensively by Lamb et al. in their 2013 

study.29 Moreover, a team rarely embedded and left as 

a complete entity. Typical instead was the experience 

of one social scientist in Afghanistan in 2009 where 

the team was composed of a team leader, two social 

scientists, a research manager, and a Human Terrain Analyst who also worked as the linguist on the 

team. The team had recently suffered a fatality, and 

was “in a rebuilding process” when the social scientist 

arrived.30 According to the social scientist, this was a 

“funky setting,” where there were problems with personnel integrating within the team, the specific roles 

of team members within the program, and some issues about where capabilities were best utilized. Over 

time, the team was able to put different people into 

research situations for which they were suited.31 Team 

size and content fluctuated in all cases; in one example 

where a team was stood up for the first time, the team 

leader arrived in Ghazni prior to the rest of the team, 

followed by a social scientist 2 months later and two 

further team members, from where the team continued to fluctuate between three and four members.32

In addition, as noted by one academic expert familiar 

with the program, it is difficult to communicate to the 

combat unit the capabilities of the incoming team, giv-
337

en that the teams were so highly variable in terms of 

peoples’ educational and experiential backgrounds.33

The team leader was often integral to the success 

of the team because, possessing military experience, 

he was a bridge between the two cultures. Evans suggests his own team leader was “vital” because of his 

military background and his “force of will.”34 The 

Lamb et al. study found that the main strength of the 

HTT was in its ability to gel as a team.35 This could be 

the ability to gel as a whole team, or as split teams. In 

the case of a well-documented iteration of AF4, Don 

Ayala, Clint Cooper, and Paula Loyd functioned as a 

small team, distinct from the rest of that HTT.36 One 

social scientist in Afghanistan observed that, while 

nine members of their team were indicated before deployment, they numbered less upon arrival. Two Human Terrain Analysts, often labelled “interpreters,” 

were Dari speakers from the north of the country, and 

when they found out they were to be sent to Helmand, 

they felt unsafe going to a Pashto-speaking area.37 The 

social scientist recalls the other team social scientist 

as having a doctorate in anthropology, and treated 

the second social scientist as junior, which negatively 

influenced the team dynamic. 

LEADERSHIP

Lamb et al. concluded that leadership of the HTT 

was among the more vital variables that helped to 

determine the effectiveness of a team internally. Interviews as part of the research conducted in this 

book with former HTT members reinforce that view 

of the team leader being vital to the overall efficacy 

of the team. One social scientist that was embedded 

in Afghanistan noted that the team leader, a former 
338

Marine, was instrumental in leveraging resources 

when the team were embedded with the Marines. 

Because the Marine Corps was more insular than the 

Army, team leaders were often much more important 

in a Marine Corps unit than an Army unit, and the 

ability of embedded teams to be able to work across 

the spectrum of conventional ground forces was paramount to the concept, such that the team leader was 

told by the HTS management prior to embedding that 

“this means a lot, our reputation is staked on our team 

doing okay.”38

Another social scientist transitioning into Iraq 

found a team already in place for nearly a year, which 

meant that “they had already kind of built their relationships” but that to navigate the integration, the 

“team leader was very effective at building the relationships, and so that was great.”39 That team had split 

in two because of a major intrateam conflict before the 

social scientist arrived; the team leader, one social 

scientist, and one Human Terrain Analyst conducted 

research in Fallujah, while one research manager and 

a Human Terrain Analyst who had decided to break 

away went to Ramadi. This was made possible because 

the unit was transitioning from the former to the latter 

site. The team leader developed a concept for the split, 

such that the research manager and Human Terrain 

Analyst would act as a “scout team; get some research 

going so that when the team arrived, we already had a 

presence and an understanding of the area.”40

While that team leader was considered a success by 

the social scientist after the leader departed, a young 

Army captain who was originally the research manager became the team leader, and his inexperience led to 

a deterioration in team cohesion, coupled to two former Special Operations Forces (SOF) personnel joining 
339

that were simply there for the remuneration, as was a 

broader problem with HTS.41 Leadership quality was 

even more pronounced toward the end of that social 

scientist’s tour when they joined a team where the two 

social scientists had left after a dispute. The team as a 

whole had developed a robust relationship with the 

brigade command, but there were no longer social scientists to design or conduct studies. In that team, the 

social scientist who transitioned in praised the team 

leader, a former Marine and current reservist; he was 

a colonel, allowing him to approach the colonel of the 

unit on an equal footing which facilitated procuring 

resources and transport.42 Linked to team efficacy was 

another aspect of successful engagement with the unit 

in which the team were embedded, the question of acceptable aesthetics: integration was not simply a case 

of professional expertise. 

With the HTTs, integration into that military structure was assisted by “superficial things”; such as 

“appearance and attitude,” levels of fitness, and character.43 As Krohley asserts of his experiences, many 

of the team were in their late-20s, and at a physical 

level similar to the military unit “and that helped—we 

could talk the talk.”44 Howard Clark, who observed 

AF7 closely at Camp Dwyer, Garmsir district in 2011, 

noted that the HTT leader, a reservist major, was an 

enabler of the rest of the team, facilitating its research 

by procuring logistical support.45 Clark has experience of the work of HTTs and thus offers a valuable 

perspective on the products they produced. As a civilian working for U.S. Special Operations Command in 

2009 and 2010, he saw HTT products. When he later 

embedded with a U.S. Marine Corps regiment conducting research in Southern Helmand, he was working at Camp Dwyer, Garmsir district, based with AF7 

from April to September 2011. 
340

“DOTS ON FOREHEADS”

“Culture” is a broad term. In Iraq and Afghanistan, sociocultural research is an amorphous and indistinct concept which has required, and will require, 

investigation.46 Beneath its umbrella, specific research 

could focus on a spectrum of issues, from agriculture 

to medical aid, all of which influenced, or were influenced by, the cultural environment. The military is a 

kinetic instrument which is necessarily focused on defeating the enemy through the application of superior 

strength, despite the COIN tactics which emphasized 

interaction with the population. In practice, this meant 

that in Iraq and Afghanistan data which was relevant 

to kinetic operations was dominant in the concern of 

the commanders on the ground. In addition, comparative to abstract ideas of culture, kinetic-focused metrics are more easily collected, making them dominant 

planning modalities. 

Familiar with both kinetic and nonkinetic metrics, 

Richard Heimann, adjunct faculty at the University 

of Maryland, Baltimore Campus, has worked in Iraq 

and Afghanistan, most recently returning from a 

3-month deployment in Kandahar province where he 

had worked in a brigade which had an HTT. Heimann 

argues that, in Iraq and Afghanistan, the data: 

that was easy to measure was being measured. That 

was the data that was being analyzed as a consequence 

of measurement being so easy. Anything that wasn’t 

easy to measure in these operations was considered 

not important.47

This data was commonly the size, strength, and 

whereabouts of enemy personnel. As a consequence, 

societal aspects of the area of operations were elimi-
341

nated. It is hard to unhinge measurement from data 

analysis, and little thought was given to what was being measured, and conversely what was not being analyzed as a consequence of not measuring it. Abstract 

sociocultural analysis with indistinct indicators which 

did not afford uniform time series was difficult data to 

prove of value in the kinetic environment. 

In a COIN environment where measurement of 

both kinetic and nonkinetic metrics is considered necessary for successful planning. There is a lot of potential data in the environment, but it is often abstract 

and consequently difficult to analyze. Moreover, with 

qualitative analysis, there is a precarious veracity in 

the conduct of short interviews with members of the 

populace with which there has been no previous contact by the HTT, when somebody in the vicinity “has 

an M16, however many feet away from your social 

scientist they may be, who might be there ambivalently.”48 Problematic security environments were noted 

by Jennifer Clark in her research in Sinjar after promises were made to military members of units she was 

attached to, to become a valuable asset: 

The Marines would not let us go further than one boot 

away from them, so we had to maintain boot contact 

with a Marine, while interviewing. Essentially, that 

first mission, I scratched. Although I wrote a report, I 

put a heavy disclaimer on the report, that this was the 

security situation, it was extreme, and I am positive 

that the Iraqis were not being honest with us, apart 

from the Yezidi, who were open and excited to talk to 

us, they loved the Marines.49

Despite extensive interaction with members of 

the population who could give detailed accounts of 

the social terrain and cultural history of the immedi-
342

ate environment, the presence of coalition forces in 

the vicinity lent an element of doubt to all interview 

material, while the very interaction between both created a degree of subjectivity. This negatively impacted 

the fidelity of the data obtained and could be severely 

compromised in highly insecure environments. As 

Krohley explains from his research in Baghdad, a 

pertinent question is: “Can a research team that is an 

integral part of one of the main parties to a conflict 

conduct objective research on the roots and dynamics of that violence?”50 Heimann sums up the problem 

more generally: 

the goal is non-deterministic interaction with the human terrain with external validity yet at the tactical 

level HTTs interact and hence impact with the objects 

they are trying to study; the goal is honest signals and 

surveys are tenuous at best.51

In 2011, HTT AF7 attempted rigorous approaches 

to their surveys, including random sampling and 

methodologies which highlighted uncertainties in 

the data. The team members wore side-arms and 

noted that: 

firstly, the population are going to be very intimidated, 

secondly, they are sometimes going to tell you what 

they want you to hear, thirdly, if somebody wants 

something out of it, they realise ‘hey, the way I answer 

this question, I may get a project or money.’52

This prejudiced the content of the report and Howard Clark, familiar with the products, suggested there 

was great value in having stated this up front. However, this uncertainty, while it was rigorous social science conducted in highly insecure environments, was 
343

very difficult to factor into a high operational tempo 

in which clarity of judgement would facilitate planning. Condensing rigorous social science research into 

the battle rhythm is a deep skill. Clark notes that AF7 

was able to condense large volumes of data into a 2- to 

4-page paper in a manner that the rest of the Marines 

could use and actually had time to read.53 This compromise between detail and clarity lies at the heart of 

the frictional interplay between social sciences and 

military planning in COIN operations. 

OPERATIONAL TEMPO

Operational tempo in Iraq and Afghanistan varied proportionally with the level of insecurity and remained arduous even at brigade headquarters. In Iraq, 

Jennifer Clark suggested it “was easily an 18-hour 

work day sometimes less, but, mostly for me, I worked 

18-hours a day, 7 days a week, and you were constantly moving.”54 In headquarters, operational tempo was 

less—12-hour days—but with added leeway in activities, for instance, down time could involve a movie or 

a Burger King meal, a work out, or retail purchases, 

but a 12-hour day was the minimum.55 Even on base, 

the operational tempo was frenetic. If not attending 

working groups, HTT members would create research 

groups based on the commander’s critical information 

requirements which were produced and disseminated 

daily.56 These were reports that were coming back 

from the field with high frequency because those involved had to complete operation reports after they 

came back from the missions, but which, according 

to Jennifer Clark, were “redundant’ as sociocultural 

analysis because they lacked methodology or depth.57

Indeed, as Howard Clark, who worked with HTT 
344

assets in Afghanistan has noted, the research generated by HTTs was of value for one reason—because the 

methodology was foregrounded, allowing the readers 

to assess value from the outset.58

But robust methodology, creating a research plan, 

and obtaining a feasible transport arrangement meant 

that actual ethnographic work was not a continual 

process. One social scientist in Afghanistan went off 

base for 2 weeks, before returning to write the report 

for 2 weeks, which generated substantial products 

but of a frequency of one every month and noted that 

other factors, such as rest and recuperation rotations 

similarly “affected the battle rhythm too, whether or 

not you were back or not, when you were going to do 

your next research project.”59

As the end of the deployment neared in early-2010, 

the social scientist observed that the monthly duration 

outside of the base increased. In part, this was because 

the value of the team had been proved, and the knowledge of the social scientists was reaching its deployed 

peak. In part, this was dictated by the operations: the 

Afghan and International Security Assistance Force 

offensive Operation MOSHTARAK to recapture the 

strategically important town of Marjah in Helmand 

from the Taliban was beginning, which increased the 

number of convoys outside of the base and increased 

the possible value of all information in the formation 

of strategy and tactics. As the social scientist explains 

of the operation: “it was one of the biggest operations 

that the Marines did while they were in Helmand and 

so we were out thinking we may help get the ground 

level information before they even went into Marjah” 

but ultimately, the HTT spent a protracted period 

“waiting for them to finish the kinetic stuff” and then 

the battalion they assumed would ask for the team 
345

did not call for them, so their presence in the other 

battalion was largely superficial.60 In total, during the 

9-month deployment, there were five research periods 

outside of the base, which generated 20-page reports, 

but these reports were a compromise between clarity 

and detail, as the social scientist makes clear:

we always tried to make it so it was readable from a 

battalion commander’s point of view, which meant 

that it was difficult though, that kind of research was 

difficult to sum up. So you could have given a lot 

more detail that would have made it stronger but you 

couldn’t because you wanted to make it readable.61

As the operational tempo increases, the requirement for a deep understanding of the social dimensions of the environment to develop precise planning 

increases proportionally, but the research capability 

of the HTT asset is increasingly complicated by the 

expanding degree of insecurity for incumbent forces 

on the ground. 

AREA OF OPERATIONS

As noted in a variety of existing literature, there 

is a geographic limitation to the work of HTTs in that 

a small group cannot cover the entirety of an area of 

operation. Lamb et al. build on interviews with brigade commanders to conclude that for the HTTs in 

their periods of deployment: “There is simply too 

much human terrain in a brigade area of responsibility for HTTs to build a comprehensive and current 

picture.”62 Indeed, even the most able teams could not 

cover the human terrain in the area of operations “sufficiently well to make a major difference for a brigade 

commander.”63
346

The efficiency gained when splitting a team to 

cover more ground was confirmed by the first AF1 

team from the Foreign Military Studies Office during 

Operation MAIWAND in Ghazni province in May 

and June 2007 which was led by the Afghan National 

Army with Task Force Fury, part of the International 

Security Assistance Force, in support. The Task Force 

Fury commander had tasked AF1 with gaining a sociocultural snapshot of the environment to assist maneuver elements and the Provincial Reconstruction 

Team (PRT). To cover as much of the area as possible, 

AF1 split, with three members of the team assisting 

the PRT, while two members worked with Civil Affairs, A Company, 2/508th. During Operation MAIWAND, AF1 tested Rapid Ethnographic Assessment 

Procedure as a technique. The value of that procedure 

was in the central role of semi-structured interviews, 

no formal sampling of participants, and the involvement of a multidisciplinary team allowing different 

elements of the research to unfold simultaneously, allowing access to more of the population than a single 

researcher could gain alone.64

The Human Terrain Rapid Ethnographic Assessment Procedure was based on this standard applied 

anthropological methodology and was valuable because it was developed where there was a limited 

time to conduct research but still allowing a rapid assessment of the sociocultural environment. The AF1 

team modified the procedure to the demands of the 

combat environment and structured the interviews 

based on Afghan regional-specific taxonomy. During 

Operation MAIWAND, the part of the HTT with the 

PRT participated in 16 missions, and the team with 

Civil Affairs deployed to the area of operations for 16 

days and conducted eight missions. These missions 
347

included village assessments, participation in organized councils (Shuras) and random encounter unstructured interviews with the population. 

The rigorous social science research conducted by 

AF1 during Operation MAIWAND allowed the HTT 

to reach its full potential. However, more generally, 

there is an inherent inability to access large volumes 

of the area of operation which impacted the ability of 

HTTs to support certain programs. In Afghanistan, 

this was a tangible limitation of the program; for example, the Village Stability Operations were in remote 

regions where only local law enforcement and national jurisdiction were weakened by physical distance. 

For remote areas where HTTs had not travelled, their 

only products were often summaries of existing literature, focusing broadly on clans and the largest urban 

centers.65

Exacerbating this problem is one of connectivity. 

