i

The United States Army War College

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iii

v

Strategic Studies Institute

and

U.S. Army War College Press

TRAINING HUMANS 

FOR THE HUMAN DOMAIN

Dr. Steve Tatham

with 

Mr. Keir Giles

November 2015

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

do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the 

Department of the Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. 

Government. Authors of Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) and 

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official U.S. policy. Such academic freedom empowers them to 

offer new and sometimes controversial perspectives in the interest of furthering debate on key issues. This report is cleared for 

public release; distribution is unlimited.

*****

This publication is subject to Title 17, United States Code, 

Sections 101 and 105. It is in the public domain and may not be 

copyrighted.
vi

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be forwarded to: Director, Strategic Studies Institute and U.S. 

Army War College Press, U.S. Army War College, 47 Ashburn 

Drive, Carlisle, PA 17013-5010. 

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ISBN 1-58487-704-9
vii

FOREWORD

In this timely monograph, British authors Mr. 

Keir Giles and Dr. Steve Tatham fuse key lessons 

from two disparate theaters to argue persuasively 

for greater education of Army personnel in human 

terrain disciplines. 

Dr. Tatham, an expert in strategic communications 

and influence operations with extensive experience 

in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Mr. Giles, a long-term 

scholar of Russian military and political decisionmaking processes, both contribute a wealth of accessible 

examples and anecdotes to argue their case for greater 

investment in human domain skills, both as an insurance against future conflict and in order to prevail in 

that conflict should it be joined. Drawing on a range 

of sources across social science and linguistics, they 

make the crucial point that both commanders and 

junior personnel must be not only prepared but also 

educated to set aside their cultural, social, and even 

linguistic preconceptions in order to accurately assess 

the options open to an adversary. 

The conclusions they draw are an important contribution to the debate on the future shape of the U.S. 

Army, and in particular to the training and preparation required for Regionally Aligned Forces. The Strategic Studies Institute recommends this monograph 

to planners and policymakers considering force structure and training, but also specifically to planners for 

regional engagement. 

 

 

 DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR.

 Director

 Strategic Studies Institute and

 U.S. Army War College Press

ix

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

STEVE TATHAM is the United Kingdom’s (UK) longest continuously serving officer in information activities. Between 1998 and 2003, he worked in Media 

Operations, covering conflicts in Sierra Leone (2000), 

Afghanistan (2001), and Iraq (2003), where he was 

public spokesman for the invasion. Between 2003 

and 2013, he worked in Information Operations and 

Psychological Operations. Dr. Tatham was the Commanding Officer of 15 (UK) Psychological Operations 

(PsyOps) Group from 2010-2013, during which time 

he deployed on multiple occasions to Afghanistan, 

was involved at the operational level in operations 

in Libya, and has deployed to East Africa in an advisory role. During his tenure in command, and in a 

tight fiscal climate, he expanded the PsyOps Group by 

81% by demonstrating the centrality of PsyOps to UK 

military operations to previously skeptical military 

commanders and budgeteers. 

In 2007 he advised the then commander of British 

Forces in Afghanistan on influence operations when 

the strategically vital town of Musa Qala was retaken 

by British and Afghan forces. The Pentagon later described that operation as the “single best thing to come 

out of Afghanistan.” Dr. Tatham is co-founder of the 

Influence Advisory Panel and in early-2014 left the 

UK military to pursue a career in business. He is Director of Operations at IOTA Global Ltd, a commercial 

Information Operations company. Dr. Tatham is the 

author of two books: Losing Arab Hearts & Minds: The 

Coalition, Al-Jazeera and Muslim Public Opinion (Hurst 

& Co, 2006) and Behavioural Conflict: Why Understanding People’s Motivations Will Prove Decisive In Future 

Conflict (Military Studies Press, 2012). Dr. Tatham 
holds both an M.Phil. and a Ph.D. in international relations, both focusing on ideas of influence and strategic 

communication in conflict areas.

KEIR GILES is the director of the Conflict Studies Research Centre (CSRC), a group of deep subject matter 

experts on Eurasian security formerly attached to the 

United Kingdom (UK) Ministry of Defence. Now operating in the private sector, CSRC provides in-depth 

analysis on a wide range of security issues affecting 

Russia and its relations with overseas partners. After 

beginning his career working with paramilitary aviation in Russia and Ukraine immediately following 

the fall of the Soviet Union, Mr. Giles joined the BBC 

Monitoring Service (BBCM) to report on political and 

military affairs in the former Soviet space. While attached from BBCM to CSRC at the UK Defence Academy, he wrote and briefed for UK and North Atlantic 

Treaty Organization (NATO) government agencies on 

a wide range of Russian defense and security issues. 

Uniquely, he is a double Associate Fellow of the Royal 

Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) in 

London, UK, as well as a regular contributor to research projects on Russian security issues in both the 

UK and Europe. Mr. Giles’s work has appeared in 

a wide range of academic and military publications 

across Europe and in the United States.

x
xi

SUMMARY

This monograph offers an outline for educating 

U.S. and allied service personnel in fundamental human domain skills and argues against their being 

overlooked in favor of technical solutions. Experience 

from Afghanistan and Iraq has demonstrated the vital 

nature of understanding human terrain, with conclusions relevant far beyond counterinsurgency operations in the Islamic world. Any situation where adversary actions are described as “irrational” demonstrates 

a fundamental failure in understanding the human 

dimension of the conflict. It follows that where states 

and their leaders act in a manner that in the United 

States is perceived as irrational, this too betrays a lack 

of human knowledge. The monograph highlights specific elements of psychology, theology, anthropology, 

sociology, and linguistics as key requirements for the 

understanding of human terrain, which is necessary 

for avoiding mirroring—projecting Western assumptions onto a non-Western actor—and therefore failing 

correctly to assess the options available to that actor. 

The monograph argues for stronger Red Team 

input into planning and decisionmaking. These Red 

Teams need to be equipped with expert levels of 

knowledge of all the social sciences discussed—as 

applied to their target subject—in order to provide 

reliable and well-founded simulations of adversary 

decision processes. But over and above this, familiarity with the same principles should be far more widespread both among junior military personnel engaged 

in any kind of interaction with human allies or adversaries, and among the senior audience assimilating 

Red Team input into planning. 
This is because this input will by its very nature 

be counterintuitive for individuals not specializing in 

the region concerned. Commanders will receive advice that appears to make no sense, in isolation from 

their other data streams and apparently contradicting 

them. The ability to assess this counterintuitive input 

grounded in an alien culture and language is a key 

issue of education, and requires a place in senior officer education planning. The approach could then be 

exercised in downstream training and predeployment 

courses. 

xii
1

TRAINING HUMANS FOR THE 

HUMAN DOMAIN INTRODUCTION

We have to think differently about how we run operations, and we have to focus them on human objectives.