In the physical structure of the brigade staff, the S-6 

component is tasked with developing and maintaining 

communications infrastructure and data flows. Given 

that the broad character of research is interviews with 

additional secondary source research conducted using 

the Internet, HTTs with access to the physically positioned brigade structure can produce these qualitative 

reports with important secondary research which provides valuable context. However, in remote rural regions deployed with, for example, SOFs in support of 

Village Stability Operations, without access to S-6 resources located on bases, the information highway is 

absent, and the reports must be produced without the 

secondary source context. This is a further reason why 

HTS is so suitable for long-range research in relatively 

secure environments; absent high operational tempo, 

interviews can be conducted in remote rural locations, 
348

and then the secondary source research can be conducted upon returning to command centers, written 

up and integrated into long-range planning strategies 

aimed at conflict mitigation. 

ONE YEAR AT A TIME

Across the duration of deployment, the knowledge 

of an individual, a team, or a unit inevitably increased 

over time. Part of the problem as social scientist Jennifer Clark explained was in the retention of information in unit transition and exacerbated by absence of 

synchronicity between service arms and the HTTs 

themselves; Marine Corps personnel deploy for 7 

months; HTT members for approximately 9 months; 

and Army personnel for 12 months. As noted, for the 

HTS, at least this was intentional, that team rotations 

are scheduled not to coincide with the: 

relief in place so that team members on the ground can 

help new units understand the human terrain in their 

areas. The team maintains the human terrain databases on separate systems so that information collected 

year after year is not lost as units transfer and depart.66

The result, however, was myriad transfers of authority between units taking place across multiple areas of operation at different times with no structured 

matrix for the retention and dissemination of information, making the development of homogeneous institutional memory across the entire theater a complex 

and daunting task. The subsequent absence of social 

knowledge in the early stages of a rotation could lead 

to significant missteps. As Fondacaro noted, from the 

view of a transfer of authority, the loss of engagement 

with the population was significant: “All the relation-
349

ships and agreements and tacit understandings you 

had with those individuals are out of the window.”67

Ultimately, the poor state of the war was “being fed 

by the unit rotation policy” because “the higher headquarters were rotating on the same schedule. We 

weren’t learning anything.”68

The results at the tactical level can be explored 

through teams’ insights of their experiences. An HTT 

member with the 82nd Airborne Division in Iraq demurred on an offer to breakfast during Ramadan with 

local key Iraqi government officials, which retrospectively was seen to possibly have harmed relationships 

with the population. As the team member recalls, it 

“was little things like that which I was supposed to 

know but I didn’t simply because I didn’t have the 

personal experience dealing with that culture and you 

cannot learn everything.”69 Put simply, “it was just 

very basic human reactions that really require that 

personal experience in the area to understand.”70 If 

knowledge retention had been improved, greater engagement with the population would have been possible from the outset as team members would have 

been better prepared.

Differing team composition, functional character, 

and role within a brigade inevitably created heterogeneity of product, both in terms of content and frequency. However, there was a broad template of inquiry 

which teams followed, shaped by the character of the 

reporting environment. Initial research conducted by 

a team would be characterized by rapid mission reporting and “quick turnaround of products’ because 

the information base that the team could work from 

in the beginning of the deployment was inevitably 

limited.”71 In these situations, the value-added was often engineered by contacts rather than research skills; 

occasionally this was from personal relationships with 
350

team members who had already embedded in a particular region. Personal relationships, as much with 

the brigade as with the host community, were critical 

in that initial period to forging a niche value in the 

military enterprise. 

The goal was to generate a baseline level of knowledge which would allow the construction of deep research plans to be conducted. As such, each product 

can be modeled as a dissertation; first, constructing 

a broad literature review to grasp the field and identify gaps in the existing knowledge structure; second, 

generating a research question and methodology; 

third, conducting research based around the plan; 

and finally, completing the dissertation which shows 

a significant contribution to knowledge thereby demonstrating value to the brigade. Only at the end of the 

deployment were the dissertations of a depth of understanding that lent themselves to deep research: 

The first part was building a rapport, developing a 

basic understanding of key personalities, and that is 

where you see that stuff. It was towards the end where 

you can build into those long-term products that synchronize everything together.72

Such was the evolution of knowledge within the 

team over the course of even a single deployment that 

the character of the products could change profoundly. One social scientist noted that from initial iterations 

of products which were largely generic, eventually his 

expertise allowed focus on thematic products, such as 

the problem of corruption across the area of operations 

and the effect of the counternarcotics programs on the 

population in the area of operations. This thematic 

research across a broad geography was only possible 

through a combination of specific research and data 
351

that the team had collected throughout the duration of 

the period conducting research. In the final iterations 

of research, it was a sizeable advantage to be able to 

draw on organized data that had been collated. It was 

only possible to conduct thematic reports “later in the 

tour”; battalion-level generic reports may have stayed 

at the same level of analysis as the tour progresses, 

but generally “it got better just in terms of every time 

you do it, you become a little more familiar with local dynamics.”73 Social scientists gathering data in the 

fluid environment of stabilization operations where 

information was quickly out of date meant that according to one HTT member who deployed in both 

Iraq and Afghanistan, “we were so far in the weeds 

dealing with very specific issues the information that 

we wanted simply didn’t exist in writing, there was 

nothing that they [the RRC] could use to support us.”74

THE “LOCAL OPTIC”

Increasing depth of knowledge with prolonged 

research in the area of operations is inevitable. Therefore, expertise is a function of time. Knowledge and 

understanding are proportional to time spent in the 

environment. Value to the brigade similarly increases 

over time. But, given that conflict zones are, by their 

nature, harsh and austere environments, deployments 

are necessarily of limited duration. For that reason, 

in total an HTT member is deployed for an initial 

9-month rotation, with an additional 9 months optional after the first rotation is completed.75

As expertise is proportional to the time spent in the 

operating environment and the rotation is of limited 

duration, as one social scientist embedded with the 

Marine Corps in Afghanistan explained, the result is 
352

that: “’I finally get it’ and you’re on the plane out of 

here.”76 Ultimately: 

it contributes to this whole, ’10-year war fought 1 year 

at a time’ thing. Part of that is that nobody gets there 

understanding what it is the hell they are getting into, 

so you always have your 2 months of ‘What is this? 

What is going on?’77

That social scientist calculated the discrepancy 

between the operationally relevant reporting of the 

Human Terrain Team and academic work: 

‘Anthropology takes 2 years in the field usually or at 

least 1 year in the field, it takes that long to figure out 

what is going on, you cannot just leave in 6 months.78

But in areas of high insecurity, there is a paradox 

that, with greater time spent in the area, the risks increase. Howard Clark agrees that the ability to look 

through the “local optic” cannot be achieved in the 

9-month rotation but takes years. However, Clark also 

notes in the the Garmsir district where he observed 

AF7 between April and September 2011 that it was 

one of the most dangerous places on earth, and there 

was the risk of significant psychological trauma to individuals should they remain beyond the 9-months rotation.79 The HTS capability arose from that observed 

need to develop institutional memory. Fondacaro had 

worked on the CPE tool and found that capability gap, 

the need for humans in possession of social science 

products plugged directly into the brigade staff that 

had been in place between rotations, because:

In reality, for a brigade commander, they’d spend the 

first three months just finding out where they were, 

then they’d spend nine months actually doing operations and the last few months of that trying to get out 
353

of there and get accountability for their equipment and 

without getting anybody else killed or hurt. When you 

are doing this for a year at a time, the non-thinking 

status quo becomes the norm and you don’t develop 

a corporate memory to hand off to the new guy; a rich 

corporate memory.80

But the possibility of trauma limits the wide ranging applicability of the program in a conflict zone. 

This observation allows two important conclusions. 

First, it shows the suitability of the HTS to long-range 

planning. The ability to look through the “local optic” takes years, while conflict zones are inherently 

dangerous and allow only rotations of up to 1 year. 

In long-range research, social scientists can conduct 

research for 12-24 months without the risk of psychological trauma. Second, it shows that small size teams 

such as SOF working on Village Stability Operations 

are better modalities for research than large footprint 

units such as brigades. The small units allow researchers that access to the “local optic,” permanently embedded with local forces and in and among the population. That physical intimacy increases exponentially 

the exposure to the society which the researchers are 

attempting to understand. 

The assessment of the social scientist tallies with 

the broad academic definition of ethnography. Dr. H. 

Russell Bernard suggests that ethnography of other 

cultures takes a year or more, and, while focused ethnography study as part of the sub-discipline of applied 

anthropology can be done more quickly, it would still 

require 3 months of study and conflicted area research 

is too broadly focused on the general population to be 

defined as such.81 Bernard gives the example of a New 

York hostel, which during a 3-month period must be 

visited a minimum of four times a week for 3 hours a 
354

day or more each time.82 However, insecure environments mean that there can be no guarantee that the 

location will be safe enough to visit, that each visit will 

allow more than 3 hours of constant interaction and 

that, finally, the logistics in terms of convoy support 

will facilitate travel. In Afghanistan, for example, personal relationships are a key modality of transactions, 

and it is these relationships that take years to build. 

In Bernard’s reading, good ethnography requires 

“trustworthy informants who are observant, reflective, and articulate—who know how to tell good stories” and that ethnographers must stay with the informants for a protracted period; in a conflicted area, 

insecurity makes trust and developing prolonged relationships a difficult endeavor.83 Indeed, Paula Loyd 

in Afghanistan “harbored doubts about the validity 

of the data she and her teammates were gathering. 

Interviewing Afghans through an interpreter, surrounded by armed soldiers, was far from ideal, and 

she knew it.”84 If it is not ethnography in stabilization 

and enabling operations, then what is the research 

that social scientists undertook? This is operationally 

relevant reporting, and these were rapid assessments 

but often ad hoc; after deep research methods were 

formulated, given the insecurity on the ground there 

was no way of knowing how the relationship with the 

as yet undetermined population on the ground would 

proceed. Jennifer Clark identifies the character of her 

work clearly: 

Not only was I not acting like an anthropologist but it 

wasn’t research: it was operationally driven reporting. 

But the distinct difference is that whilst it is operationally driven, we were not directed by anyone to collect 

a certain thing. There was no one but me telling me 

what to collect.85
355

Developing ethnographic knowledge based on at 

least a year in the field and forming longitudinal relationships with the population contrasts with the operational tempo of military operations which requires 

frequent research products in order to influence operations. An HTT social scientist relates having spent a 

month in Marjah at a critical period leading to Operation MOSHTARAK. Interviews had allowed the social 

scientist to gain a greater understanding of the ethnic 

groups, drugs economy, and key leaders in Lashkar 

Gah, as well as to produce a map of the area to capture sociocultural research. When the social scientist 

returned to the Marine Corps regiment, it was anticipated that this information would be of interest at 

some levels within the staff. However, it became clear 

that this “information was too granular, it wasn’t even 

a concern for them [the regiment]; they were ten steps 

ahead, five projects away from what I had seen and 

from what the information was going to help them 

decide.”86

This observation from a social scientist in Afghanistan brings us full circle, tying neatly to Krohley’s observation that, at the operational and strategic levels, 

there was an inability to influence those levels of planning because these big decisions had already been 

made. HTTs were a tactical asset, connected to the 

operations and strategy of the Brigade Combat Team 

staff or Regimental Combat Team staff. To implement a strategy takes time; to plan the operations of 

a brigade takes time, resources, and planning. These 

big cogs in the military machine are maneuvered into 

place slowly, and with difficulty. The HTT’s granular 

research is unlikely to recalibrate that movement. 

In addition, research which plugged the sociocultural capability gap took time to collate, process, 
356

and disseminate. By the time the work was produced, 

it spoke of a snapshot of the area that had already 

changed. The social scientist recounting his or her 

experiences in Marjah paints the picture bluntly: 

They [the brigade staff] had already made the decision 

so it wasn’t like my information that the farmers are 

going to react badly to that mattered at all, because it 

was like ‘sorry it’s already done, we’ll just figure it out 

as we go’.87

Away from the high operational tempos in Iraq and 

Afghanistan, in environment where strategy is longrange and the necessity for operational planning is 

limited by relative security, granular research plugged 

into the combatant command level has a greater likelihood of positively affecting strategic direction.

CONCLUSIONS

A conflict does not stand still, an insurgency 

changes over time. In consequence, the operational 

picture can change quickly. Richard Heimann details 

the daily routine in Kandahar during his tour: 

They [the operational staff] had Sit Reps [Situation 

Reports] in the morning and in the evening and the 

commander’s brief after those such that ultimately the 

command structure only ‘really care about the last 24 

hours.’88

The frequency of data required by the commander means that the ability of the HTT to influence the 

operational tempo is complicated by the operational 

tempo. Compared to the quantitative work which 

would analyze a data set every 24-48 hours and move 
357

on, the HTT projects were ostensibly long-term and 

qualitative—“blink type of assessments”—incorporating large amounts of information (and hence multiple variables) and “trying to reconcile it over time.”89

As such, it was difficult for the HTT to influence the 

“battle rhythm.”

When HTS commenced its structural redesign, one 

of the central aspects was to leverage the research planning and design tools that HTS had standardized in 

its development and planning team working groups. 

These were highly structured tools for reporting either 

a long-term research process or a short-term research 

effort of approximately 2 weeks in duration. The tools 

were specifically designed to enable social science 

research as part of a bureaucracy to enable tracking, 

ethical oversight, and other facets of the research. The 

aim here was “to understand this is different from 

writing your dissertation, this is about simple, quick, 

structured communication of what it is that you are 

doing.”90 The aim was to jettison academic theory in 

order to parse the value of the research for the military 

customer: 

We didn’t actually use social network analysis for it. 

What we used was just a general survey methodology, 

one you would see in political science or something 

like that. Most of the information we reported was just 

basic descriptive statistics, you know we could have 

taken it to another level theoretically, but for what we 

were trying to achieve it was good enough.91

Social science research had to be adapted to the 

battle rhythm: “if it takes 3 months to conduct a study 

and the deadline is 2 weeks, that automatically makes 

the person conducting the study irrelevant in the eyes 

of the commander and in helping the mission.”92 The 
358

result, as Ben Connable suggests, is that the extent to 

which these cultural initiatives had permanence or integral relevance to the day-to-day operations planning 

was questionable: “It’s not bad, it’s not irrelevant, it’s 

not non-existent, but it’s just questionable.”93

That makes the research goals of primary importance; if HTT research products serve the commander, 

then they are tailored to the operational tempo of the 

mission and must necessarily be rapid reporting. As 

Heimann explains of the operating environment, “the 

battle rhythm was important; we were hinged to the 

operational pace of things. Human Terrain Teams; I 

saw maybe three briefs during the commander briefings, so maybe at a pace of one a month.”94 This problem experienced by HTTs in the field in Iraq and Afghanistan was captured in the unresolved tension of 

modeling insurgencies in the 2006 Counterinsurgency

field manual: “It is important not to oversimplify an 

insurgency. However, analysts and commanders still 

require a means of defining and describing the enemy 

that can be commonly understood.”95

The changing character of the human terrain is 

also stated explicitly in U.S. Army doctrine: “Societies are not static, but change over time.”96 Capturing 

this change with deep qualitative analysis is complicated by the military that “as a customer of social science knowledge, wants to apply whatever they learn 

to solve problems in a timely, practical manner.”97

The customer ideally learns at the pace of the most 

valuable asset a command has—its data. As the data 

evolves, monitoring must capture that evolution in 

real time. Qualitative research, however, necessarily 

takes time to develop a plan, conduct the research, 

write-up the findings, and brief. By that time, what is 

the state of the original snapshot of the human terrain 

that was researched? 
359

To model the changing human terrain over time, 

Heimann uses IBM data scientist Jeff Jonas’ analogy 

of a busy road in a commercial for the company. Jonas 

argues that, if “all you can do is take a snapshot of how 

the road looked 5 minutes ago, how would you know 

when to cross the road?”98 Out-of-date information 

can lead to catastrophic decisionmaking. Movement 

makes basing operations on previous static snapshots 

of the environment a hazardous approach. 