Major General William C. Hix, Deputy Director,

Army Capabilities Integration Center,

U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command.1

“[Armed Conflict] is fundamentally a human endeavor” declares the U.S. Strategic Landpower Task 

Force in its May 2013 White Paper.2 After 13 years 

of bloody counterinsurgency fighting in Iraq and 

Afghanistan, this seems a rather self-evident proposition. But it is not only U.S. strategic planners who 

feel it is necessary to restate it. The United Kingdom’s 

(UK) Doctrine and Concepts Development Centre 

(DCDC) declared in its 2010 “Future Character of 

Conflict” paper that war would continue to be:

an unpredictable and uniquely human activity in 

which the adversaries’ logic would not be ‘our’ logic, 

and thus ‘our’ abilities to understand the adversaries 

would be challenging.3

Why are the two statements apparently not obvious? In both reports, all becomes clear just a few 

short sentences later. The U.S. Landpower Task 

Force notes that conflict is not “merely a contest of 

technology” while DCDC notes that:

The rapidly evolving character of operations in Iraq 

and Afghanistan should not have surprised us . . . but 

it appears to have been partly obscured by a wave of 

RMA [Revolution in Military Affairs] -induced hubris 

after the Cold War. Those conflicts are neither exact 
2

models for every possible future war, but nor are they 

atypical in that both have re-taught us that the enemy 

gets a vote.4

In short, both organizations are noting that we 

may have been seduced into believing that advanced 

battlefield technology would solve all of our problems. “What we’ve seen since the beginning of war 

in Afghanistan is a revolution equal to that inspired 

by the introduction of gunpowder, the machine gun 

or the tank,” says Peter W. Singer, former director 

of the 21st Century Defense Initiative at The Brookings Institution and author of Wired For War.

5 Elsewhere he notes: “Unmanned systems, unused and 

unwanted at the beginning, are now saving the lives 

of thousands of soldiers.”6 For all that this is true, 

and technology is now a vital feature of warfighting, 

in the 5 years after Singer made that declaration on 

the Army Technology website,7that technology did 

not allow the U.S.-led coalition to prevail against the 

Taliban, nor did the West’s legacy in Iraq endure as 

expected in the face of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) rebels. Technology, it would appear, may 

not be quite as seminal to the outcome as some may 

have hoped.

It is easy to see why both organizations have felt 

the need to address basics. In 2003, then U.S. Secretary 

of Defense Donald Rumsfeld believed that America 

could rely on precision guided munitions and a light 

footprint to depose Saddam Hussein from power in 

Iraq. Rumsfeld wanted a clinical war that would be 

swift, decisive, and cheap in both dollars and U.S. 

lives. He succeeded in disposing of Saddam, but the 

result is that, 11 years later, Iraq is still a deeply conflict-riven nation. So too in Afghanistan, the ruling 
3

Taliban was ejected quickly enough from government 

by aerial bombardment and special forces operations. 

Ejection, however, is not defeat, and in the nearly 13 

years that followed the Taliban have most certainly 

not been defeated, despite the overwhelming technological advantage of the United States and its allies. 

With so much money having been spent on technology,

8

warfighting from the Western perspective has 

evolved almost beyond recognition; at the start of 

this author’s military career, many of the techniques 

and technologies employed on today’s battlefield belonged firmly in the realm of science fiction. Nevertheless, numerous studies of contemporary conflict show 

that the possession of overwhelming firepower, intelligence, and technology is no guarantee of military 

success.

With technology has come more sophisticated intelligence gathering: there have been enhancements 

throughout electronic intelligence (ELINT), geographic intelligence (GEOINT), signal intelligence (SIGINT), 

cyber intelligence (CYBINT), measurement and signal 

intelligence (MASINT), and more. Even the nature of 

human intelligence (HUMINT) collection has been 

transformed. In this context, there is a significant lag 

in arguably one of the most important intelligence 

streams for modern warfare—population intelligence 

(POPINT).

Russian operations in Crimea in early-2014 provide a clear example of how full command of POPINT 

can lead to swift and decisive strategic gains—in this 

case, with barely a shot fired.9This is in stark contrast 

to the point made by numerous U.S. and allied commanders in assessments and post-operational tour reports, that deficiencies in this area lead to a failure to 

leverage other intelligence inputs to actually enhance 

understanding.
4

According to General Stanley McChrystal, “We 

need to understand how the enemy interacts with the 

people.”10 Major General Mike Flynn notes that:

Our intelligence apparatus still finds itself unable to 

answer fundamental questions about the environment 

in which we operate and the people we are trying to 

protect and persuade.11

General David Petraeus said as long ago as 2008 that:

What [we’re] dealing with is much more complex and 

much more nuanced than what we were trained to do. 

. . . It’s about understanding the human terrain, really 

understanding it.12

Collectively, this gap in understanding gives rise 

to the entirely misplaced concept of irrationality in 

adversary actions. Seemingly inexplicable events—for 

example, a suicide bombing or the rejection of civilmilitary cooperation (CIMIC) projects—are too often 

dismissed as irrational. This is a word that has featured extensively in reports at every level—patrol, 

company, battalion, and brigade. But to simply dismiss established human behavior as irrational is to 

demonstrate a significant failure in understanding the 

human domain. War is a human endeavor, and humans are rational creatures, even if guided by a logic 

that follows principles and assumptions different from

our own. The challenge, therefore, is to arrive at an 

understanding of these principles and assumptions.

This speaks of a vital element missing from our 

collective armories, despite the breathtaking pace 

of innovation in human domain studies during the 

post-September 11, 2001 (9/11) conflicts. Indeed an 

entire new lexicon of conflict seems to have grown up, 
5

together with capabilities to support it; Human Terrain Systems (HTS-U.S.); Defence Cultural Advisors 

(CULADS-UK); Human Terrain Analysis (HTA); 

Socio-cultural Analysis; Target Audience Analysis (TAA); “Influence”; the list is long. As Winston 

Churchill never quite said, never in the field of human 

conflict have so many acronyms been invented in so 

few years. But after some 13 years of development of

these concepts during war in two countries, it may be 

that the problem is not the existence of a specific capability, but the attention and resources, or lack of them, 

devoted to it by command.

This is further evidenced by the fact that the basic 

principles of understanding human terrain can hardly 

be described as new. At an operator level, these principles were accessible even before the United States 

engaged in its 21st century wars. As stated in one U.S. 

Marine Corps analysis of Russian military campaigns 

in the 1990s:

The first thing you must do—and it is priority number 

one—is study the people. You must know the psychological makeup of not only the combatants you might 

face but that of the local populace as well. Understand 

your enemy in detail—but not only from a military 

and political perspective—but also from a cultural 

viewpoint. If you underestimate the importance of 

this, you are on a road to decisive defeat.13

As in all conflicts, the military has learned and 

adapted relatively quickly; very often however this 

adaption has been driven from the ground up. What 

is required now is for policymakers, too, to properly 

understand the contribution that new asymmetric

capabilities can have if they are properly resourced, 

and if the tribal inclinations of more conventionally-
6

minded senior officers to focus exclusively on hard 

power resources can be tempered and nuanced.

A Starting Point for Cultural Awareness.

A prevalent myth of cross-cultural misunderstanding revolves around attempts by English-speaking 

car manufacturers to sell into Spanish-speaking markets. Sales of the Chevrolet Nova in Latin America 

(or the Vauxhall Nova in Spain, depending on your 

continent) were a dismal failure until the vehicle was 

renamed. Manufacturers had not reckoned on confusion between Nova and “no va,” “doesn’t go” in 

Spanish. The story is a prime example of delusion 

based on incomprehension of a foreign culture—not 

because it is true, but because it is so universally believed, despite not being possible (a Spanish speaker will point out that cars do not “go,” they could 

instead functionar or caminar, and furthermore the 

difference in stress of the two syllables of Nova/

no va prevents confusion). To drive the point home, 

Vauxhall Novas were in fact manufactured in Spain.

There are other, factual, examples that make the 

case equally well. The German aircraft manufacturer 

Grob was bemused at its failure to penetrate the Russian market in the early-1990s, until they were finally 

convinced by their local advisers that the Russian 

word гроб (grob) does indeed mean “coffin.” Comic 

tales of incomprehension even between notionally 

similar languages like British and U.S. English are 

commonplace. But even these can lead to serious consequences; as, for instance, when:

a surprise multinational nuclear weapons inspection 

on a suspected nuclear facility in Iraq was fouled up 
7

because Americans counted the ground floor as the 

first floor while Brits counted the first floor as the one 

above the ground floor.14

The point of introducing these stories is to underline the critical importance of cross-cultural awareness 

in any human interaction, all the more so in a conflict 

environment. Precise understanding of what you are 

communicating to both ally and adversary is essential. Examples are also rife from the current context 

of engagement in Afghanistan. One problem is the 

absence of a directly equivalent word for the English 

noun “reconciliation”—quite a key word given International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) objectives—

in the Afghan Pashto language. Interpreters have to 

make a choice from different words to establish context; that choice, of course, being heavily influenced 

by their own education and understanding. One of 

the words they may choose is “surrender.” This will 

almost always be wholly unsuitable for both sides, 

but non-Pashto speaking officers may be entirely unaware of what they have just proposed through their 

interpreter to the other side. Similarly, former British 

Ambassador to Kabul Sherard Cowper-Coles recalls a 

briefing note given to the Governor of Kandahar province in 2010. The first page of the note included a bullet 

point, in English, suggesting that the Governor should 

“develop a plan for Kandahar,” whereas in Pashto, it 

offered him “a development plan for Kandahar.”

The final example in this series is one of direct 

relevance to communicating the aims of any current or planned U.S. military presence in Islamic 

nations. The phrase that comes so readily to Englishspeaking lips is “boots on the ground”—yet to some 

audiences, this in itself can be offensive and convey 
8

hostile intent. According to Mohamed Yehia of the 

BBC Arabic broadcasting service:

It’s not used in Arabic because we have a problem 

with boots. Footwear in general in Islamic culture has 

this negative connotation. . . . Boots are something humiliating or unclean.15

As all these examples illustrate, a lack of visibility 

into the cultural and linguistic framework of your audience, and a consequent failure to understand the importance of the right words in context for a particular 

situation, in a benign environment will be expensive, 

embarrassing, or just plain confusing. In less benign 

environments, and particularly in conflicts, this confusion can be dangerous. Even after the experiences of 

Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. and allied military personnel still appear to need a much more detailed understanding of why this is.16

The challenge, as forces draw down from counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan, is to determine 

which capabilities will endure and what is the right 

resource balance to strike between a conventional 

warfighting apparatus and less kinetic options. In 

the current debate, as preparations for conventional 

high-intensity warfare are re-emphasized, there is 

danger of leaving behind valuable lessons learned 

from counterinsurgency experience—despite the 

fact that they reach far beyond counterinsurgency 

doctrine itself.

The UK military is now grading some levels of 

competency as “expert,” “practitioner,” or “familiar.” 

This monograph will advance the idea that in future 

operations, alongside conventional military weapon 

systems, combat forces must be at a minimum “famil-
9

iar” with four “ologies” and one “istics”: Psychology; 

Theology; Anthropology, Sociology, and Linguistics.17

Levels of this kind of competency are clearly related 

to the role of the individual, but this monograph will 

argue that all personnel will require at least this familiarity. Some will need expert knowledge of at least 

one “ology” and a language, and many more will need 

practitioner status.

These apparently unconventional and asymmetric capabilities need not only to beprotected, on the 

grounds that mastery of the human domain of conflict 

requires the involvement and understanding of actual 

humans; but also expanded because, as demonstrated 

by the U.S. military’s Foreign Area Officer (FAO) program, proper investment in these capabilities has the 

potential to bring positive results in achieving U.S. 

aims globally, which are out of all proportion to the expenditure required. This is a reflection of the increasing importance of the so-called “Strategic Corporal.”18

It is now well-understood that strategic effect can be 

generated by the lowest rank on the battlefield; once 

again, the Russian seizure of Crimea provides a clear 

and topical example. Security camera footage of the 

confrontation at the doors of the Crimean parliament 

in Simferopol shows clearly how confrontation and 

discussion between single individuals determined 

the bloodless takeover of the building, and hence the 

exclusion of parliamentarians loyal to Ukraine, and 

eventually the parliament’s resulting illegal vote to 

secede.19
10

THE “OLOGIES”

Theology.

The issue of God and of religion, and what their role 

should be in a military context (if, indeed, any role at 

all) has proved troublesome for Western armed forces 

as a whole. Of course, these forces have had chaplains 

among their ranks from the earliest days of organized 

armed force; but their role traditionally has been the 

provision of pastoral care to soldiers, sailors, and airmen. Typically the largest denomination among these 

militaries has been Christian, and thus most ministers 

and pastors have been drawn from the Christian religion to meet that need. However, over the last 50 

years, the cultural and religious mix of post-modern 

Western societies, and the militaries drawn from 

them, has changed significantly. As a result, chaplains 

have been augmented in the militaries of the United 

States, UK, and others by their equivalent ministers 

from the Jewish, Muslim, and other faiths. In the UK, 

the first Muslim “chaplain,” Imam Asim Hafiz, was 

appointed by the Muslim Council of Great Britain to 

the UK’s Armed Forces in 2005. Initially his role was 

exactly that of his Christian colleagues—to look after 

the spiritual and pastoral needs of Muslim members 

of the Armed Forces. Yet, he increasingly found that 

he also became a de facto fount of knowledge on Islam to soldiers of every rank, religion, and level of 

seniority. Slowly his role evolved, and increasingly he 

found himself deployed on operations—most notably 

on an extended tour in Helmand province, Afghanistan—to assist commanders in dialog with the Afghan 

community and religious leaders. Today, he has left 

his original pastoral duties to others, and is serving 
11

as the Islamic adviser to the three Service Chiefs. This

represents a significant change in emphasis, and one 

brought about by a rapidly evolving operating environment.

That this change took place in the UK Armed 

Forces underlines its significance. In recent decades, 

the UK military had followed the trend of officiallyencouraged secularism derived not only from a declining sense of the place and importance of religion 

in public society, but also from the previous Labour 

governments’ emphasis on “multi-cultural Britain.”

When former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair was 

interviewed about the role of religion in politics and 

began to discuss his faith, he was interrupted by an 

influential political adviser who declared that “we 

[the government] don’t do God.”20 A senior British 

cleric declared in 2014 that Britain was now a postreligious society, that Britain was not a nation of believers, and that the era of widespread worship was 

over.

21 The comments by the former Archbishop of 

Canterbury, the leader of the Anglican Church, came 

in response to a letter in a major UK newspaper from 

50 prominent public figures insisting that the UK was 

“a non-religious” and “plural” society and that to call 

it Christian fostered “alienation and division.”22 Attitudes like this appear to be borne out in surveys of the 

British Armed Forces:

analysis of new Ministry of Defence figures suggests 

that atheists and agnostics could overtake Christians in the ranks of the military in just 18 years. The 

number of Army, Royal Navy, and RAF personnel 

declaring themselves as Christians fell by more than 

10 percent in just 18 months. At the same time, the 

number describing themselves as ‘secular ‘ or ‘no 

religion’ rose by almost 9 percent.23
12

Yet this same military recognized the crucial role 

of religion in conflict.