The military fashion is for “fast trajectories,” a 

series of similar data sets at short intervals that can 

give a good indication of trends.99 As such, there is 

a preference in the U.S. military writ large for quantitative over qualitative analysis. While social science 

expertise is certain to continue to assume a role in the 

spectrum of warfighting operations, the question becomes what form of social science will be favored by 

the military. As one social scientist explains: 

anything with numbers on it is seen by Americans as 

sacred, so there was a lot of polling done by the SSRA 

[Social Science Research and Analysis], and we saw 

how invalid these results were when we came to know 

Helmand.100

One social scientist provides an example of an Afghan who is illiterate and received no formal education being polled as to the legitimacy and security of 

the national government. “Legitimacy” and “security” 

are not innate concepts, but abstract concepts learned 

through childhood education, and with increasing sophistication as that education continues; therefore understanding is contingent upon being educated. Asking that Afghan about security, to which they reply 

“great” reflects as “good” in the poll. But if you talk 

to the Afghan for 30-40 minutes, talking to him for as 
360

long as you can, you find that the Taliban physically 

abused him last week or has stolen his phone; that for 

him is security because he is not being killed, and from 

an International Security Assistance Force perspective that is not security, and for what the poll is trying to measure, that is also not security.101 The result 

is polling data which has emerged from Afghanistan 

which, lacking qualitative assessment, can be highly 

misleading. 

From this perspective, mixed methods would win 

out over a purely quantitative understanding of the 

tactical and operational pictures.102 In that social scientist’s view, it is dangerous to draw a Link Chart, 

and say “we are mapping their telephone calls.” You 

also have to understand the social relationships and 

personal histories of the people involved, in order to 

bring valuable context. This means that you have to 

“sit down and have lengthy conversations with people and get to know them; you have to dig deep and 

quantitative methods don’t allow for that sort of digging.”103 Thus, while the promise of big data is shifting 

the military emphasis toward quantitative analysis, in 

the words of data scientist Heimann, “quantitative is 

going to take the charge with a lot of the data analysis. It is not really a criticism of qualitative analysis. I 

think when done well, both have utility.”104

When done well and with a responsive staff command, HTT research augmented the picture of the 

battle space. To satisfy the military consumer, the 

social scientist must capture granular detail quickly 

and enter the battle rhythm to brief the commander 

on its significance. So too, the research itself requires 

significant expertise to resolve within its myriad complexities. As Seymour Deitchman noted of the complexities of social science work undertaken during the 
361

Cold War, “The fact of the study, its subject, and the 

presence of the researchers all affect the social system 

being studied, in ways that are uncertain and difficult 

to assess.”105 As such, HTTs will always fight against 

the military preference for kinetic modalities in operations—DoD exists primarily because of a need to 

apply force—but it is a fight that is crucial to a more 

granular understanding of combat, a more nuanced 

comprehension of the links between societies and war. 

ENDNOTES - CHAPTER 6

1. Ryan Evans, personal communication with author, October 

18, 2014. See also Ryan Evans, ‘‘’The Population is the Enemy’: 

Control, Behaviour, and Counter-Insurgency in Central Helmand Province, Afghanistan,” David Martin Jones, Celeste Ward 

Gventner, and M. L. R. Smith, eds., The New Counter-Insurgency 

Era in Critical Perspective, London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.

2. Evans, “’The Population is the Enemy’,” p. 258.

3. Ibid., p. 259.

4. Yvette Clinton et al., Congressionally Directed Assessment 

of the Human Terrain System, Arlington, VA: Center for Naval 

Analyses, 2010, p. 19.

5. Michael Davies, interview with author, Washington, DC, 

August 10, 2013.

6. Former HTT social scientist 3, interview with author, 

Alexandria, VA, August 1, 2013.

7. Jennifer Clark, telephone interview with author, October 

9, 2013.

8. Former HTT social scientist 3, interview.

9. Ibid.
362

10. Ibid.; Jennifer Clark, interview.

11. Former HTT social scientist 3, interview.

12. Ibid.

13. Ibid.

14. Bill Hess, “Unit of linguists says goodbye to fort,” The 

Sierra Vista Herald, October 18, 2008. 

15. Former HTT social scientist 1, interview, August 11, 2013.

16. Ibid.

17. Ibid.

18. Nicholas Krohley, telephone interview with author, July 

26, 2013.

19. Former HTT social scientist 3, interview.

20. Krohley, interview.

21. Ibid.

22. Ibid.

23. Ibid.

24. Ibid.

25. Ted Callahan, “An Anthropologist at War in Afghanistan,” in Montgomery McFate and Janice H. Laurence, eds., Social 

Science Goes to War: The Human Terrain System in Iraq and Afghanistan, London, UK: Hurst, p. 116. 

26. Former HTT social scientist 3, interview.

27. Former HTT social scientist 2, interview with author, 

Quantico, VA, July 29, 2013.

28. Krohley, interview.
363

29. Christopher J. Lamb et al., Human Terrain Teams: An Organizational Innovation for Sociocultural Knowledge in Irregular Warfare, Washington, DC: Institute of World Politics Press, 2013.

30. Former HTT social scientist 4, interview with author, 

Newport, RI, August 1, 2013.

31. Ibid.

32. Former HTT social scientist 1, interview.

33. Anonymous, interview.

34. Ryan Evans, interview with author, Washington, DC, 

August 6, 2013; Clinton et al., pp. 175-176.

35. Lamb et al.

36. Davies, interview.

37. Former HTT social scientist 2, interview.

38. Ibid.

39. Former HTT social scientist 3, interview.

40. Ibid.

41. Ibid.

42. Ibid.

43. Krohley, interview.

44. Ibid.

45. Howard Clark, telephone interview with author, January 

25, 2014.

46. Paul Joseph, “Soft” Counterinsurgency: Human Terrain 

Teams and US Military Strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan, New 

York: Palgrave Pivot, 2014; Montgomery McFate and Janice H. 
364

Laurence, eds., Social Science Goes to War: The Human Terrain System in Iraq and Afghanistan, New York: Oxford University Press, 

forthcoming.

47. Richard Heimann, interview, August 11, 2013. 

48. Ibid.

49. Jennifer Clark, interview.

50. Nicholas Krohley, The Death of the Mehdi Army: The Rise, 

Fall, and Revival of Iraq’s Most Powerful Militia, London, UK: Hurst, 

2015, p. 191.

51. Heimann, interview, August 11, 2013.

52. Howard Clark, interview.

53. Ibid.

54. Jennifer Clark, interview.

55. Ibid.

56. Ibid.

57. Ibid.

58. Howard Clark, interview.

59. Former HTT social scientist 2, interview.

60. Ibid.

61. Ibid.

62. Lamb et al., p. 185.

63. Ibid.

64. Frank Fischer and Gerald J Miller, eds., Handbook of Public 

Policy Analysis; Theory, Politics, and Methods, Boca Raton, FL: CRC 

Press, 2007, p. 449.
365

65. Howard Clark, interview. 

66. Jonathan D. Thompson, “Human Terrain Team Operations in East Baghdad,” Military Review, Vol. 90, No. 4, 2010, p. 81.

67. Steve Fondacaro, telephone interview with author, 

September 15, 2015. 

68. Ibid. 

69. Former HTT social scientist 1, interview.

70. Ibid.

71. Ibid.

72. Ibid.

73. Evans, interview. 

74. Former HTT social scientist 1, interview.

75. Ibid.

76. Former HTT social scientist 2, interview.

77. Ibid.

78. Howard Clark, interview.

79. Ibid. 

80. Fondacaro, telephone interview with author, September 

15, 2015. 

81. H. Russell Bernard, Research Methods in Anthropology: 

Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches, 4th Ed., Lanham, MD: Alta 

Mira, 2006, p. 72.

82. Ibid.

83. Ibid.
366

84. Vanessa Gezari, The Tender Soldier: A True Story of War and 

Sacrifice, New York: Simon and Schuster, 2013, p. 89; Jennifer Greanias, “Assessing the Effectiveness of the US Military’s Human 

Terrain System,” unpublished master’s thesis, Washington, DC: 

Georgetown University, 2010, p. 11.

85. Jennifer Clark, interview.

86. Former HTT social scientist 2, interview.

87. Ibid.

88. Heimann, interview.

89. Ibid.

90. Former HTT social scientist 1, interview.

91. Ibid.

92. Zok Pavlovic, interview with author, Alexandria, VA, 

August 14, 2013.

93. Ben Connable, interview with author, Arlington, VA, July 

15, 2013.

94. Heimann, interview.

95. Headquarters, Department of the Army, and Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, Field Manual (FM) 3-24/Marine 

Corps Warfighting Publication (MCWP) 3-33.5, Counterinsurgency, 

Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, December 

2006, pp. 3-33.

96. Ibid., pp. 3-4.

97. Montgomery McFate, Britt Damon, and Robert Holliday, 

“What do Commanders Really Want to Know? U.S. Army Human 

Terrain System Lessons Learned from Iraq and Afghanistan,” Janice H. Laurence and Michael D. Matthews, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Military Psychology, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 

2012, p. 102.
367

98. IBM Commerical, The Road, undated, September 9, 2014, 

available from www.bing.com/videos/search?q=jeff+jonas+the+road+

commercial&view=detail&mid=9FFA07C708193BDF95A99FFA07C7

08193BDF95A9&FORM=VIRE4.

99. Ibid.

100. Evans, interview.

101. Ibid. 

102.Connable, interview; Evans, interview; Heimann, 

interview

103. Evans, interview.

104. Heimann, interview. 

105. Seymour J. Deitchman, The Best-Laid Schemes: A Tale of 

Social Research and Bureaucracy, Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts 

Institute of Technology Press, 1976, p. 348.

369

CONCLUSIONS

At the height of summer in Baghdad, the temperature can reach upwards of 110 degrees Fahrenheit. In 

this environment devoid of rain, waterproof “Rite in 

the Rain” notepads were essential to Human Terrain 

Teams (HTTs). These notepads, A5-size flipcharts, 

were required to be waterproof in Baghdad because 

the intensity of the heat meant that sweat soaked 

through the cumbersome military fatigues of personnel. Items carried in pockets, including important research aids such as notepads and incidentals such as 

cigarettes, would inevitably become saturated in perspiration. The consequences of the drenched fatigues 

and soaked cigarettes could be unforeseen and farreaching: 

You’d wind up having to smoke the Iraqi menthols, 

which are just disgusting. These guys smoked menthol 100s, the big fat ones. I’m going to die in 5 years, 

bro. I’m not much of a smoker but I’m sure that stuff 

will kill me.1

Seemingly unrelated phenomena such as perspiration and paper notebooks can, in the height of a 

Baghdad summer, combine in the disorder of conflict 

to form significant hurdles to social science research. 

Armed conflict in essence is the disordering of society 

and social values. There is unpredictability at every 

turn, requiring amendment, revision, and adaptation 

across the spectrum of military operations, from policy to operations to tactical maneuvers down to the 

waterproofing of a notebook. Observing such cause 

and effect in late-18th and early-19th century Europe, 

Prussian military practitioner and theorist Carl von 

Clausewitz wrote eloquently about the fog of war.2
370

The human terrain in war is always shifting in subtle 

and sometimes illusory ways. As a consequence, it 

requires constant deciphering in order to focus military operations. 

At the same time, by virtue of necessity, the unpredictable character of war means that it forges new 

alliances. Threats necessitate amendment to the prevailing architecture of knowledge where surmounting such obstacles to progress requires adopting the 

peripheral and remarkable which, in turn, becomes 

the convention and normal. The crisis which crystalized in the Iraqi adventure fomented an intellectual 

insurgency in the military architecture, laying siege to 

prevailing military thinking. Uncertain of the threat 

faced, the academic was taken from the blackboard 

to the battlefield; in the deep weeds of conflict, the 

scholar shaped military thought not from the policylevel downward, but from the tactical-level upward; 

not from the blackboard, but between rifles in villages and townships, feeding information directly to 

brigade staffs, because the language of war requires 

the addition of a social grammar before it can be 

accurately translated.

In the book, three key findings have been presented. First, the crisis caused by the improvised explosive 

device (IED) allowed a competing theory associated 

with low-intensity conflict to gain emphasis in planning. The conclusion is that there are myriad military 

theories that wax and wane against the backdrop of 

ephemeral concerns in the Department of Defense 

(DoD). Human Terrain System (HTS) was, in principle, a counter-IED (C-IED) function. Dr. Montgomery 

McFate, through her role in the counterinsurgency 

(COIN) field manual, was able to create an explicit 

doctrinal need for an HTS capability which was thus 
371

emplaced in the context of countering insurgencies. 

McFate’s section of the COIN field manual so plainly 

stressed the need for nonorganic additions to the U.S. 

intelligence enterprise in order to succeed in countering the Iraqi insurgency that her drafted sections 

of chapter 3, “Intelligence,” led to a confrontational 

meeting on September 13, 2006. The meeting took 

place at the Institute for Defense Analyses where McFate was working, and also included Conrad Crane, 

who was the lead author of the drafted field manual; 

two personnel from the Army Intelligence Center; a 

member of the Joint Staff’s intelligence branch; and 

Kyle Teamey, lead author of the “Intelligence” chapter.3

 Objections were raised that McFate’s sections took 

the job of intelligence gathering away from the intelligence professionals and placed it into the hands of 

the Army and Marine units on the ground.4 The controversial nature of this transition shows just how far 

McFate was shifting the idea of what the intelligenceand information-gathering tools should be in COIN 

operations. It also shows how she used Field Manual

(FM) 3-24, Counterinsurgency, to demonstrate a need 

for the HTS. With the COIN field manual ascendant in 

DoD planning, the HTS could legitimately obtain significant monies from the Overseas Contingency Fund, 

enabling it to expand to meet the requirements of the 

dimensions of the surge of forces in Iraq. 

The program’s divorce from the C-IED enterprise 

was abrupt and decisive. The first embedded teams 

in Iraq may have been aware of the origins of the program, but there was no training on aspects of detecting 

IED networks. In that regard, therefore, the program 

was peculiar in that, while it ushered forth as a C-IED 

enterprise, in form and function it was a COIN tool 

to understand civilian populations. The prominent 
372

notion in the literature that the program was formed 

solely as a device to understand the population eliminates important aspects of its evolution. The Joint 

Urgent Operational Needs Statement (JUONS) supplied by Combined Joint Task Force-82 in April 2007 

noted the requirement of an embedded team capability to identify IED cells (Appendix D). On the ground, 

however, of the hundreds of pages of embedded team 

products seen by the author, only one contained any 

reference to IEDs. That reference was tangential and 

related to a mine-clearing camp. On June 22, 2009, 

members of an embedded team north of Lashkar Gah, 

Afghanistan, learned from a mine-clearing group that 

red rocks denoted that there was danger from unexploded IEDs in the minefield.5

That abrupt divorce is to the detriment of the longevity of the program. In Out of the Mountains published in 2013, David Kilcullen noted that use of the 

IED has become a chronic, global problem with particularly important application as a space denial weapon 

in urban environments.6 If the HTS had systematically 

examined, at least in part, civilian attitudes to IEDs—

the devices often caused civilian casualties—there 

would at least have been something concrete that 

the program had worked toward. A kernel of knowledge built around the impact of the IED on civilian 

populations is something that the program should 

contemplate if it transitions into a theater security asset intended to influence strategic-level planning and 

activities. 

Second, I find that the program training cycle suffered in its initial iterations from a “best guess” process permitted by the laissez-faire attitude of an “anything goes” period in U.S. military affairs. However, 

evolution of teaching in the program was rapid after 
373

the return of embedded members into the program 

management. With implications beyond the HTS, it 

suggests the value of integrating the experience of 

combat veterans in the student curriculum. That said, 

there is no evidence to support the notion that teams 

in 2012 were of more value than teams in 2008, despite 

a gap of 4 years, with all the commensurate improvement in training. The training may have had incremental, limited impact, but the teams appear only as 

efficient as the people on them, suggesting that future 

attempts to code for knowledge, practicality, physicality, and psychology in recruitment will be at least as 

important as the training. 

Third, I find that embedded social science research 

in Iraq and Afghanistan was hindered by a series of 

limiting factors. These factors were the complexity of 

embedding civilians into the military unit: the limited 

initial knowledge the social scientists embedded with; 

the challenge of creating a timely, robust social science 

product which influenced the military decisionmaking cycle; and often making abstract and complex 

concepts resonate with brigade staff seeking clarity of 

information. High operational tempo in deeply insecure environments inhibits social science research capabilities at the tactical level, which, instead, are ideally suited to studies intended to inform and influence 

long-term planning in more secure regions of strategic 

importance to the U.S. Army. 

When embedded, social scientists conducted research using the tools and techniques that they had 

learned in academia. This meant that the HTS was not 

confined to ethnographies and anthropology, with 

implications for the scholarly debate which focused 

on that element of the program. Nor did the program 

militarize anthropology. The high operational tempo 
374

of brigades necessarily hastened research processes 

and created something new; a social science reporting platform which was never standardized through 

2007-14 because of the difficulty of integrating sui generis experiences at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, under 

a program management engaged in an ad hoc working pattern. A baseline research template for applied 

social science may facilitate future integration of the 

research into staff planning. 

Success was defined by the militarization of the 

civilian, by personality and adaptability. Integrating 

personnel into the unit was pivotal if they were to be 

considered a valuable addition to the array of personnel and could contribute not just research capabilities 

but a number of functions from erecting HESCO barriers to guard duty when attached to Special Operations Forces (SOF) units. Academics therefore had to 

become military personnel, in function if not in form. 

As Bob Reuss notes, probably the most prominent 

item of training and from lessons learned: 

was that you had to spend more time on militarising 

those folks that we took from all the civilian walks of 

life and bringing them into an organisation that is not 

necessarily one you have down on Main Street.7

 The cross-cultural divide is pronounced, complicating 

uniformly robust value-added social science capability to brigades in stabilization operations, as seen by 

the heterogeneous performance of embedded teams 

in Iraq and Afghanistan. Effective social scientists all 

successfully made the transition. 

Neither is the long-term training of military personnel, as suggested by Ben Connable, a particularly 

viable route. True, the military researcher could “speak 

the same language [as the Brigade Combat Team staff], 

have the assets, the procedures; and lines of authority 
375

are already established.”8 But the high turnover rate of 

young officers in the U.S. Armed Services and the difficulty and length of a doctoral studentship in the best 

social science departments in United States universities means that there is no guarantee that social science research expertise will be resident in the military 

enterprise when the next crisis unfolds. Ben Connable, 

a brilliant thinker and decorated U.S. Marine Corps 

officer, is now retired from the military and working 

at the RAND Corporation. As a consequence, the civilian sector will again in times of crises be sought out 

and recruited into the military enterprise. The continuation of the program after Iraq and Afghanistan will 

allow a crucial line of sight between academia and the 

DoD to remain open. 

Problematic is that the program between 2007 and 

2014 gained such negative media attention. The U.S. 

Army is a results-focused enterprise that rewards success, whether at the individual, unit, or organization 

level. In the HTS, successful individuals could often be 

rendered impotent by a badly functioning team. Each 

embedded member was different; team social scientists possessed dissimilar academic skills and various 

favored modalities of research. There could be no true 

uniform training blueprint because in the heat of the 

battle rhythm, these academics conducted research in 

the ways in which they had been trained to do so by 

the academy. Reverting to type thus did not allow formulation of a one-size-fits-all training program. Nor 

was it a case that the post-doctoral embeds made the 

best researchers; because they had been trained to the 

highest degree by the academy, they were often the 

most difficult to transition to a military mindset and 

their writing style could be verging on the unintelligible to the military customer. In addition, personalities 

were not coded nor was it known which personality 
376

would function well in areas exposed to high levels 

of selective violence against the incumbent forces. It 

could be guessed, but the transition from Fort Leavenworth to combat conditions on different continents 

carried with it various unknowns. As a suggestion 

of the author, future research could include examination of each team’s feedback on every individual 

within the team allowing construction of a matrix 

determining positive and negative attributes against 

frequency cited. 

One of the many unknowable variations was in 

individuals’ approaches to the ethical dimension of 

their research which was simply a binary outcome 

where ethical research was conducted, or it was not. 

Often the broad array of social science expertise meant 

that ethics carried more or less emphasis, depending 

on the social scientist’s own discipline’s proximity 

to anthropology. In addition, conflict creates its own 

rules beneath the blurring of boundaries in insecure 

environments. Despite the arguments of the American 

Anthropological Association, research profiles and 

products seen by the author and interviews conducted strongly suggest that ethical research could be conducted, by calibrating the character of the interaction 

with the population. There was a persistent and unresolved dilemma as social scientists were there serving 

a military customer, a priority which could obfuscate 

ethical requirements in research and engagement with 

the population. 

This ethical quagmire, which is exacerbated by 

increasing incumbent insecurity in an operating environment, would be substantially reduced in strategic 

research modalities away from conflict zones. In addition, in more secure environments, the incumbent 

exercises hegemonic control allowing for measured, 

careful, and protracted dialogue between the acad-
377

emy and military. It is in the strategically oriented 

articulation of the HTS where deep social science research with hypotheses and systematic approaches of 

the type envisaged by the program management can 

be realized; where experts in disciplines can conduct 

deep research and develop a proper social science 

platform for the U.S. Army. 

However, there is a significant issue with the capability were it to transition to a strategic asset at the 

level of theater security. Countering insurgencies in 

Iraq and Afghanistan gave embedded teams a reason for being among the population. Researching the 

population was necessary to mitigate the cause and effects of pronounced, highly visible insurgencies. Embedded teams were present in COIN roles; that much 

was clearly understood. In relatively calm environments in the Philippines, for example, the population 

will less likely understand the presence of researchers that identify themselves as a U.S. Department of 

the Army asset. This would actually exacerbate concerns as to the ethical function of the program because 

long-range research would transition the character of 

products from operationally relevant reporting to ethnographies conducted for a military customer. In such 

a strategic articulation, therefore, analogies to entities 

with covert character such as the Office of Strategic 

Services and Central Intelligence Agency gain greater 

credence. Dr. Nicholas Krohley, for example, argues 

that, in a strategic articulation, U.S. Army social scientists may struggle to do research because of the distrust of the population and the magnified scrutiny of 

critical academics.9

Fundamentally, however, the remit of embedded 

teams in a theater security role has not changed. It is, 

simply, to listen. The U.S. Department of the Army 
378

is engaged in a global stabilization operation, which 

has as much relevance at the strategic level as tactical planes. In theater security, long-term issues such 

as food security, natural hazards, and institutional 

capacity building are fundamental to the well-being 

of societies. In September 2014, DoD deployed its military to assist in the fight against the spread of Ebola 

virus in West Africa under Operation UNITED ASSISTANCE; increasingly, it is a tool to safeguard livelihoods. The HTS would represent a very human face 

to this mission. 

Greater collaboration between the program and 

academia in a rearticulation to the strategic level may 

alleviate certain of these problems. To influence longrange planning and macroscopic activities, the Human 

Relations Area Files (HRAF) are a historical analogy 

worthy of consideration and mentioned by McFate as 

being relevant in shaping her ideas on the HTS.10 The 

files were created in the late-1940s when behavioral 

scientists at Yale University initiated an interuniversity, nonprofit organization which developed into the 

HRAF at Yale, becoming the preeminent archive of anthropological research, containing more than a million 

pages of ethnographical analysis collated from nearly 

8,000 books and articles, assessing approximately 400 

different cultural groups.11 The HRAF has developed 

categories for archived research with indexing based 

on the Outline of Cultural Materials to organize field 

research around anthropological taxonomies which 

can be subsequently used to research cultural data to 

build social science research platforms.12

Developing typologies for data archived from 

existing and future research conducted under the 

auspices of HTS is therefore a plausible reality. HTT 

products would be more easily digested by a combat 
379

unit over time if they were presented in a standardized template.13 A central database would allow any 

military personnel to search by keyword, category, or 

area. The problem encountered by Howard Clark in 

Afghanistan is instructive: for him it was “like pulling 

teeth trying to get HTS products.”14 Products from 1 

to 2 years previous to the point of inquiry were often no longer on SIPRNet, suggesting a problem in 

the data management of the military regarding the 

retention of social science products.15 Neither was 

there, to Clark’s knowledge, an HTS portal on any of 

the information-sharing systems available to the U.S. 

military, instead, in Clark’s experience, getting team 

products was personality-dependent based on social 

relationships with embedded teams. The problematic 

sharing of HTS research permeated all levels of the 

coalition effort in Afghanistan. In a 2009 brief with 

John Salvatori, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for 

Intelligence—which had come at the request of Major 

General Michael Flynn—Program Manager ForwardAfghanistan Mike Warren noted that, during the positive reception, the issue of sharing of products was 

raised. Instructively, the program manager observed 

that despite shortcomings in that area, it was a broader issue, that “complete integration” within the “ISAF 

system was imperative.”16 

A recommendation of the author as a consequence 

is that the U.S. Army convene a panel of experts to 

forge a set of recommendations for theater security 

research plans. This could develop a new path for 

open-access research and propagate new categories 

of analysis for social science products, developed 

under the auspices of the U.S. military. Public access 

to social science research information aggregated in 

theater security research would lead by default to 
380

greater engagement with the academy and deliver 

on the broad call of the U.S. Government’s Office of 

Science and Technology to make all federal agencies 

with research budgets of U.S.$100 million or above 

develop plans to make that research open access.17

Increasing the existing level of academic engagement, 

principally through the Cultural Knowledge Consortium, would enable an important conversation which 

would speak at once to issues such as ethics, civilmilitary relations, and intelligence. 

These recommendations would bring it closer in 

practice to the original model of the program conceived 

by the Foreign Military Studies Office. In that conception, research analysts would collate information to be 

categorized in an open-source database. Some of the 

best work of the social scientists represents invaluable 

contributions to scholarship. Krohley’s research in 

Baghdad during the surge of forces in 2008 is likely to 

represent the acme of academic understanding of the 

Jaysh al-Mahdi during that time. His knowledge has 

been gleaned from on the ground interviews, lending 

significant authority to his findings. This must be the 

ultimate aim of the HTS, and an idealistic one: to inform both military planning and ultimately for that 

expertise to inform scholarship. The program, in transitioning to a theater security asset in more stable areas would therefore be part of a valuable suite of tools 

which continue to examine critically and to evolve understanding of sociocultural dimensions of irregular 

warfighting.18

The HTS was brilliantly conceived but hindered by 

rapid expansion and an incongruous home at TRADOC. In addition, bureaucracy may be a necessary 

requirement. As one social scientist notes: “Steve Fondacaro and Montgomery McFate were visionaries in 
381

that they saw the need for this programme; but the 

visionary that has the idea and can start it is not always the best person to run it.”19 For his part, and with 

legitimacy, Fondacaro can point to the problematic interactions with the parent organization, as he wrote in 

a memo: 

Mistrust in the HTS leadership extends to the leadership of TRADOC G2 as well. Much, not all, of the 

turmoil we are dealing with daily in terms of managing the myriad of pay and administrative personnel issues, and with internal issues and attitudes within the 

workforce both team members and staff, result from 

frustration over issues not created in HTS.20

Hampered by the contracting issues and in a deeply fractured relationship with TRADOC, management 

of the program in retrospect should have been given 

more personnel and hence expertise in recruitment, 

selection and pay. In the future, social science research 

programs should evolve to become a long-range Army 

component, integrated into the architecture of the 

combatant commands at a strategic level rather than 

combat brigades, facilitating deep learning of environments with a more explicit and concerted transfer 

of knowledge to military staff, to thus inform foreign 

policy. 

Ultimately, war reshapes borders and positions 

populations in new patterns onto the geographic landscape. The sociocultural domain in stabilization operations is malleable, prone to rapid transformations, 

manipulated through violent means for uncertain 

ends. Pre-conflict societies are torn, and traditional relations of reciprocity between the government and the 

governed are suppressed. Parochial, ideographic interests of combatants literally engaged in life or death 
382

battles press the population from a state of civility to 

one of Hobbesian nature. It is for this reason that sociocultural analysis in conflict will be required in the 

future and continue to be identified as a paramount 

consideration in U.S. Army requirements. Here, the 

greatest hindrance to effective analysis of the rapidly 

transforming sociocultural terrain by qualitative field 

work will always be the high operational tempo of 

commanders in the field. 

Ethnographic research requires considerable time 

and focus. Quick research, by contrast, can require 

only a week and can cover wide areas, but the knowledge gained can be superficial and its production 

environment—done in the chaotic environment of a 

conflicted area without establishing deep rapport—

inevitably leads to questions regarding the fidelity 

of the research findings. The greater the operational 

tempo, the lower the security; and the greater the possible error in the research results obtained by the sociocultural moment. Complicated by the “fog of war,” 

language barriers, team schisms, and coupled with the 

a military preference for quantitative research that can 

fit into fast operational tempos that increases physical 

risk and is conducted in insecure areas, all complicate 

embedded team effectiveness. As McFate observed in 

her doctoral dissertation, “Effective war-fighting depends, at the most basic level, on the ability to cope 

with disorder.”21 Ethnography in disordered environments has many limitations not least because, in the 

words of one embedded team member:

Conflict zones really suck to live in. It’s incredibly 

dangerous and it’s incredibly violent and there is no 

guarantee that the knowledge and understanding and 

capacity that you develop there will carry you on into 

your future career. So when a human being takes a 
383

long perspective, it is very difficult to incentivize developing the type of knowledge that the Army says 

that they want.22

On the one hand, conflict zones facilitate the work 

of embedded teams because in that disordered environment “anything goes,” and the work of the team 

has obvious legitimacy in the eyes of the population, 

whether or not they accept their presence. On the other 

hand, the caliber of research that the team can achieve 

in a conflict zone is open to interpretation. It is a new 

form of social science-based research and poorly understood. Compromised by the tensions of conflict, 

the level of fidelity of qualitatively derived data must 

be questionable. 

As a strategic articulation in theater security, there 

is the reverse scenario for the program. There is no 

overt reason for an embedded team presence, but the 

level of security makes prolonged interaction possible. The program would still have to orient even more 

toward academia, becoming a tangible link between 

the two cultures. Given the lack of immediate insecurity, there would also be no guarantee that the embedded team would not simply be stuck at the combatant 

command, unable to get travel room because without crisis, there was no need to embed a team. This 

paradoxical formulation of the HTS between strategic 

pre-deployment arenas and population-centric COIN 

environments is the crux of the problem going forward for applied social science research and worthy 

of larger discussion. 

As a fundamental requirement, the embedded 

team’s job is to satisfy the commander on the ground, 

whether that is the battalion, brigade, or the company. 