The U.S. forces reportedly face different challenges 

and controversies in addressing the issue of religion. 

In a 2013 report entitled “For God and Country,” former National Security Council member James E. Parco 

suggested that a fundamentalist brand of Christianity had infused American military culture. Christian 

fundamentalism, the report declared, was on the rise 

within the U.S. Armed Forces, a trend evidenced by 

explicitly sectarian behavior of senior military leaders. 

Parco described commanders using the power of their 

positions to evangelize and force a narrow sectarian 

view on U.S. military institutions and service members, with little to no accountability.24 Conversely, 

some groups and organizations are concerned at efforts to moderate religious expression (meaning, in effect, Christianity). One such, the American Center for 

Law and Justice (ACLJ), reports that:

groups are already actively engaged in filing lawsuits 

against the DOD and its leaders over various concerns 

about religious expression in the armed services . . . 

their views on church-state separation go well beyond 

what the Constitution and U.S. law require. In fact, 

they endanger the very freedoms the First Amendment was intended to protect.25

In the U.S. context too, consideration of how to 

educate military personnel in religion as an integral 

element of other cultures first has to contend with 

domestic controversy. But this is an essential step if 

those cultures are to be successfully understood and 

engaged. At a conference in September 2014, Imam 

Asim Hafiz explained the difference between the West 

and many of the societies to which Western militar-
13

ies are deployed. With significant understatement, he 

told an audience of British military officers that “you 

are seen as being slightly odd if you start a meeting 

with a prayer, or if you declare in the office your religious faith and conviction.” He then continued:

Yet in the countries where the UK currently finds itself 

deployed on operations—all Muslim— you are seen to 

be odd if you do not start your day or your meetings 

with a prayer.

The crucial point is that:

if you are a U.S. or British soldier in the Muslim world, 

there is an absolute belief that you must be a Christian—to profess no religious conviction is beyond 

most people’s comprehension.26

In conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, in mentoring in Yemen, in Somalia, in Djibouti, and in evolving 

operations against the Islamic State (IS), the absolute 

centrality of religion for the population is one of the 

fundamental defining features of the human domain.

Religion is thus central to contemporary operations. Wahid Feroz is an Afghan-born British-educated cultural adviser to the commander ISAF in Afghanistan. At a North Atlantic Treaty Organization 

(NATO) training center in Oberammergau, Germany, 

he explained ways in which religious nuance could 

instantly negate the effect of seemingly straightforward messaging. He explained to the NATO Senior 

Information Operations course that in Afghanistan: 

“we were stuck on moral messaging . . . don’t commit crime, don’t grow poppies, don’t lay IEDs [improvised explosive devices].”27 But he had to advise 
14

the commander of the Joint PsyOps Task Group in 

Afghanistan (CJPOTF) that this messaging was likely 

to fail because the appeal to morality did not, in fact, 

resonate in an Islamic context. While the Quran could 

establish the morality or immorality of certain behaviors—many of them deeply contradictory to Western 

notions of what is moral—there is also an allowance 

for pragmatism, one that allows followers to break 

moral laws if they have to do so to survive.

A detailed knowledge of Islam cannot be expected of every soldier. But familiarity with the different 

moral framework that it provides is essential for any 

military personnel operating in an Islamic environment—as the proliferation of “green-on-blue” incidents in Afghanistan testified. Still more so, planners 

and senior leaders need to have informed advice on 

the religious context available to them when considering operations in parts of the world other than the 

Americas and Europe. This implies a recognition that 

these planners and commanders may not have all the 

answers to the military problems with which they 

are confronted, and that solutions may come from

unlikely quarters.

In short, our men and women do need to be armed 

with a more nuanced understanding of the centrality and importance of religion and faith—both to the 

populations among which operations are undertaken 

and, perhaps unexpectedly, in the religious values that 

those same populations will expect our troops to possess. We might call this the need for the development, 

through education, of a reflexive understanding.
15

Anthropology.

British anthropologist Edward B. Tylor wrote in 

his 1871 book “Primitive Culture” that the full range 

of learned human behavior patterns should be considered as the study of culture: “that complex whole 

which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, 

custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired 

by man as a member of society.”28 Since Tylor’s time, 

the concept of culture has become a core focus of the 

study of anthropology. Since 9/11, there has been a 

growing acceptance and understanding of the need 

for cultural awareness and knowledge when dealing 

with adversaries whose culture is entirely different.

In early stages of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, cultural awareness covered simplistic advice—

take off your shoes, don’t eat with your left hand, talk 

only with men, and so on. Although this is undoubtedly knowledge that all soldiers should have when 

encountering foreign customs, it is not cultural anthropology—in fact, it has not evolved far from handbooks issued to U.S. servicemen on the cultural differences they would encounter when passing through 

the UK in 1942-45.29

Instead, it is a deeper understanding of the human 

domain that is vital, and in this area significant improvements were later achieved. According to Major 

General Ben Freakley, Commander of Joint Task Force 

76 in Afghanistan:

Cultural awareness will not necessarily always enable 

us to predict what the enemy and non-combatants will 

do, but it will help us better understand what motivates them, what is important to the host nation in 

which we serve and how we can either elicit the support of the population or at least diminish their support and aid to the enemy.30
16

In a bid to understand the cultural dimension of 

21st century warfare, the Foreign Military Studies 

Office (FMSO), based at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 

began the task of establishing and deploying the Human Terrain System (HTS)—five-man teams comprised of social scientists and military personnel, who 

could advise commanders at operational and tactical 

levels on cultural awareness shortcomings. This was 

not a new idea; in the Vietnam War the U.S. military established, together with the South Vietnamese 

government, a Civil Operations and Revolutionary 

Development Support program (CORDS), designed 

specifically to “win hearts and minds.” CORDS was

premised on the belief that the war would be won 

(or lost) not on the battlefield, but in the struggle 

for the loyalty of the people. As HTS scheme instigator Jacob Kipp observes: “While history offers 

many examples of insurgencies worthy of study, the 

HTS concept has been largely inspired by lessons 

drawn from the U.S. experience in Vietnam.” A 2007 

Department of Defense report on HTS noted:

The local population in the area of conflict—the human terrain—must be considered as a distinct and 

critical element of the battlespace. Therefore, the Human Terrain Team [sic] seeks to integrate and apply 

sociocultural knowledge of the indigenous population 

to military operations in support of the commander’s 

objectives. In the words of one HTT member, ’One

anthropologist can be much more effective than a B-2 

bomber—not winning a war, but creating a peace one 

Afghan at a time.’31

By April 14, 2007, 38 HTS personnel were deployed in Iraq, distributed among five teams. Of 

those, eight were social scientists, and 13 spoke 
17

Arabic. Their deployment was clearly popular, and 

they gained involvement in a number of key issues. 

While their primary task was to provide commanders with relevant socio-cultural knowledge and understanding and to provide specialists able to help 

integrate that understanding into the military decisionmaking process, there was a secondary task of 

key importance—the HTS teams sought to minimize 

the loss of knowledge and local understanding that 

occurred every time a unit rotated out of theater. The 

DoD report cited earlier noted:

That soldiers on their second—or third—tours possess inestimable knowledge about the area in which 

they are operating is undeniable. Yet, as currently organized, combat brigades do not possess the organic 

staff capability or assets to organize this knowledge ...