Arguably, it can most satisfy the requirements of the 
384

combatant commander in a strategic articulation. The 

HTS was designed with the spectrum of arenas under 

consideration. To that end, the program experimented 

with two pilot projects between 2011 and 2012. The 

first deployed a two-person team to U.S. Army Africa elements between June 2011 and September 2011 

which generated 28 reports on multiple countries, 

focused on long-term planning needs.23 There is no 

known record of a possible second two-person team 

that embedded with Northern Command in April 

2012 for a proposed 6-month pilot program funded by 

the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence.24 In February 2010, the HTS drafted a mission 

analysis for Special Operations Command, Pacific, 

which would be composed of a 5-person Theater Coordination Element team and a 9-12 person Human 

Terrain Analysis Team, which could be split into three 

HTTs. The proposed arrangement also included a 

dedicated Research Reachback Cell, composed of two 

people in Virginia and one person at Special Operations Command (SOCOM).25 These were, in theory if 

not in reality, theater security proof-of-concept teams, 

which led to subsequent social scientist presence at 

the Southern, Northern, Central and African Army 

service regional component commands by late-2013.26

COINs are sui generis—painfully so. Iraq and Afghanistan were characterized by heterodox communities and posed significant language hurdles. Each 

brigade faced different challenges in areas in which 

they operated. Little recent field research existed on 

the politics, economics, society, or infrastructure of either country at the time of the U.S.-led invasions. The 

language hurdles and risk of cultural miscommunication amplified the possible inaccuracy of information 

gathered in the combat environment. There is thus the 
385

requirement to relearn, address, and revise military 

failures in Iraq and Afghanistan; and to maintain social science approaches to combat operations because 

war is a human enterprise, inextricably linked at the 

granular level to social dimensions of civilization such 

as economics, agriculture, and politics. Ignoring these 

complex interrelationships is certain to suppress the 

important aspects of the operating environment that 

allow an enemy to function. 

There is scope for institutionalizing social science 

research capabilities if the home for the HTS would 

be in the planning phase of military strategy. However, the program envisaged as a strategic articulation 

was improperly conceived. Colonel Lee Grubbs at the 

TRADOC G-2 notes:

When we talk about phase 0 [theater security], we 

are talking about in its current form from four social 

scientists at our Army service component commands. 

We are talking very small numbers at a headquarters. 

And when they deploy for a specific mission, go and 

embed with a force, going forward with a force for 3 

weeks, 4 weeks, for however long a discrete mission 

is and returning. Nothing as permanent or as direct as 

what you are talking about what we did in Afghanistan to support the Village Stability concept.27

What Colonel Grubbs is saying is that research at 

the strategic level will be more superficial than at the 

tactical levels in Iraq and Afghanistan. The opposite 

is required. For example, the social scientist in the 

Village Stability Operation embedded in a village for 

months, and contributed physically to the well-being 

of the villagers. Instead of 3 or 4 weeks, the team involved in theater security must go into the field for 

several months. The program can function as a quasi-
386

nongovernmental organization, supporting capacity 

building. Repositioning the capability as a strategic 

asset would be prudent. As the sense of the Afghanistan military crisis recedes from memory, there is a 

sense of unlearning the conflict. Just as the Office of 

Strategic Services, which emerged in the existential 

threat faced in World War II, faded in the embers of 

peacetime, so too there is the challenge social science 

research faces to reformulate and refocus to prolong 

relevance, after the last HTTs departed Afghanistan 

in 2014. Fondacaro had planned to transition the tool 

to the Humanitarian Information Unit at the Department of State; he saw the HTS as a tool for long-term 

research and planning. In the “Human Terrain System Information Briefing” from January 2009 given by 

Fondacaro and McFate, they include a slide showing 

that ideally, instead of in Phase 4 and Phase 5 operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the HTS would be used 

as a Phase 0 asset; “Where we should be,” in their 

assessment.28

Steven Metz of the Strategic Studies Institute, in 

supporting a continuation of the program’s capability and function, notes that the Chairman of the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff’s 2015 U.S. National Military Strategy includes a requirement for cultural knowledge; for support teams and building partner capacity.29 The global 

landscape is one where, more broadly, inequality creates resistance to any established status quo, which in 

severe examples can foment armed rebellion. Such insurgencies as they occur, where they coincide with regions or ideologies of interest to the United States, will 

require comprehension in order to create intelligent 

responses which may utilize political, and economic 

tools in collaboration with military efforts.
387

Often, our own obvious and understandable positions can elide important observations of phenomena 

and in so doing propagate policies and prescriptions 

which are at best impotent and at worst deleterious. 

When Islamic State captured Mosul, Iraq, in June 

2014, this “extreme manifestation” of law and order 

and protection from persecution by Shia-dominated 

security forces meant the group’s arrival was met with 

some semblance of hope, manifest in footage of small 

crowds cheering their convoys as they entered the 

city.30 As capture and change give way to governance 

and stagnation, the inexorable realities of limited civic 

duty and a draconian penal code mean that discontent 

may burgeon. Yet, this emerging civilian antipathy is 

offset by continued popular concern within the urban 

center at the possible actions of the Iraqi national security forces should they recapture the city. Islamic 

State does not need to create a utopian ideal in Mosul 

to ensure relations of reciprocity between itself and 

those it governs; the group only needs to continue 

to be viewed as a preferential ruling polity to the 

national government in a city in which years of war 

has created an atomized social structure incapable of 

coherent civil dissent. 

Military solutions aimed at recapture in such situations are only one element of the answer to U.S. foreign policy questions at both the strategic and tactical levels. Understanding the historical trajectory of a 

region through social, economic, and political lenses, 

including as much engagement with communities 

as security allows, can create powerful platforms for 

policy formation. The output of research conducted in 

and around Sadr City, Iraq, by HTTs for example, has 

afforded a deeper understanding of the position of the 

population regarding the violent actors than previ-
388

ously existed, by investigating popular sentiment and 

the relation of civilians to these actors. As one social 

scientist notes of the prevailing tendency to obscure 

the host nation in studying the Iraq conflict, there has 

been a systematic neglect of any: 

detailed examination of the localized dynamics of violence (instead, more commonly dismissing the viability of such exploration by presenting Iraq as hopelessly 

divided and impenetrably complex), the country and 

its people have received only token attention from authors whose central focus has lain elsewhere.31 

The HTS embedded field social scientists throughout 8 years in Iraq and Afghanistan, and their research 

explored these “localized dynamics of violence” 

through a myriad of heterogeneous methodologies. 

The ongoing effect is an aggregation of research, insights, and experiences borne from a program which, 

at its height in 2009, had more than 40 HTTs deployed 

and embedded an estimated 700 people between 2007 

and 2010.32 The public output of this research is already 

considerable, including in its sweep several academic 

presses and multiple scholarly journals. The compelling story of the program means that their work receives robust levels of engagement across military 

and academic communities upon publication. This 

is an important second-order effect of the program; a 

long-term result of conducting research in contested 

spaces as paid servants of the U.S. Army; and a continuing and aggregating effect which appears to have 

outlasted the duration of the HTS itself. 

Throughout this book I have recorded the recollected experiences of former HTT social scientists in 

Iraq and Afghanistan. The HTS saw a number of social scientists whose professional development and 
389

subject matter expertise have been accelerated in conflict working for the military enterprise. Many of them 

are now dispersed into the broader DoD enterprise. 

Those individuals have since qualified the character 

of the HTS; critiqued their participation in it, and assessed the possibilities and limitations of social science research during military operations. Former 

program members now weigh both academia and the 

military from the vantage point of invaluable experience, understanding the structure and limitations of 

each discipline, speaking both languages. Regardless 

of the future of social science research in the military, 

in possession of esoteric knowledge, robust credibility 

and legitimacy from their work in Iraq and Afghanistan affords immense value to the expertise of these 

individuals that embedded as part of the program. In 

conclusion, it suggests that an enduring legacy of the 

U.S. Army’s HTS will be an altogether human one.

ENDNOTES - CONCLUSIONS

1. Nicholas Krohley, telephone interview with author, July 

26, 2013.

2. Carl von Clausewitz, Michael Howard and Peter Paret, eds. 

and trans., On War, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 

1976, pp. 119-120.

3. Fred Kaplan, The Insurgents: David Petraeus and the Plot to 

Change the American Way of War, New York: Simon & Schuster, 

2013, pp. 213-219.

4. Ibid.

5. Human Terrain System, “HTT AF6 Patrol Report—Refugee 

Camp,” June 22, 2009. Copy held with author.

6. David Kilcullen, Out of the Mountains: The Coming Age of 

Urban Guerrilla, London, UK: Hurst, 2013, pp. 288-293.
390

7. Author’s telephone interview with Bob Reuss, Colonel Lee 

Grubbs, and Dr. Susan Canedy, September 16, 2013.

8. Former HTT social scientist 3, interview with author, 

Alexandria, VA, August 1, 2013.

9. Nicholas Krohley, personal communication with author, 

October 4, 2014.

10. Montgomery McFate, interview, August 1, 2013.

11. H. Russell Bernard, Research Methods in Anthropology: 

Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches, 4th Ed., Lanham, MD: Alta 

Mira, 2006, p. 515. 

12. Ibid.

13. Howard Clark, telephone interview with author, January 

25, 2014.

14. Ibid.

15. Ibid.

16. Human Terrain System Program Manager Forward-Afghanistan, “HTS Briefing for Mr. John Salvatori Deputy Under 

Secretery [sic] of Defense for Intelligence; AAR (After Action 

Review) Submission,” n.d. 

17. Cited in Carol Ember and Robert Hanisch, “Sustaining 

Domain Repositories for Digital Data: A White Paper,” Human Relations Area Files, New Haven, CT: Yale University, 2013, pp. 1-2. 

18. Christopher Sims, “Both Sides of the Coin: Theory Versus 

Practice,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 91, No. 1, 2012, pp. 178-180.

19. Ryan Evans, interview with author, Washington, DC, 

August 6, 2013.

20. Steve Fondacaro, Memorandum to the Director, TRADOC 

G-2 Intelligence Support Activity, n.d. (copy held with author).
391

21. Montgomery Cybele Carlough (McFate), “Pax Britannica: 

British Counterinsurgency in Northern Ireland, 1969-1982,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, New Haven, CT: Yale University, 

1994, p. 97.

22. Former HTT social scientist 1, interview, August 11, 2013.

23. Christopher J. Lamb et al., Human Terrain Teams: An Organizational Innovation for Sociocultural Knowledge in Irregular Warfare, Washington, DC: Institute of World Politics Press, 2013, p. 81.

24. Ibid.

25.Human Terrain System, “TCE-HTAT—Task Force 

SOPAC,” February 2010. 

26. Bob Reuss, interview.

27. Grubbs, interview.

28. Steve Fondacaro and Montgomery McFate, “Human 

Terrain System Information Briefing,” January 9, 2009. 

29. Steven Metz, “Pentagon’s Decision to Cut Human Terrain 

System Short-Sighted,” World Politics Review, July 10, 2015. 

30. Atwan, Abdel Bari, Islamic State: The Digital Caliphate, 

London, UK: Saqi, 2015, p. 44. 

31. Krohley, Nicholas, The Death of the Mehdi Army: The Rise, 

Fall, and Revival of Iraq’s Most Powerful Militia, London, UK: Hurst, 

2015, p. xii. 

32. Montgomery McFate and Janice H. Laurence, “Introduction: Mind the Gap,” in Montgomery McFate and Janice H. Laurence, eds., Social Science Goes to War: The Human Terrain System in 

Iraq and Afghanistan, London, UK: Hurst, 2015, pp. 20-21. 

393

BIBLIOGRAPHY

PRIMARY MATERIAL

Unpublished Works.

Official Documents and Other Government Publications.

Headquarters, Multi-National Corps-Iraq, Memorandum: Joint Urgent Operational Needs Statement 

for Human Terrain Teams, Baghdad, Iraqi, APO AE 

09342, April 7, 2007.

Partially redacted document made available by 

U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM), Office of the 

Chief of Staff in response to USCENTCOM Freedom 

of Information Act request case numbers 14-0046 and 

14-0052 made by the author. The document calls for 

real time knowledge of host populations; as much as 

any document, it perhaps highlights the limitations 

of social science research in the Iraq and Afghanistan 

theaters, with real time social science research being 

unfeasible in the insecure environments.

Joint Urgent Operational Needs Statement for Cultural Operations Research—Human Terrain Systems, 

Combined Joint Task Force-82, April 17, 2007.

Partially redacted document made available by 

USCENTCOM, Office of the Chief of Staff in response 

to USCENTCOM Freedom of Information Act request 

case numbers 14-0046 and 14-0052 made by the author. 

The document details the requirement for a Human 

Terrain Systems (HTS) capability to ensure effectively 

knowledge transfer between outgoing and incoming 

units. 
394

Memorandum, Helms to Rostow, February 17, 

1967, folder “Vietnam memos (A). Vol. 66,” Box 41, 

National Security File: Vietnam, Lyndon B. Johnson 

Library, Austin, Texas. 

Multi-National Corps-Iraq, Joint Urgent Operational Needs Statement for Human Terrain Team Support to Operation IRAQI FREEDOM Surge, n.d.

Partially redacted document made available by 

USCENTCOM, Office of the Chief of Staff in response 

to USCENTCOM Freedom of Information Act request 

case numbers 14-0046 and 14-0052 made by the author. 

This document makes a request for teams to support 

the surge: 13 HTTs and four Human Terrain Analysis 

Teams. 

Headquarters, Multi-National Force-Iraq, Memorandum for Commander, USCENTCOM: Joint Urgent 

Operational Need for Human Terrain Teams, Baghdad, Iraq, APO AE, 09342-1400, April 19, 2007.

Partially redacted document made available by 

USCENTCOM, Office of the Chief of Staff in response 

to USCENTCOM Freedom of Information Act request 

case numbers 14-0046 and 14-0052 made by the author. This is the Multi-National Force-Iraq’s endorsement for the Joint Urgent Operational Need for HTTs 

and links HTT knowledge of host populations to successful counterinsurgency (COIN) operations. 

Perry, Walter, “An Assessment of the Sociocultural Capabilities Required to Accomplish Military 

Missions: Final Briefing,” Santa Monica, CA: RAND 

Arroyo Center, June 15, 2011.
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This study was commissioned by the U.S. Army to 

assess the character and content of sociocultural analysis which could be undertaken across the spectrum of 

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396

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The letter provides detailed analysis of problems with 

specific personnel in the program and that continued 

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Finney, Nathan, The Human Terrain Team Handbook, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: U.S. Army Training 

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__________, “Social Science Working Group: 

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__________, “TCE-HTAT – Task Force SOCPAC,” 

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__________, “Training Directorate Information 

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399

__________, “Results of HTT Structured Interview 

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Clark, Howard, telephone interview with author, 

January 25, 2014.

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VA, July 15, 2013. 

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LATER WORKS

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__________, Patrice M. Scanlon, and Andrea L. 

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York: Routledge, 1999).

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Terrain Teams: An Organizational Innovation for Sociocultural Knowledge in Irregular Warfare (Washington, 

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the Afghan Conflict (London, UK: Hurst, 2014).

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Institute Press, 2008), pp. 187-202.

McFate, Montgomery, Britt Damon, and Robert Holliday, “What do Commanders Really Want 

to Know? U.S. Army Human Terrain System Lessons Learned from Iraq and Afghanistan,” Janice H. 

Laurence and Michael D. Matthews, eds., The Oxford 

Handbook of Military Psychology, (Oxford, UK: Oxford 

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McFate, Montgomery, and Janice H. Laurence, 

eds., Social Science Goes to War: The Human Terrain System in Iraq and Afghanistan (London, UK: Hurst, 2015).

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and What They Mean for World Order (New York: 

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(accessed November 8, 2014). 

International Crisis Group, “In Their Own Words: 

Reading the Iraqi Insurgency,” Brussels, Belgium: International Crisis Group, 2006.

Jackson, Andrea V., “Cultural Training and Intelligence for OIF,” Conference paper, Naval Industry Research and Development Conference, August 5, 2004. 

Jager, Sheila Miyoshi, “On the Uses of Cultural 

Knowledge,” Monograph, Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army 

War College, 2007.

King, Christopher, “Human Terrain System and 

the Role of Social Science in Counterinsurgency,” 

Colloquim Presentation to the University of Hawai’i, 

Manoa, September 20, 2011.

Lamb, Christopher J., Matthew J. Schmidt, and 

Berit G. Fitzsimmons, “MRAPs, Irregular Warfare, 

and Pentagon Reform,” Occasional Paper 6, Institute for National Strategic Studies, Washington, DC: 

National Defense University Press, 2009.

McMillin, Eric, and Bryan N. Karabaich, “Cultural 

Operating Environment IPB: Important Local Knowl-
437

edge for Tactical Leaders,” Fort Leavenworth, KS: 

Center for Army Lessons Learned, 2005.

Numrich, Susan K., “Human Terrain: A Tactical 

Issue or a Strategic C4I Problem?” paper presented to 

the “Critical Issues in C4I Symposium,” Fairfax, VA: 

George Mason University, May 20-21, 2008.

Odierno, Raymond, James F. Amos, and William 

H. McRaven, “Strategic Landpower: Winning the 

Clash of Wills,” Fort Leavenworth, KS: U.S. Army 

Training and Doctrine Command, 2013.

Page, Julia, “Human Terrain Teams,” unpublished 

master’s thesis, Blacksburg, VA: Virginia Polytechnic 

and State University, February 3, 2012.

Peters, Ralph, “Progress and peril: New counterinsurgency manual cheats on the history exam,” Armed 

Force Journal, February 1, 2007.

Phillips, Mark, “Exercise Agile Warrior and the 

Future Development of UK Land Forces,” RUSI 

Occasional Paper, May 2011.

Price, David, “Soft Power, Hard Power, and the 

Anthropological ‘Leveraging’ of Cultural ‘Assets’: 

Distilling the Theory, Politics, and Ethics of Global 

Counterinsurgency,” Conference Paper, Anthropology and Global Counterinsurgency, University of 

Chicago, April 25-27, 2008. 

Simpson, Erin Marie, “The Perils of Third-Party 

Counterinsurgency Campaigns,” unpublished Ph.D. 

dissertation, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 

2010.
438

Smith, Andrew, “Improvised Explosive Devices 

in Iraq, 2003-2009: A Case of Operational Surprise 

and Institutional Response,” Carlisle, PA: Strategic 

Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2011.

Taw, Jennifer, and Robert C. Leicht, “The New 

World Order and Army Doctrine,” Santa Monica, CA: 

RAND Corporation, 1992.

Thompson, Loren B., “Iraq: Stop the Bombers, Win 

the War,” Issue Brief, Arlington, VA: Lexington Institute, June 10, 2005.

Wilson, Clay, “Improvised Explosive Devices in 

Iraq: Effects and Countermeasures,” Washington, DC: 

Congressional Research Service, 2005.

Woods, Kevin M., and James Lacey, “Iraqi Perspectives Project A View of Operation Iraqi Freedom from 

Saddam’s Senior Leadership, Volume 1, Redacted,” 

Quantico, VA: Joint Center for Operational Analysis, 

Institute for Defense Analyses, November 2007.

Newspaper Articles and Other Media.

AAA Blog, “AAA Applauds Decision to End Controversial HTS Program,” American Anthropological 

Association, July 2, 2015, available from blog.aaanet.

org/2015/07/02/aaa-applauds-decision-to-end-controversial-hts-program/ (accessed September 10, 2015).

Albro, Robert and Hugh Gusterson, “Commentary: ‘Do No Harm’,” C4ISR Journal, April 25, 2012, 

available from www.defensenews.com/article/20120425/

C4ISR02/304250001/Con (accessed September 14, 

2014).
439

Anderson, Claudia, “Getting to Know You: The 

U.S. Military Maps the Human Terrain of Afghanistan,” Weekly Standard, January 18, 2010.

Atkinson, Rick, “When ‘Physics Gets in the Way’,” 

The Washington Post, October 2, 2007.

Behn, Sharon, “US Watchdog Slams Afghanistan 

Aid Waste,” Voice of America, August 12, 2013.

Belt, Mike, “Three Questions with . . . Brit Damon, 

Civilian Analyst with the Army,” Lawrence Journal—

World and 6News, November 19, 2007.

Boot, Max, “Navigating the ‘Human Terrain’,” The 

Los Angeles Times, December 7, 2005.

Dearing, Matthew, and Jim Lee, “Research Returns 

from War,”Foreign Policy, July 23, 2015. 

DeYoung, Karen, “U.S. Moves to Replace Contractors in Iraq,” The Washington Post, March 17, 2009.

Doubleday, Justin, “Controversial Army SocialScience Program Morphs Into ‘Reach-Back’ Office,” 

Inside the Army, Vol. 27, No. 27 (2015).

Evans, Ryan, “The Seven Deadly Sins of the Human Terrain System: An Insider’s Perspective,” Foreign Policy Research Institute, July 13, 2015, available 

from www.fpri.org/geopoliticus/2015/07/seven-deadlysins-human-terrain-system-insiders-perspective (accessed 

September 7, 2015).
440

Forte, Maximilian, “A SPY IN OUR MIDST: 

Montgomery Sapone/Montgomery McFate,” 

Zero Anthropology, available from zeroanthropology.net/2008/07/31/a-spy-in-our-midst-montgomerysaponemontgomery-mcfate/ (September 14, 2014).

Felbab-Brown, Vanda, “Afghanistan Trip Report 

V: The Afghan Local Police: ‘It’s Local, So It Must Be 

Good’—Or Is It?” Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, May 9, 2012, available from www.brookings.

edu/research/opinions/2012/05/09-afghan-police-felbabbrown (September 12, 2014).

Fox News, “Afghan Men Struggle with Sexual 

Identity, Study Finds,” January 28, 2010.

Garamone, Jim, “Threat of Terrorist IEDs Growing, 

Expanding, General Says,” Armed Forces Press Service, 

September 21, 2012.

Geller, Adam, “One Man’s Odyssey from Campus 

to Combat,” Army Times, March 16, 2009.

“General: Insurgents Upgrading Explosives Used 

in Attacks,” World Tribune, June 14, 2005.

Gezari, Vanessa, “The Quiet Demise of the Army’s 

Plan to Understand Afghanistan and Iraq,” The New 

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r=0 (accessed September 10, 2015).

Glenn, David, “Former Human Terrain System 

Participant Describes Program in Disarray,” Chronicle 

of Higher Education, December 5, 2007.
441

González, Roberto J. “We Must Fight the Militarisation of Anthropology,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, February 2, 2007. 

__________, “The Rise and Fall of the Human Terrain System,” Counterpunch, June 29, 2015, available 

from www.counterpunch.org/2015/06/29/the-rise-andfall-of-the-human-terrain-system/ (accessed September 

10, 2015).

Grossman, Elaine, “Army To Create ‘Asymmetric 

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the Pentagon, July 8, 2004.

Hayden, Tom, “Meet the New Dr. Strangelove,” 

The Nation, July 7, 2008.

Hedges, Stephen J., “U.S. Battles Low-Tech 

Threat,”Chicago Tribune, October 23, 2004.

Hess, Bill, “Unit of Linguistics Says Goodbye to 

Fort,” The Sierra Vista Herald, October 18, 2008.

Hulse, Carl, and Marjorie Connelly, “Poll Shows 

a Shift in Opinion in Iraq War,” The New York Times, 

August 23, 2006.

IBM Commercial, The Road, u.d., available from 

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FA07C708193BDF95A9&FORM=VIRE4.

Jaschik, Scott, “Embedded Conflicts,” Inside Higher 

Ed, July 7, 2015, available from https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/07/07/army-shuts-down-controver-
442

sial-human-terrain-system-criticized-many-anthropologists (accessed September 2, 2015). 

Kagan, Robert, “We’re Not the Soviets in Afghanistan: And 2009 isn’t 1979,” Weekly Standard, August 

21, 2009.

Kassel, Whitney, “The Army Needs Anthropologists,” Foreign Policy, July 28, 2015.

Kavanaugh, Lee Hill, “Army Takes Human Terrain to Heart,” Kansas City Star, October 14, 2008.

Loeb, Vernon, “Instead of Force, Persuasion,” The 

Washington Post, November 5, 2003.

Luttwak, Edward, “Dead End: Counterinsurgency 

Warfare as Military Malpractice,” Harper’s Magazine, 

February 2007.

Marlowe, Ann, “Anthropology goes to war: There 

are some things the Army needs in Afghanistan, but 

more academics are not top of the list,” Weekly Standard, November 26, 2007.

Maas, Peter, “Professor Nagl’s War,” The New York 

Times, January 11, 2004.

Metz, Steven, “Pentagon’s Decision to Cut Human 

Terrain System Short-Sighted,” World Politics Review, 

July 10, 2015.

Milbank, Dana and Claudia Deane, “Poll Finds 

Dimmer View of Iraq War,” The Washington Post, June 

8, 2005. 
443

Motlagh, Jason, “Should Anthropologists Help 

Contain the Taliban?” Time, July 1, 2010.

“National Affairs: Professor at the Blackboard,” 

Time, February 24, 1961.

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Combat I.E.D.s in Iraq,” November 4, 2005.

Packer, George, “A Reporter at Large: Knowing 

the Enemy,” The New Yorker, December 18, 2006.

Porter, Gareth, “How the US quietly lost the IED 

war in Afghanistan,” The Nation, October 11, 2012.

Rogers, Rick, “Taste of the Culture: Marines Learning Iraqi Customs, Language before Deployment,” The 

San Diego Union-Tribune, September 12, 2007.

Rohde, David, “Army Enlists Anthropology in 

War Zones,” The New York Times, October 5, 2007.

Rubin, Alissa J., “Persecuted Sect in Iraq Avoids Its 

Shrine,” The New York Times, October 14, 2007.

Shachtman, Noah, “Army Anthropologist’s Controversial Culture Clash,” Wired, October 2008.

Stockman, Farah and Bryan Bender, “Afghan Plan 

Adds 4, 000 US Troops: Obama to Include Hundreds 

of Civilian Advisors,” The Boston Globe, March 27, 

2009.

Swire, Nathan “McFate explains Human Terrain 

Teams,” The Dartmouth, September 26, 2008.
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Tyrrell, Marc W. D., “The Human Terrain System: 

Clashing Moralities or Rhetorical Dead Horses,” EInternational Relations, February 5, 2012 available from 

www.e-ir.info/2012/02/05/the-human-terrain-systemclashing-moralities-or-rhetorical-dead-horses/ (August 12, 

2014).

Udris, David, James Der Derian, and Michael 

Udris, Dirs., Human Terrain: War Becomes Academic, 

Oley, PA: Bullfrog Films, 2010.

Vanden Brook, Tom, “IEDs go beyond Iraq, 

Afghanistan,” USA Today, May 13, 2008.

__________, “Army Kills Controversial Social Science Program,” USA Today, June 29, 2015.

Vine, David, “Enabling the Kill Chain,” Chronicle of 

Higher Education, November 30, 2007.

Wilson, Scott, “A Different Street Fight in Iraq: U.S. 

General Turns to Public Works in Battle for Hearts and 

Minds,” Washington Post Foreign Service, May 27, 2004.
445

APPENDIX A

SEMI-STRUCTURED INTERVIEW QUESTIONS 

TO FORMER HUMAN TERRAIN TEAM 

SOCIAL SCIENTISTS

Recruitment.

How did you first learn about the Human Terrain 

System?

Why did you enlist with the Human Terrain System?

Can you describe the recruitment process?

Training and Pre-Deployment.

Can you describe the training process?

Can you describe your experiences during predeployment?

Team Composition.

Can you describe the team dynamics?

Can you describe the team relationship with the 

unit in which you were embedded?

Logistics.

How did you gain transport for research projects 

among the civilian population?

Research.

Did language capabilities matter?
446

In your opinion, which was the best research project you conducted? 

Which piece of research did you think had most 

effect on the unit in which you were embedded?

What was the frequency of the reports generated 

by the team?

Relationship to Continental U.S.-Human 

Terrain System.

Did you use the Research Reachback Center during your time in theater?

Products.

How did you create the product from the research?

How did you disseminate the product to the 

embedded unit?
447

APPENDIX B

US HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVE, 113TH CONGRESS, 2ND SESS., H. R. 4435 [REPORT 

NO. 113-446], APRIL 9, 2014, AMENDED 

MAY 13, 2014, pp. 333-335
448

APPENDIX C
449
450

APPENDIX C

CJTF-82 ENDORSEMENT TO JOINT URGENT 

OPERATIONAL NEED 

FOR HUMAN TERRAIN SYSTEMS

Released as a part of a Freedom of Information Act 

request by the author, the endorsement was signed on 

April 21, 2007, by Brigadier General Rodney O. Anderson, Deputy Commanding General—Support of 

the Combined Joint Task Force (CJTF). The memorandum notes that understanding of social, cultural, and 

political factors at the local level is critical to success in 

counterinsurgency and stability operations, and more 

broadly, the war on terror. At this stage in the evolution of the program, it was noted by the commanding 

officer that Human Terrain System could “identify Al 

Qaida Associated Militants leaders operating among 

the population.” 
451
452

APPENDIX D

CJTF-82 JOINT URGENT OPERATIONAL 

NEED FOR HUMAN TERRAIN SYSTEMS

Released as a part of a Freedom of Information Act 

request by the author, the original Joint Urgent Operational Needs Statement for Human Terrain System 

is dated April 17, 2007. More detailed than the previous endorsement, it notes that an inability to translate 

“hard won local cultural social knowledge” to newly 

arriving units had operational impact, the breakdown 

of which is redacted. Importantly for the supposition 

of this thesis, it explicitly links Human Terrain Teams 

to analyzing “the complex interaction between tribes, 

identify Al Qaida Associated Militants leaders and 

Improvised Explosive Device cells operating among 

the population.”
453
454
455
456
457

APPENDIX E

MNC-I (MULTI-NATIONAL CORPS-IRAQ)

 ENDORSEMENT TO JOINT URGENT 

OPERATIONAL NEED

FOR HUMAN TERRAIN TEAMS

Lieutenant General Raymond T. Odierno, commander of Multi-National Corps-Iraq signed the endorsement for Human Terrain Teams to support Operation IRAQI FREEDOM-SURGE on April 7, 2007. 

“Detailed knowledge of the host populations” in “real 

time” is critical to counterinsurgency operations in the 

country. 
458
459

APPENDIX F

MNC-I (MULTI-NATIONAL CORPS-IRAQ)

 JOINT URGENT OPERATIONAL 

NEEDS STATEMENT

FOR HUMAN TERRAIN TEAMS

The undated Joint Urgent Operational Needs 

Statement (JUONS) also signed by Lieutenant General 

Odierno gives additional reasoning for the request for 

Human Terrain Teams, stressing a need for a “social 

science expert” in an Iraqi theater which is “complicated by a number of human factors.” The JUONS notes 

that five teams of four personnel each would be in Iraq 

by mid-2007 and that, to support the surge, there was 

a requirement for an additional 13 Human Terrain 

Teams and four Human Terrain Analysis Teams. This 

shows the concept of the Human Terrain Analysis 

Team existed from at least mid-2007 and before any 

Human Terrain Teams had embedded in Iraq. The 

teams would increase knowledge of the population 

and tribal systems, and institutionalize this knowledge, decreasing “both coalition and local national 

casualties.” 
460
461
462
463
464

APPENDIX G

MNF-I ENDORSEMENT TO JOINT URGENT 

OPERATIONAL NEED

 FOR HUMAN TERRAIN TEAMS

This short endorsement by Multi-National ForceIraq notes that the teams can supply “real time host 

nation intelligence to commanders on the ground.”
465
466

APPENDIX H

U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND ENDORSEMENT TO

JOINT URGENT OPERATIONAL NEED CC-0197

Major General Timothy F. Ghormley, U.S. Marine 

Corps, signed the memorandum and in doing so, 

observes that USCENTCOM views Human Terrain 

Teams as not meeting the strict definition of a JUONS, 

but is nevertheless “forwarding to Joint Staff to assess and determine the best approach to fulfilling this 

capability gap.” 
467
468

APPENDIX I

SUPERVISORY SOCIAL SCIENTIST, 

TASK LIST, COMPLETE TASK LIST 20090808
469

APPENDIX J

FIELD SOCIAL SCIENTIST, TASK LIST,

COMPLETE TASK LIST 20090808
470

APPENDIX K

REVISED POSITION DESCRIPTION FOR SOCIAL 

SCIENTIST,

JANUARY 14, 2009

Position Description

PD#: ST302454 Replaces PD#: NEW 

Sequence#: VARIES

SOCIAL SCIENTIST 

GG-0101-15

Servicing CPAC: CIVILIAN INTELLIGENCE 

PERS – CENTRALIZED, FORT HUACHUCA, AZ

Agency: VARIES

MACOM: VARIES

Command Code: VARIES

Region: WEST

 Citation 1: OPM SERIES DEF., GS-101, AUG 2002

Citation 2: CIPMS PGS, PART 2 FOR NON-SUPERVISORY POSITIONS, JUN 90 

Citation 3: CIPMS, APP G, GUIDE-SERIES NOT 

CVRD BY SPECIFIC AOG, JAN 95 

PD Library PD: NO

COREDOC PD: NO

Classified By: MAXIE L. MCFARLAND 

Classified Date: 01/14/2009
471

FLSA: EXEMPT Drug Test Required: VARIES 

DCIPS PD: YES

This description is to be used for Title 10 Excepted Service, Defense Civilian Intelligence Personnel System positions only.