Therefore, it is the job of HTS to take the knowledge 

these soldiers have gleaned, to examine the information already being gathered on the ground on a daily 

basis, engage in original research, and consider this information in terms of broader issues from a different 

perspective in order to add to the brigade commander’s situational awareness of the social, economic, political, cultural and psychological factors at work in 

the environment.32

In a similar manner to the difficulties with religion 

described earlier, the HTS scheme encountered considerable criticism for entirely domestic reasons unrelated to military or strategic objectives. This came, for 

example, from the American Anthropological Association, which expressed concern at the teams’ ability 

to “fulfill their ethical responsibilities” as anthropologists. Indeed, criticism of the issue has formed the basis of a whole sector of academic writing, exemplified 

by “The Counter, Counter-Insurgency Manual,” written by the Network of Concerned Anthropologists.
18

But within a military context, the reaction was different. Colonel Martin Schweitzer, Deputy Commander for Operations of the 82nd Airborne Division, told 

The New York Times that his unit’s combat operations 

in Afghanistan had “been reduced by 60 percent since 

the scientists arrived in February [2007],” while Colonel David Woods of the 73rd Cavalry told the paper 

that “you have to evolve, otherwise you are useless.”33

In a fascinating exchange in the journal Survival, a U.S. 

Marine relayed his personal experiences of cultural 

awareness from operations in Bosnia, Fallujah, and 

the Horn of Africa, which were then dissected by four 

anthropologists. At the crux of the Marine’s view was 

that: “Anthropology and ethnography teach us to listen well, ask good questions and develop a broad yet 

critical understanding of ethnic conflict.”34

The UK response to this challenge was the formation of the Defence Cultural Specialist Unit (DCSU) 

in 2010, taking serving regular and reserve officers 

and training them in Afghan languages and cultural 

anthropology. Unfortunately, given normal British 

resource constraints, the unit only ever had capacity 

for a tiny number of officers—designated CULADS—

and the necessarily extensive training program, lasting over a year, meant that only a handful were able 

to finally deploy to Helmand. However, the impact of 

those that did was profound.35

Captain, and later Dr., Mike Martin was one of 

the graduates of that scheme. Trained in Pashtu 

language and culture, he spent an extended period in the field in Helmand engaging with local 

people. He concluded that, counter to the prevailing 

wisdom:

the Taliban were not the ‘main drivers of violence’. 

Instead, conflict was driven by Helmandi individuals, 
19

including local politicians and tribal chiefs, and their 

personal motivations. It is therefore more of a civil war 

between clans than a clash between the ‘good’ government of Afghanistan and the ‘bad’ Taliban.36

This was sufficiently contrary to the received wisdom 

of the time on the nature of the conflict to show that 

there had been a basic misunderstanding of human 

terrain—of the people and their motivations. Speaking anonymously, an experienced U.S. Army officer 

and cultural expert said, “The absence of a strategy 

forced us into someone else’s civil war and only now 

are we trying to figure out what it is all about. Answer—not us.” This unwelcome finding ran directly 

counter to the prevailing political and strategic narrative for Allied presence in Afghanistan.

This illustrates the often-forgotten necessity for 

“Red Teams,” which will provide commanders with 

a view of the same situation from a foreign or enemy 

perspective. This is the only reliable way of avoiding 

flawed decisions through mirroring our own perceptions, preconceptions, training, education, and world 

view onto an enemy for whom all of these things in 

which decisionmaking is framed may be profoundly 

different. But the successful adoption of this essential 

advice requires an acceptance of the counterintuitive. 

Commanders need to be forewarned, and accept, that 

they will receive advice that may appear nonsensical, which quite possibly they will hear from nowhere else, and that a leap of faith will be required to 

have confidence that this advice is grounded in solid 

knowledge of the human domain in which they are 

operating. This issue is one of education, and needs 

to figure prominently on professional training and 

senior officer education courses.
20

Although both HTS and DCSU were comparative 

latecomers to the Afghan battlefield, and both were 

beset with difficulties—size, funding, controversy, 

rear support, acceptance by operational commanders—both were tangible demonstrations of two issues. First, Western militaries, could if they wished, 

adapt quickly to fill gaps in their knowledge and to be 

agile in their operations. Second, both demonstrated 

the centrality of people in future conflict. As demonstrated in Crimea in early-2014—and any number of 

major conflicts that have involved popular or partisan resistance—that centrality is not just restricted to 

counterinsurgency operations, but extends to more 

conventional state on state interactions as well.

It follows that detailed understanding of foreign 

cultures at all levels of seniority is an essential prerequisite for success of the U.S. Army’s regionally aligned 

forces concept. Cultural awareness is fundamental to 

the aspiration for these forces voiced by General Ray 

Odierno, to “identify brewing conflicts before they get 

out of hand . . . better understand the enemy and work 

more effectively with the host population.”37 The U.S. 

Armed Forces already benefit from a prototype of 

these “more culturally sophisticated soldiers” in the 

form of the FAO program. But the extensive education process that is required to allow FAOs to combine 

their existing military skills with specific regional expertise, language competency, and political-military 

awareness highlights the scale of the challenge in delivering even attenuated versions of these competencies across units as a whole.38
21

Psychology/Sociology.

At the turn of the 20th century, a number of researchers began conducting groundbreaking experiments into human behavior and intelligence. In 1913, 

Carl Jung began the development of ideas that, in time, 

would become formalized as analytical psychology. 

In the same year, John B. Watson published Psychology 

as the Behaviorist Views It, which suggested that human 

behavior could be determined from conditioned responses.

39 In 1915, Sigmund Freud published his work 

on repression, and in 1917, Robert Yerkes introduced 

the first intelligence tests in the United States. In 1954, 

Abraham Maslow published Motivation and Personality, describing the theory of a hierarchy of needs, 

which has guided so much of this academic sector 

ever since.40 In 1961, Albert Bandura conducted his 

Bobo doll experiment, to determine whether children 

became violent as a result of television or games, and 

subsequently linked observational learning to personality development. In 1974, Stanly Milgram published

Obedience to Authority, presenting the findings of his 

now infamous obedience experiments.41

These experiments were just part of a series conducted throughout this period to consider the relationships between attitudes and behaviors. This 

research would have deep resonance for contemporary military operations. One early and often-quoted

study was conducted by Richard LaPiere, wherein 

he described 2 years of traveling across the United 

States by car with a couple of Chinese ethnicity. During that time, they visited 251 hotels and restaurants 

and were turned away only once. At the conclusion 

of their travels, LaPiere posted a survey to each of 

the businesses they had visited with the question, 
22

“Will you accept members of the Chinese race in 

your establishment?” The available responses were 

“Yes,” “No,” and “Depends upon the circumstances.” Of the 128 that responded, 92 percent answered 

“No.” This study was seminal in establishing the gap 

between attitudes and behaviors.42

LaPiere’s findings were confirmed by those of 

Fishbein and Azjen in 1947,43 and further work has 

continued to this day. The unequivocal consensus of 

this collected research was that attitudes are very poor 

predictors of behavior. According to one influential 

social psychology text: “The original thesis that attitudes determine actions was countered in the 1960s 

by the antithesis that attitudes determine virtually

nothing.”44

In recent years, that accumulated research and 

wisdom has coalesced into a process of understanding 

human behavior and its motivations that has direct 

relevance to military operations that seek to influence 

populations. Application of the principles of this research continues to provide counterintuitive but important input into resolving security problems.