Career Program: 35 Financial Disclosure Required: NO Acquisition Position: NO 

Functional Code: 00 Requires Access to Firearms: VARIES Interdisciplinary: NO

Competitive Area: VARIES Position Sensitivity: 

VARIES Target Grade/FPL: 15

Competitive Level: VARIES Emergency Essential: 

 [ ]

Career Ladder PD: NO

Bus Code: VARIES Personnel Reliability Position: VARIES Information Assurance: N

PD Status: VERIFIED 

Duties:

This is a DCIPS position.

The Social Scientist designs and executes social science research and analysis based on the Commander's 

concept of operation. The Social Scientist oversees the 

research and analysis process in coordination with the 

Team Leader and Research Manager.

Conduct Research:

The Operations Manager supports a Human Terrain System team in all phases and types of sociocultural research and analysis conducted by the team in 
472

a combat environment. This includes both primary 

and secondary source research. Primary source research is data collected directly by a Human Terrain 

System team utilizing knowledgeable local sources. 

Sociocultural research is not focused primarily on either friendly or enemy actions, instead, it focuses on 

people, their perceptions, identities, social organization, and interdependencies, all of which tend to be 

dynamic and contextually specific. The conduct of 

primary source research includes the movement to 

and from research sites in conjunction with military 

units and the data collection activities conducted by 

teams at unsecured data collection locations in austere 

environments. 

Research Planning: 

The Social Scientist plans and designs research 

projects, including long-term and short-term projects. Planning research is a process that includes the 

creation of an overarching research plan that guides 

the research efforts of the team and research designs 

that guide the research effort for discrete issues and 

projects. The research design process focuses on specific research objectives that address implicit or explicit requirements of the supported command and 

contribute to the expansion of the knowledge base. 

Research designs should be nested within the overall research plan. Both research planning and design 

are continuous processes and should be reviewed as 

requirements and resources change over time. When 

successfully executed, research planning and design 

provides a framework for collection and analysis that 

is driven by supported unit requirements and aids in 

the production of sociocultural understanding. Plan-
473

ning of research projects includes determining the 

methodological feasibility of research efforts, defining 

the research objective, formulating the research questions, analyzing knowledge gaps, selecting collection 

and analysis methods, and developing appropriate 

research instruments such as interview protocols and 

surveys.

Data Collection:

The Social Scientist oversees the collection of primary and secondary-source data to develop a common 

operating picture of the sociocultural environment. 

The conduct of research encompasses all actions necessary to collect primary and secondary sociocultural 

information. Research should be conducted to fulfill 

the unit’s sociocultural knowledge requirements, 

whether that requirement is explicit or implicit. Collected data will be used by supported military units 

and Human Terrain System teams to develop common 

operating pictures of the sociocultural environment, 

which will be aggregated at progressively higher echelons. Data collection must be systematic, empirical, 

complete, reliable, and valid. Human Terrain System 

collection methodologies include: direct observation, 

visual ethnography, key leader engagement, participant observation, depth interviewing, group or focus 

group interviewing, surveying, secondary source 

research, and mixed methods approaches.

Data Analysis:

The Social Scientist oversees the qualitative or 

quantitative analysis of data. Once data is collected, it 

is subjected to analysis using a variety of tools. Each 
474

form of analysis has its own strengths, limitations, 

and potential outputs. The type of research question 

to be answered will guide the selection of the appropriate analytical tool. Analytical tools include structural analysis, cultural domain analysis, text analysis, 

quantitative analysis, and mixed method analysis. 

Research Assessment:

The Social Scientist oversees the assessment of 

research processes and methods. Assessing research 

activities is an ongoing process which includes assessing the relevance and outcomes of the research for the 

supported unit. Assessing research activities also includes identifying procedural improvements to facilitate future research, analysis, and products. Process 

assessments on research and analysis methodologies 

provide input on effective methodologies to improve 

future research activities. 

Producing Outcomes:

In conjunction with other members of the team, the 

Social Scientist produces documents, products, and 

briefings for the military unit as required and presents 

them at to the supported unit and other audiences. 

The Social Scientist provides unit specific sociocultural training as requested. The Social Scientist reviews 

products for accuracy, relevance, timeliness, soundness of analysis and adherence to both commander’s 

intent and the broad guidelines of national policy. 
475

Support to Military Decisiomaking.

In conjunction with other members of the team, 

the Social Scientist provides support to unit decisionmaking in the operations and the military decisionmaking process. Throughout this process, teams aid 

commanders and staff by providing insight into first, 

second, and third order effects, providing situational 

awareness and developing mitigation strategies. The 

Social Scientist assists in identifying known supported unit sociocultural information requirements, the 

most effective way to integrate into the military decisionmaking process and the most effective products 

to communicate research findings and recommendations. The Social Scientist participates during working groups and mission planning. The Social Scientist 

coordinates within the command and with staffs at all 

applicable levels as guided by the Team Leader. 

Performs other duties as assigned.

Job Qualifications (Mandatory)

Ability to communicate effectively, both verbally 

and in written form, in English.

Ability to use relevant presentation software (e.g., 

Microsoft Office).

Possess and maintain a level of physical fitness 

which enables them to operate in conditions where 

they may have to, at a minimum:

1. Tolerate heat well in excess of 110 degrees in the 

summer and cold or freezing conditions during the 

winter.
476

2. Traverse rough and uneven terrain.

3. Endure hostile environment to include persons 

that may cause bodily harm, injury or loss of life.

4. Work with little sleep or rest for extended periods of time in support of physically and mentally 

challenging projects.

5. Travel extended distances by foot, military 

ground vehicles, and air transport into mountainous 

or desert regions.

6. Sleep on the ground in environmentally unprotected areas from the elements and animals.

7. Carry 40-75 pounds of gear and personal protective equipment for 10-16 hours a day.

8. Conduct a variety of tactical maneuvers in personal protective gear, which may include: entering 

and exiting a combat vehicle, conducting a security 

halt, and responding to direct and indirect fire.

M.A./M.S. or Ph.D. in Social Science (Anthropology, Political Science, Sociology, Criminology, Economics, Geography, Government), Behavioral Science 

(e.g., Psychology), Humanities (e.g., Folklore, History, 

Middle Eastern Languages and Literature, Religious 

Studies), Regional Studies (e.g., Mediterranean Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, Near Eastern Languages 

& Cultures, Central Eurasian Studies), Language and 

Linguistics (e.g., Arabic, Pashtu, Dari), Public Policy/

International Relations (e.g., International Policy 

Studies, Diplomacy, Statecraft and Security Affairs, 

International Affairs, Security Policy, Foreign Service, 

Strategic Intelligence, Military Studies).

Conducted research design and execution:

• Designed data collection instruments (e.g. surveys, interview protocols)
477

• Conducted data collection activities (e.g. interviews, focus groups, and participant observation)

• Prepared a variety of in-depth reports and 

other written material.

Factors.

FACTOR A. ESSENTIAL KNOWLEDGES

Recognized in the social science community as a 

technical subject matter expert on social science (e.g., 

has presented papers at conferences, has written peer 

reviewed publications in academic journals and nonpeer reviewed papers in professional journals, and 

has presented technical briefings and reports to professional and academic audiences).

MA/MS or Ph.D. in Social Science (Anthropology, 

Political Science, Sociology, Criminology, Economics, 

Geography, Government), Behavioral Science (e.g., 

Psychology), Humanities (e.g., Folklore, History, 

Middle Eastern Languages and Literature, Religious 

Studies), Regional Studies (e.g., Mediterranean Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, Near Eastern Languages 

& Cultures, Central Eurasian Studies), Language and 

Linguistics (e.g., Arabic, Pashtu, Dari), Public Policy/

International Relations (e.g., International Policy 

Studies, Diplomacy, Statecraft and Security Affairs, 

International Affairs, Security Policy, Foreign Service, 

Strategic Intelligence, Military Studies).

Conducted research design and execution:

• Designed data collection instruments (e.g. surveys, interview protocols).
478

• Conducted data collection activities (e.g. interviews, focus groups, participant observation).

• Prepared a variety of in-depth reports and other written material.

Ability to apply experimental theories and new developments to problems not susceptible to treatment 

by accepted methods.

Makes decisions or recommendations significantly 

changing, interpreting, or developing important policies and programs.

Comprehensive understanding of applied research 

methods and expert knowledge of how to configure 

research projects to answer questions related to practical matters.

Record of publications in academic or professional 

journals or newspapers.

Extensive field research experience in a cross cultural environment. 

Has managed or supervised research projects and 

research teams (i.e. principal investigator).

Knowledge of personnel management and administration requirements, procedures, and techniques to 

supervise personnel and programs.

FACTOR B. GUIDELINES

The nature of the guidelines available for the conduct of human terrain research and analysis varies 
479

greatly depending on the research, operational, or 

planning mission that is being undertaken. Some of 

the tasks performed enter uncharted areas of social 

science research and applications. Basic guidance 

comes from the commander of the supported unit and 

the activity. Often there is limited guidance regarding 

how vaguely stated requirements are to be translated 

into concrete recommendations for courses of action 

in support of military operations. There are recurrent 

requirements for supervision of the research portion 

of extremely sensitive and creative programs in support of national policy. Judgment, ingenuity, and originality are required to adapt mission to foreign policy 

objectives.

FACTOR C. SCOPE OF AUTHORITY 

AND EFFECT OF DECISIONS

Social Scientist makes authoritative determinations 

regarding research findings and advises on technical 

social science issues. Decisions and commitments often involve large expenditures of resources and have a 

strong impact on important programs. Work consists 

of broad functions with enduring requirements and 

duration of effort that often requires phasing. Incumbent must plan for multiple lines of operation and 

consider multiple courses of action and potential conflict and cooperation with internal elements and external agencies. Developing and supervising research 

requires coordination and development of contacts 

across a wide range of scientific, academic, commercial and government agencies.
480

FACTOR D. WORK RELATIONSHIPS

With respect to research and analysis, incumbent 

represents the Activity in all forms and at all levels 

as required. Assessment of the Activity's capabilities 

in those spheres is authoritative. Once a position is 

settled upon internally, incumbent is expected to win 

support from outside agencies for the Activity's programs. Regular person-to-person work contacts are 

maintained with officials within the Activity and with 

staff officers and planners at the theater command, Department of Defense, and National Agency levels. The 

last category includes meetings and liaison with officials at the Department of State, Defense Intelligence 

Agency, and the Central Intelligence Agency. Contacts 

with general officers and their civilian equivalents are 

not infrequent. When called upon, helps to develop 

and present the Activity’s position to bodies as high 

as the National Security Council, and to high officials, 

both American and foreign, in the United States and 

abroad. Maintains regular contact with nationally recognized members of the academic community.

FACTOR E. SUPERVISION RECEIVED

The supervisor (the Team Leader) generally provides only administrative direction, with assignments 

only in terms of broadly defined missions or functions. 

The Social Scientist has responsibility for planning, 

designing, and carrying out programs, projects, studies or other work independently. The Team Leader 

is kept informed of significant developments. Completed work is reviewed only from an overall standpoint in terms of feasibility, compatibility, effectiveness or expected results, and for its contribution to the 

advancement of the teams’ research objectives. 
481

FACTOR F. SUPERVISION EXERCISED

The Social Scientist is responsible for the technical 

aspects of research process and products of an independently functioning professional research team. Supervises research functions and sets quality standards 

for the research, analysis, and writing of the team. In 

conjunction with the Team Leader, recommends approval or returns for revision all studies and other 

documents produced by the team for distribution. Incumbent has substantial responsibility for the technical soundness of all studies, which involve specialized 

research of an extremely high intellectual level. Has 

authority to alter the organization of work within the 

team in order to accomplish research objectives, and 

guides subordinates in the achievement of assigned 

research tasks.

FACTOR G. COMPLEXITY OF WORK 

SUPERVISED.

The highest level of nonsupervisory work supervised in subordinate work units is GS-14.

TOTAL POINTS: 

POINT RANGE: = GG-15

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities.

KNOWLEDGE

Professional level knowledge in social science 

or related discipline. This can be demonstrated by 

M.A./M.S. or Ph.D. in Social Science (Anthropology, 

Political Science, Sociology, Criminology, Economics, 
482

Geography, Government), Behavioral Science (e.g., 

Psychology), Humanities (e.g., Folklore, History, 

Middle Eastern Languages and Literature, Religious 

Studies), Regional Studies (e.g., Mediterranean Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, Near Eastern Languages 

& Cultures, Central Eurasian Studies), Language and 

Linguistics (e.g., Arabic, Pashtu, Dari), Public Policy/ 

International Relations (e.g., International Policy 

Studies, Diplomacy, Statecraft and Security Affairs, 

International Affairs, Security Policy, Foreign Service, 

Strategic Intelligence, Military Studies).

Knowledge of research design and execution:

• Data collection instruments (e.g. surveys, interview protocols)

• Data collection activities (e.g. interviews, focus 

groups, participant observation)

• Data preparation (e.g., in-depth reports and 

other written material).

Comprehensive understanding of applied research 

methods and expert knowledge of how to configure 

research projects to answer questions related to practical matters.

Knowledge of management practices for supervising research projects and research teams (i.e. principal 

investigator).

Knowledge of personnel management and administration requirements, procedures, and techniques to 

supervise personnel and programs. 
483

SKILLS

Software:

Ability to use relevant presentation software (e.g., 

Microsoft Office).

ABILITIES

Character and Integrity: 

Displays a high standard of ethical conduct and 

can be trusted in all work situations; chooses an ethical course of action and does the right thing, even in 

the face of opposition; encourages others to behave 

accordingly; demonstrates core organizational values 

and honesty; acts in a principled manner that instills 

trust and confidence; is honest and straightforward 

when presenting data, conclusions, and recommendations.

Judgment and Decisionmaking: 

Demonstrates good judgment by making sound, 

timely, and well-informed decisions without deferring actions when decisions need to be made; considers the impact and implications of decisions; commits 

to action and follows through on decisions.

Communication:

Conveys written information and ideas in a clear, 

concise, and well-organized manner; written communication is targeted to the level of the audience; uses 

correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation when 

preparing written materials; conveys oral informa-
484

tion in a clear, concise, and well-organized manner 

taking into account the audience and the nature of 

the information (e.g., technical, controversial); speaks 

clearly, convincingly, and confidently using proper 

grammar, tone, and pace; tracks audience responses 

and reacts appropriately to those responses. Receives, 

attends to, interprets, understands, and responds appropriately to verbal messages and other cues such as 

body language and other nonverbal communication; 

pays close attention, listening attentively and seeking 

additional clarifying information when necessary.

Initiative and Responsibility:

Sets well-defined and realistic personal goals; displays a high level of initiative, effort, and commitment 

towards completing assignments in a timely manner; 

works with minimal supervision; is motivated to 

achieve; demonstrates responsible behavior and determines responsible behavior; takes the lead in getting tasks done with limited prompting or direction; 

seeks opportunities to begin new lines of inquiry or 

investigation in order to solve problems; accepts responsibility for one’s own actions and words and/

or those of the group or team; takes responsibility for 

accomplishing work goals and meeting deadlines; 

reliably completes tasks and assignments in a timely 

manner; follows through on commitments and does 

what it takes to get the job done; goes beyond the call 

of duty to meet deadlines.

Interpersonal Competency: 

Demonstrates fairness, professionalism, and 

tact when interacting with others; understands and 
485

interacts effectively with a variety of people to include 

those who are difficult, hostile, or distressed; adjusts 

interpersonal style, as needed, to interact with differing individuals, new teams, co-workers or customers; 

performs effectively in different cultures learning new 

languages, values, traditions and politics.

Handling Work Stress: 

Remains calm under pressure, handles frustration, 

and acts as a calming influence; demonstrates a positive outlook and persistence, even under adverse or 

difficult situations; persists at a task or problem despite 

interruptions, obstacles, or setbacks; reacts appropriately and decisively to life threatening or dangerous 

situations; adjusts and deals with unpredictable situations, shift focus and take reasonable action.

Physical Fitness:

Social Scientists must achieve and maintain a level 

of physical fitness which enables them to operate in 

conditions where they may have to, at a minimum:

1. Tolerate heat well in excess of 110 degrees in the 

summer and cold or freezing conditions during the 

winter.

2. Traverse rough and uneven terrain.

3. Endure hostile environment to include persons 

that may cause bodily harm, injury, or loss of life.

4. Work with little sleep or rest for extended periods of time in support of physically and mentally 

challenging projects.

5. Travel extended distances by foot, military 

ground vehicles, and air transport into mountainous 

or desert regions.
486

6. Sleep on the ground in environmentally unprotected areas from the elements and animals.

7. Carry 40-75 pounds of gear and personal protective equipment for 10-16 hours a day.

8. Conduct a variety of tactical maneuvers in personal protective gear; this may include: entering and 

exiting a combat vehicle, conducting a security halt, 

and responding to direct and indirect fire.

Logical Reasoning and Synthesis—Analyzes and 

integrates information to identify trends, rules, and 

relationships, draw appropriate conclusions, make 

recommendations, and address issues or problems; 

identifies and uses principles, rules, and relationships 

to construct arguments or interpret facts, data, or other 

information; dissects problems into meaningful parts 

and uses logic and judgment to determine accuracy 

and relevance of data; identifies and reconciles gaps, 

uncertainties, and key assumptions of data; integrates 

information, evaluates and prioritizes alternatives, 

and assesses similarities and differences in data to develop findings and conclusions; and understands potential implications of these findings or conclusions.

Service Orientation: 

Works with others (i.e., anyone who receives or 

uses a product or service that you or your work unit 

provides) to understand their needs, set expectations, 

and provide timely, flexible, and responsive products 

or services; applies knowledge of relevant customer 

organizations or operations, including how to translate requirements to provide appropriate output or 

response to meet customer needs.
487

Team Leadership:

Directs, coordinates, and monitors group activities 

to ensure timely and effective completion of work; provides coaching, mentoring, and timely and constructive feedback to staff to develop their full potential; 

motivates staff, inspires work ethic and dedication, 

and obtains cooperation and commitment toward the 

group’s goals; encourages creative tension and differences of opinions; anticipates and takes steps to prevent counterproductive confrontations; manages and 

resolves conflicts and disagreements in a constructive 

manner; develops and maintains collaborative working relationships with others; works with others to 

achieve goals; encourages and facilitates cooperation 

and group identity; develops and maintains effective 

networks, coalitions, and liaison relationships with 

others to create an authentic foundation for developing trust and respect by bridging personal, professional, team, military, and multinational cultures; 

respects, understands, and values differences (e.g., 

technical, demographic, occupational or educational 

diversity) to achieve the vision and mission of the 

HTS and supported unit; utilizes diversity of talents 

to achieve goals.

CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT

1. Must be able to obtain and maintain a Secret security clearance.

2. Performs temporary duty (TDY) travel UP TO 

100% of the time.

Evaluation:

Not Listed
488

APPENDIX L

SOCIAL SCIENCE WORKING GROUP, 

SESSION 2, 

MARCH 16-27, 2009, OUTBRIEF 5, SLIDES 41-42

Slide 41

Slide 42
489

APPENDIX M

HUMAN TERRAIN TEAM IZ4, 

’PROPORTIONS BRIEF 

SECTARIAN BREAKDOWNS,’ 

POWERPOINT PRESENTATION, 2008, SLIDES 2-5

Slide 2

Source: gulf2000.columbia.edu/maps.shtml
490

Slide 3

Slide 4

Ethnic-Religious Neighborhoods in Metropolitan 

Baghdad, Early-2007

Source: gulf2000.columbia.edu/images/maps/Baghdad_Ethnic_2007_

early_sm.jpg

Sectarian Distribution by Muhalla 

in Strike AO in 2007

Source: gulf2000.columbia.edu/maps.shtml
491

Slide 5

Ethnic-Religious Neighborhoods in

Metropolitan Baghdad, 2003

Source: gulf2000.columbia.edu/images/maps/Baghdad_Ethnic_2003_

sm.jpg
492

APPENDIX N

GOVERNMENT DOMAIN QUESTIONS, AF1, 2008
493

APPENDIX O

IZ4 PRODUCT, “ISOLATING SADR CITY,”

4TH BCT, 10TH MOUNTAIN DIVISION, FALL 

2008

Isolating Sadr City—Anticipated Cultural and Political Consequences.

In an effort to isolate Jaish Al-Mahdi (JAM) activity and apply pressure to Muqtada al-Sadr’s political 

movement, the Government of Iraq and Coalition 

Forces (GoI and CF) have erected a series of walls to 

cut Sadr City off from the rest of Baghdad. The following paper anticipates likely consequences of this 

action in the context of Sadr City’s history and the 

growth of the Sadrist political movement therein. CF 

can expect extremely negative reactions from both Sadrist leadership and elements of Sadr City’s population, but an understanding of the cultural and political 

background from which these protests stem may enable CF to anticipate, understand and possibly mitigate fallout.

The City of the Revolution.

The area now known as Sadr City was built at 

the order of General Abdul Karim Qassim in the immediate aftermath of the 1958 revolution. It was the 

centerpiece of his widely-heralded national initiative 

to bring “social justice” to Iraq and better the lives 

of the poor, and was created to replace the sprawling, disease-ridden slums that had developed in East 

Baghdad during previous decades of uncontrolled urban migration from the rural South. It was named Madinat ath Thawra, “City of the Revolution,” and was 
494

intended to stand as a symbol of the new egalitarian 

ethic that would characterize Iraq’s future. 

The ambitious building project suffered from poor 

follow-through and subsequent negligence, however, 

and by the mid-sixties it had become an extraordinarily densely populated slum to which Shi’a tribesmen from southern Iraq continued to flock in search 

of work. Madinat ath Thawra became a fertile recruiting ground for radical opposition movements like 

the Iraqi Communist Party and the Da’wa Islamists, 

experiencing continued neglect from the government 

while cementing a national reputation as a turbulent, 

overcrowded, crime-ridden slum of poorly educated 

Shi’a. Referred as “the stronghold of heroes” in Shi’a 

Islamist literature, the area developed a localized 

pride in response to the hardships (often self-inflicted) 

its inhabitants endured. 

Saddam City.

Saddam Hussein renamed the area in his own 

honor after seizing power, but few benefits were extended to the President’s namesake community thereafter. Despite the Ba’th Party’s impressive nationwide 

development of public infrastructure and expansion 

of government services (facilitated by the oil-boom 

of the 1970s), the entire area lacked paved roads or a 

sewage system. Conditions deteriorated as the Iraqi 

economy neared collapse during the latter years of 

war with Iran, while its well-deserved reputation for 

crime, corruption and poverty earned it the continued 

scorn and derision of the broader Iraqi population. 

The sanctions regime established after the 1991 Gulf 

War further crippled the ability of the Iraqi government to extend basic services to its subjects, and the 
495

residents of Saddam City were largely left to fend for 

themselves. 

It was in this atmosphere that Mohammed Sadiq 

al-Sadr (aka Sadr II, father of MAS) built his constituency in Saddam City. Operating with the blessing of 

Saddam Hussein, Sadr II built a network of charities in 

the crowded slum which represented the first substantive, organized effort to care for the local population 

since General Qassim ordered the city’s construction. 

Sadr II was a political figure as much as a religious 

one, however, and his radical Islamist-populist rhetoric blamed both Western imperialism and government 

negligence for the plight of his followers. He rallied 

enormous support among the destitute Shi’a of Saddam City in the process, but his shift from client of 

Saddam to critic led to his killing at the order of the 

Iraqi president. 

Sadr City.

Sadr II’s name lives on—the area was renamed 

in his honor after Saddam Hussein’s removal, and 

the Office of the Martyr Sadr refers to him as well—

and localized pride has further solidified around his 

legacy. The slums of Sadr City now stand in many 

ways as a glaring reminder of the failures of successive Iraqi governments to deliver the “social justice” 

promised by General Qassim, and the Sadrist movement is now seen by significant elements of Baghdad’s 

impoverished Shi’a as the vehicle through which this 

downtrodden, ridiculed, and neglected constituency 

will finally find its voice in national politics. A sense 

of vengeance is evident in the political rhetoric of the 

movement as a result, and this has fueled the intensity 

of the Sadr-GoI rivalry because the better-educated, 
496

wealthier Shi’a of Da’wa and Supreme Islamic Iraqi 

Council (SIIC) will be the primary targets of Sadrist 

retribution. 

The Wall and Its Consequences.

The construction of a wall to isolate Sadr City from 

the rest of Baghdad has met with approval among 

much of the Iraqi population, which despises JAM and 

furthermore thinks very little of MAS’s constituents.1 

It remains to be seen whether the wall’s continued 

presence will enable the Sadrists to breathe renewed 

life into the area’s perceived historical legacy of neglect and oppression at the hands of both the West and 

the Iraqi government, however, around which Sadr 

II originally built his following. These themes interweave seamlessly with traditional Shi’a narratives of 

injustice and persecution, and it can be expected that 

related propaganda will resonate among the population of Sadr City. The wall will invite comparisons to 

Israel’s “security barriers,” and will be depicted in Sadrist propaganda as yet another iteration of the locals’ 

oppression at the hands of an uncaring central government and malicious Western imperialists. The Sadrists will strive to re-enforce their role as the only organization ever to meet the needs of the people in the 

area, and the wall may enable the Sadrist movement 

to rebuild support among its traditional constituents.

Historical Comparisons.

The example of the Berlin Wall has been cited in 

discussion as a model for the wall that will encircle 

Sadr City. The argument posits that the wall will 

punish Sadr City’s inhabitants for their facilitation of 
497

criminal and militia activity in their neighborhoods, 

while at the same time enable them to “look over the 

wall” to see the benefits of cooperation with GoI. The 

problem with the comparison to Cold War Germany, 

however, is that, in its application to Sadr City, the 

United States takes on the role of the Union of Soviet 

Socialist Republics, and GoI that of the German Democratic Republic. Historically, the builder of a wall is 

the party blamed for its existence and the suffering 

that ensues, as anger is typically directed toward the 

party directly responsible for a barrier as opposed to 

the more abstract concepts used to justify its existence.

ENDNOTE - APPENDIX O

1. The feelings of many Iraqis verge on hatred for the people 

of Sadr City. In a recent Human Terrain Team interview, an IA 

intelligence officer suggested that CD "seal off Sadr City and [use 

chemical weapons to] gas everyone inside" to solve current problems with JAM.
498

APPENDIX P

IZ4 4-SLIDE POWERPOINT PRESENTATION,

4TH BCT, 10TH MOUNTAIN DIVISION, 

FALL 2008
499

501

ACRONYMS, ABBREVIATIONS, 

AND GLOSSARY

AAA American Anthropological Association

AO Area of Operations

ASCOPE Areas, Structures, Capabilities, 

Organizations, People, Events

AWG Asymmetric Warfare Group

CA Civil Affairs

CALL Center for Army Lessons Learned

CAOCL Center for Advanced Operational 

Culture Learning

CENTCOM United States Central Command

C-IED Counter-Improvised Explosive Device

CIDNE Combined Information Data Network 

Exchange

CKC Cultural Knowledge Consortium

CNA Center for Naval Analyses

COIN Counterinsurgency

CONUS Continental United States

CONOPS Concept of Operations

COR-HTS Cultural Operations Research–Human 

Terrain System
502

DISCC Defense Intelligence Sociocultural 

Capabilities Council

DoD U.S. Department of Defense

DOTMLPF Doctrine, Organization, Training, 

Materiel, Leadership, Personnel, 

Facilities

DOTMLPF-P Doctrine, Organization, Training, 

Materiel, Leadership, Personnel, 

Facilities-Policy

FM 3-24 U.S. Army Field Manual (FM) 3-24, 

Counterinsurgency

FMSO Foreign Military Studies Office

G-2 Military Intelligence staff element 

commanded by a general officer

GAO Government Accountability Office

HTAT Human Terrain Analysis Team

HTS Human Terrain System

HTT Human Terrain Team

HRAF Human Relations Area Files

IED Improvised Explosive Device

IRB Institutional Review Board

IQATF Iraqi Advisor Task Force

JIEDDTF Joint Improvised Explosive Device 

Defeat Task Force
503

JIEDDO Joint Improvised Explosive Device 

Defeat Organization

JUONS Joint Urgent Operational Needs 

Statement

MAP-HT Mapping the Human Terrain

NIPRNet Non-Classified Internet Protocol 

Router Network

NGA National Geospatial-Intelligence 

Agency

NGO Nongovernmental Organization

OCO Overseas Contingency Operations

ONS Operational Needs Statement

OPT Operational Planning Team

OUSDI Office of the Under Secretary of 

Defense for Intelligence

PDT Program Development Team

PMESII Political, Military, Economic, Social, 

Infrastructure and Information

PSYOP Psychological Operations

RRC Research Reachback Center

S-2 Military Intelligence Staff

SfAA Society for American Anthropologists

SIPRNet Secret Internet Protocol Router 

Network
504

SME-Nets Subject Matter Expert-Networks

SOCOM Special Operations Command

SSRA Social Science Research and Analysis

SSWG Social Science Working Group

TIGR Tactical Ground Reporting System

TRADOC Training and Doctrine Command

TRISA Training and Doctrine Command 

Intelligence Support Activity

TCE Theater Coordination Element

TDA Table of Distribution and Allowances

TOE Table of Organization and Equipment

TSO Theater Support Office
U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE

Major General William E. Rapp

Commandant

*****

STRATEGIC STUDIES INSTITUTE

and

U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE PRESS

Director

Professor Douglas C. Lovelace, Jr.

Director of Research

Dr. Steven K. Metz

Author

Dr. Christopher Sims

Editor for Production

Dr. James G. Pierce

Publications Assistant

Ms. Rita A. Rummel

*****

Composition

Mrs. Jennifer E. Nevil

This Publication SSI Website

FOR THIS AND OTHER PUBLICATIONS, VISIT US AT

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