The implication for military operations is greater 

predictability of adversary actions. A deeper understanding of psychological and sociological principles 

of determining and describing cultural differences 

would be sufficient to banish the notion of irrationality from post-operational reports. By now, the principle is well-established that kinetic operations are 

costly, can go wrong, and may lead to unexpected 

second order consequences; whereas non-kinetic activity, particularly that anchored in human behavior, can have longer lasting and far less expensive 

outcomes. But to understand what is achievable 

through these operations, when, and how, takes an 
23

intelligent and questioning customer base. In other 

words, adopting smarter human domain operations

in order to achieve greater effect for less cost once 

again requires an increased level of education of relatively junior military leaders in the basic principles of 

human behavior.

Linguistics.

Linguistics is the study of languages, not just the 

learning of a language. It includes within it numerous other disciplines such as the theory of translation, 

lexicography, and semiotics (the study of signs and 

symbols associated with languages). It is a complex 

subject, but its mastery opens a significant and often 

underappreciated window of understanding into other nationalities, their ethnicity, lives, culture, history, 

geography and—most importantly for military operations—the drivers for specific behaviors. An advanced 

knowledge of principles of linguistics is not a skill required by every soldier; far from it. But ensuring that 

this knowledge is available to commanders and planning staff facilitates greater and more nuanced understanding of complex military and political issues at 

senior leader level.

At a simplistic level, it is self-evident that learning another language allows comprehension of what 

a potential adversary is saying without the distorting effect of translation. But above and beyond this 

are multiple layers of additional benefit to linguistic 

knowledge. Deep knowledge of a single language 

both requires and brings with it an understanding 

of the culture, traditions, history, and proclivities of 

the culture in question, since all of these determine 

how people from that culture communicate with each 
24

other. For example, students of U.S. English must 

have at least a basic familiarity with the principles of 

baseball in order to grasp the multitude of idioms in 

American usage that derive from it. Similarly, until 

recently, understanding the pronouncements of a certain class of British professional would be impossible 

without a solid grasp of the rules of cricket. So, too, a 

deep enough understanding of the languages of potential adversaries implies that the linguist is also an 

expert in the human terrain of its speakers.

This extends to embracing an entirely different 

conceptual framework, based on the words that are 

available to describe different concepts in different 

languages. Earlier in this monograph, the example 

was given of the lack of a Pashto word for the English 

word “reconciliation.” Over and above the straightforward dilemma for the interpreter, this is symptomatic 

of an entirely different cultural construct: the notion 

of reconciliation is as exotic to Pashtunwali as many 

Pashtun customs are to us. Examples can be found 

from almost any language, with direct consequences 

for our assessments of adversary intentions. Reporting on Russian “peacekeeping troops,” and how and

where they may be deployed, is a case in point. The 

word “peacekeeping” is the standard translation for 

the Russian миротворческий (mirotvorcheskiy, “peace 

creating”)—but this masks the fact that “peacekeepers,” for the Russian military, are an entirely different concept to that conveyed by the English word, 

and a greatly more assertive and violent one.45 What 

this means is that knowledge of the target language 

is indispensible for developing correct advice on adversary culture and decisionmaking and to provide 

accurate assessments to commanders.
25

At a still deeper level, physiological studies have 

found that speaking two or more languages—and the 

duality of conceptual frameworks it brings—is an asset to the wider human cognitive process. The brains 

of bilingual people operate differently than those of 

single language speakers, and, in addition to crosscultural skills, these differences offer several mental 

benefits. Professor Boaz Keysar, professor of psychology at the University of Chicago, describes how thinking in a foreign language can enhance decisionmaking.46 In a series of experiments, Keyser and his fellow 

researchers found that using a foreign language reduces decisionmaking bias; that the “framing effect” 

disappears when choices are presented in a foreign 

tongue. Keysar also proved that, whereas people were 

risk averse when choices were presented in their native tongue, they were not influenced by this framing 

manipulation in a foreign language. In summarizing their findings, the authors proposed that these 

effects arise because a foreign language provides 

greater cognitive and emotional distance than a native 

tongue does.

In short, knowledge of language and of the principles behind it is key to success in operations in human terrain, because linguistic constraints and possibilities determine perception, and hence prescribe 

responses to external influence, including that which 

the United States and allied militaries would seek to 

apply. Once again, a very simplistic example is sufficient to illustrate how this translates into practice, and 

one such example is available if we consider how to 

say something is blue in Pashto, English, or Russian 

(i.e., in ascending order of complication). In Pashto, 

there is no difference between blue and green, so the 

word شین) s̱īn) can mean either blue or green, depend-
26

ing on context. English speakers broadly agree among 

themselves on the extent of the unified color blue, and 

when it is not green. But Russian goes further and has 

two words to denote what is perceived as two separate 

colors where English speakers see only one—Russians 

refer to голубой (goluboy) for pale or clear blue, and

синий (siniy) for dark or navy blue. It follows from 

this simple example not only that translation and interpretation inevitably introduce dangerous simplifications to work around cognitive differences; but also 

that the role of language, and furthermore linguistics, in describing and conveying human experience 

is absolutely fundamental to understanding human 

terrain.

CASE STUDY: GETTING IT WRONG

Intelligence is knowing a tomato is a fruit; understanding is not putting it in a fruit salad.47

UK Ministry of Defense,

Joint Doctrine Publication-04, Understanding

Development, Concepts and Doctrine Center

For a recent illustration of how essential this context of human experience is when predicting behaviors, we can step away from operations and review 

the decision to train Libyan servicemen in the UK as 

part of international post-conflict stabilization efforts 

to disarm and integrate militias in Libya. The intent, 

as announced by the British Government in July 2013, 

was that:

 UK Armed Forces are to train their Libyan counterparts in basic infantry skills and leadership in order 

to help professionalise them and help them achieve 

peace and stability across their country.48
27

This was an entirely reasonable aim, and the initiative 

as a whole was one recommended in a previous Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) monograph, which stated

that:

U.S. and UN expertise in disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) of armed fighters in 

post-conflict situations could be of pivotal help to 

Libya at this critical juncture.

Crucially, however, the monograph continued: “but 

such support should be provided carefully.” In fact, 

it recommended that training should be provided 

not in the United States or the UK, but in other Arab 

countries.49

Almost a year later, the first contingent of Libyan 

soldiers arrived at Bassingbourn in rural England, 

to be trained by the Black Watch (3rd Battalion, The 

Royal Regiment of Scotland).50 But in the meantime, 

experts with an understanding of the cultural and

social environment from which the soldiers had been 

drawn—and the one into which they were to be inserted—had warned of severe adverse consequences from 

the program, including “immigration, security, and 

reputational risks.”51 Other studies suggested that far 

from welcoming the assistance program, the majority 

of Libyans were against the plans, wishing instead to 

see the training taking place not in a foreign country, 

but in their own.

A failure to provide an adequate or appropriate 

assessment of the cultural and human factors that 

would govern the Libyan trainees’ responses to their 

new surroundings led to dire consequences for residents around Bassingbourn and in the nearest major 

city, Cambridge. With discipline in rapid collapse and 
28

trainees routinely absconding, Cambridge police reported a sudden spike in incidences of sexual assault 

and rape of both men and women, eventually traced 

to the Libyan soldiers.52 Meanwhile, other soldiers requested political asylum in the UK. With police and

additional British Army personnel from another Scottish unit brought in to Bassingbourn to maintain order,53 the training program was prematurely and permanently canceled.54

At any one time, foreign servicemen from a wide 

range of nations are undergoing training or education 

in the UK, generally without incident. Public assessments of why the Libyan program in particular had led 

to spectacular and unmanageable failure focused on 

the dislocation suffered by the soldiers in Libya during the civil war there: according to the UK’s Chief of 

Defence Staff (CDS), testifying before a parliamentary 

committee, “seeing their country in the state it is now 

. . . has been quite destabilising.”55 This was no doubt 

true, but deeper behavioral drivers could certainly 

be found for the Libyan soldiers who experienced a 

rapid transition from deeply conservative religious, 

traditional, and cultural values and pervasive control 

by an oppressive regime to the perception of a permissive environment in the West. Tellingly, one Libyan 

comment on the numbers of soldiers being arrested 

for theft and sexual assault was that “they [the UK instructors] didn’t tell us about British law and what’s

the difference between right and wrong here.”56

The incident as a whole provides two essential 

lessons. First, application of cultural understanding 

would have prevented embarrassing failure, by either 

taking steps to mitigate the likely outcomes, or avoiding holding the training program in the UK altogether 

and instead siting it in an Arab country as recom-
29

mended in the earlier SSI study. Second, this cultural 

understanding was readily available and widespread. 

In addition to the expert assessments cited earlier, reviewing informed discussions from mid-2013 on the 

plans to train Libyans in the UK the following year 

reveals not only unanimous condemnation of the plan 

as misconceived and misguided, but also entirely accurate (and again unanimous) predictions of the specific consequences in terms of alcohol abuse, desertion, 

asylum applications, theft, indiscipline, and rapes in 

Cambridge.57 In short, applying cultural understanding in the manner called for in this monograph requires asking those who have that understanding; and 

then listening to the answers.

Language Learning Initiatives—United States 

and UK Compared.

In addition to its enviable FAO program, the U.S. 

Army provides opportunities for its soldiers to learn 

languages should they so desire. For example, U.S. 

Army Cadet Command has run the Cultural Understanding and Language Proficiency (CULP) program 

for some years. This takes Reserve Officer Training 

Corps cadets into foreign cultures and exposes them to 

other countries’ lifestyles and world perspective, with 

the reasonable intention that this will assist them in 

their future military roles. In the regular Army, many 

key influencers such as the U.S. Army military information support operations or MISO cadre already 

require a second language as mandatory for entry 

and promotion. This can be a restrictive requirement. 

It often surprises foreign observers that despite the 

very high proportion of the U.S. population which is 
30

no more than two or three generations removed from 

non-English-speaking immigrants, it is estimated that 

only 18 percent of American citizens speak a language 

other than English. According to one commentary:

We should care—a lot—about our foreign language 

deficit. We need diplomats, intelligence and foreign 

policy experts, politicians, military leaders, business 

leaders, scientists, physicians, entrepreneurs, managers, technicians, historians, artists, and writers who 

are proficient in languages other than English. And we 

need them to read and speak less commonly taught

languages (for which funding has recently been cut by 

the federal government) that are essential to our strategic and economic interests, such as Farsi, Bengali, 

Vietnamese, Burmese and Indonesian.58

The same commentary then quoted the then U.S. 

Secretary of State for Education Arne Duncan declaring that the language deficit constitutes a “threat to 

national security.”59

In Europe, it is estimated that some 54 percent of 

the population speak a second language. This does 

not extend to the UK, whose citizens are famous on 

the continent for their resistance to engaging with foreigners in their own language. But in July 2014,it was 

reported that in the UK:

From October [2014], no officer will be promoted to 

a sub-unit command—effectively any rank above 

captain—unless they can speak a foreign language, 

preferably French or Arabic. . . . Better language skills, 

defence chiefs hope, will be at the forefront of an effort 

to carve a new, more nimble but sophisticated role for 

Britain’s land forces.60
31

The move comes as part of the British Army’s 

“international defence engagement strategy,” under 

which—in an initiative akin to the U.S. Regionally 

Aligned Forces—individual brigades have been assigned different geographic areas of the globe to develop a deep cultural and social working knowledge. 

Officers and troops in those brigades will be encouraged to participate in diplomatic missions, training 

exercises, and military deployments in their assigned 

regions. According to the UK Ministry of Defense 

(MoD):

bilateral relationships are essential for the army’s future focus on defence engagement and from later this 

year, we will be providing linguistic training to enable 

all subunit commanders to demonstrate second language skills.61

Whenever a major new UK military policy is announced, a prime locus for informed comment and 

criticism is the entirely unofficial “Army Rumour Service (ARRSE)” website. With due respect for operations security, this forum distils the frank and forthright views of highly experienced serving and retired 

officers, soldiers, and military experts, unconstrained 

by the need to follow optimistic official narratives. As

demonstrated by the example of the Libyan training 

scheme cited earlier, it thus provides a reliable indicator of the likely success of any new initiative put 

forward by the UK MoD, and to some extent those of 

allied (including U.S.) militaries.62

Following the languages announcement, ARRSE 

lit up. Among the most repeated criticisms were 

the lack of realism of the initiative due to issues 

of cost and time. A typical assessment of the cost 

implications was:
32

I wonder if this has been thought through. To what 

standard? 3333 [denoting a NATO military standard 

for foreign language competency for reading/writing/

speaking and comprehension] takes up to 18 months 

full-time to achieve, depending on the language. Furthermore, immersion language training is most desirable. For Arabic, that generally means a stay in Jordan 

or Oman, inter alia. The cost is also astronomical. A 

contracted-in tutor is about £50 per hour.63

The issue of time available is one that will particularly concern young British officers. Competition 

for promotion slots, which have always been limited, 

is becoming even more challenging as the military 

contracts; and unlike some U.S. services, promotion 

is far from automatic. Officers’ performance reports, 

vital for promotion, are most effective if they are produced by superior officers from within the subject’s 

own core specialization. It follows that taking time 

out from role—for instance to attend a university language course tutored by civilians—may now be seen 

as career suicide even more than previously. The UK’s 

MoD has yet to explain how this will be incorporated 

into career development programs.

But this lack of realism in introducing the program 

in the UK obscures its potential utility for a much larger military, for example, the U.S. Army. As noted in a 

recent SSI monograph, the aspiration toward a much 

deeper level of regional familiarity and expertise is 

key to the regional alignment strategy, but depends 

entirely on fostering relevant talents and regional 

expertise within line units. The overall aim could be 

severely compromised if it is indeed the case that “the 

[U.S.] Army has no mechanism to identify relevant 

regional talents or experiences such as cultural fluencies, foreign contacts, or travel abroad.”64
33

CONCLUSIONS AND POLICY 

RECOMMENDATIONS

The examples given in this monograph have focused primarily on experience from Afghanistan and 

Iraq, since this is where the current techniques of understanding human terrain have been developed and 

honed. But its conclusions are relevant far beyond 

counterinsurgency operations in the Islamic world.

As observed earlier, to describe adversary actions 

as “irrational” is to demonstrate a fundamental failure in understanding of human terrain. It follows that 

where states and their leaders act in a manner which 

in the United States is perceived as irrational, this, too, 

betrays a lack of human knowledge. The principles described herein should be extended to consideration of 

other actors who are adversarial to the United States, 

and whose decisionmaking calculus sits in a different framework to our own. This includes such major 

states as Russia and China.

The case of Russia is most topical because of recent Russian actions in eastern Ukraine, referred to 

throughout this monograph. Long-term observers of 

Russian military and political development were dismayed that, despite their informed forecasts, Russian 

military exercises in 2013 and the operation to seize 

Crimea in February-March 2014, nevertheless came as 

an apparent surprise to the United States and other 

countries.65 One cause for this appears to have been 

mirroring; projecting Western assumptions onto a 

non-Western actor, and therefore failing correctly to 

assess the options available to that actor. It appears 

that the copious expertise and experience on Russia 

available to the U.S. intelligence community at an 

analyst level was trumped by more senior decisions 
34

that “they wouldn’t do that, it doesn’t make sense!”—

based on a U.S.-centric perception of what is rational.

This is symptomatic of the thinning of expertise 

covering a range of potential conventional adversaries during the focus on counterinsurgency and counterterrorism since 2001.66 The need is clear for Red 

Team input into planning and decisionmaking. These 

Red Teams need to be equipped with expert levels of 

knowledge of all the social sciences discussed in this 

monograph—as applied to their target subject—in order to provide reliable and well-founded simulations 

of adversary decision processes. But over and above 

this, familiarity with the same principles should be far 

more widespread, both among junior military personnel engaged in any kind of interaction with human 

allies or adversaries and among the senior audience 

assimilating Red Team input into planning.

As noted earlier, this is because this input, by its 

very nature, will be counterintuitive for individuals 

not specializing in the region concerned. Commanders will receive advice that appears to make no sense, 

in isolation from their other data streams and apparently contradicting them. The ability to assess this 

counterintuitive input grounded in an alien culture 

and language is a key issue of education, and requires 

a place in senior officer education planning. The approach could then be exercised in downstream training and pre-deployment courses.67

As development of regionally aligned forces continues, the U.S. Army should consider forming closer partnerships with UK units engaged in a similar 

exercise. The UK’s “Army 2020” program includes 

elements very similar to the U.S. Army’s plans for 

regional alignment: specifically:
35

the Adaptable Force brigades, and some Force Troops 

Command brigades [will have] assigned responsibilities for world regions. This will enable brigade units to 

develop understanding of the geography, culture and 

languages of their specified region.68

The accelerated timetable for this force restructuring and transition by the British Army from 2015 may 

well mean that it pre-empts the United States in some 

areas. As such, it may in the process provide lessons 

learned that can be applied in a U.S. context—as well 

as templates or ideas that can be applied to much 

greater scale and effect by the U.S. Army.

But as noted earlier, for either of these forces to 

achieve their aims, focused and relevant education 

of the humans that man and command them—with 

no detriment to their careers—is essential. In the UK 

context, “every soldier involved in overseas activity . . 

. becomes part of the Defence Engagement mission.”69

The same is no less true for the United States.

All this demands greater flexibility of mind and 

diversity of approach at all levels of command, which, 

in turn, demands the higher level of training in operations in human terrain noted earlier, as an integral 

part of junior leader education. In this respect, there is 

much to be learned from the FAO program, and many 

of the attitudes and approaches of FAOs should be 

adopted as mainstream rather than being relegated to

the career niche that they occupy.

In effect, in FAOs, the U.S. Army and other services already possesses a highly-trained pool of cultural 

advisers who can be used as a nucleus to raise the 

more general level of cross-cultural human terrain 

awareness. Another accelerator for this process would 

be the retention of reservists with specialist knowledge of the human terrain of potential adversaries.70
36

Specific Additional Policy Recommendations.

• Religion has been a defining factor of the U.S. 

wars since 9/11; it is likely to continue to be 

one in future conflicts in the Middle East and 

Africa. U.S. forces need to maintain a developed understanding of the religious context 

in which they operate, including enhanced 

self-awareness of the population’s perception 

of them. All personnel need to be theologically aware before deployment. Further, the 

role of service chaplains—especially from nonChristian faiths—deserves greater operational 

focus. While pastoral care will remain the 

core duty of chaplains, their knowledge and 

experience should continue to be leveraged 

to enhance planning for operations in human 

terrain.

• The effectiveness of HTS/DCSU has been 

greatly underestimated and clouded by controversies that had little to do with the effectiveness of the programs. These are important 

roles, and they must be afforded authority and 

access accordingly. Participation in these programs must not be a career inhibitor.

• In addition to its direct operational utility, the 

learning of a foreign language provides many 

downstream advantages for both the individuals and their services. Foreign language 

learning opportunities should be fostered 

and facilitated and,once again, should not be 

career inhibitors.
37

The latter point illustrates a crucial issue of planning for the human domain that FAOsunderstand, 

but that must be explained more broadly to nonspecialists at all levels of seniority. This is that there exists 

no universal model of communication applicable to all 

groups and cultures. All communication efforts must 

be tailored to the local dynamics and with respect to 

the behaviors one is seeking to change. Because audiences are multifaceted and cannot be grouped as 

a population, influencing the differing component 

groups of a society requires precisely targeted methods and approaches. One message—no matter how 

culturally relevant—does not fit all.

ENDNOTES

1. Future Joint Concepts Focus on Human Elements, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of the Army, January 22, 2015, available from Army.mil, www.army.mil/article/141535/, accessed 

January 25, 2015.

2. Raymond Odierno, James Amos, and William McRaven, Strategic Landpower: Winning the Clash of Wills, Washington, DC: U.S. Army, U.S. Marine Corps, and the U.S. Special 

Operations Command, available from www.arcic.army.mil/app_

Documents/Strategic-LandpowerWhite-Paper-28OCT2013.pdf,

accessed January 30, 2015.

3. The Future Character of Conflict, London, UK: MoD, 2010, 

available from https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/futurecharacter-of-conflict, accessed January 31, 2015.

4. Ibid.

5. P. Singer, Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict 

in the 21st Century, London, UK: Penguin Books, January 2011.

6. Ibid.
38

7. War Machines of Afghanistan, London, UK: March 11, 2009, 

available from www.army-technology.com/features/feature50591/, 

accessed January 10, 2015.

8. The U.S. military UAV market, for example, is projected 

to grow at a 12 percent compound annual growth rate reaching 

$18.7 billion in 2018. Figures taken from U.S. Military Unmanned 

Aerial Vehicles (UAV) Market Forecast 2013-2018, Washington, 

DC: DoD, available from www.marketresearchmedia.com/?p=509, 

accessed January 10, 2015.

9. For an exploration of the human domain implications of 

this operation, see this author’s concurrent publication, Using 

Target Audience Analysis to Aid Strategic Level Decisionmaking,

Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 

forthcoming.

10. “Killing the Enemy Is Not The Best Route to Success,” 

Spiegel Magazine, January 11, 2010, available from www.spiegel.de/

international/world/spiegel-interview-with-general-stanley-mcchrystal-killing-the-enemy-is-not-the-best-route-to-success-a-671267.html, 

accessed January 10, 2015.

11. Michael Flynn, Matt Pottinger, and Paul Batchelor. Fixing Intel: A Blueprint for Making Intelligence Relevant in Afghanistan, 

available from online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/AfghanistanMGFlynn_Jan2010.pdf, accessed January 31, 2015.

12. Grace Wyler, “General Petraeus Bringing Myth Back to 

the Military,” Business Insider, May 13, 2011, available from www.

businessinsider.com/how-general-david-petraeus-brought-myth-backto-the-military-2011-5, accessed January 10, 2015.

13. “The Two Sides of Grozny,“ presentation by Arthur 

L. Speyer III, Marine Corps Intelligence Activity, in Capital 

Preservation: Preparing for Urban Operations in the Twenty-First 

Century—Proceedings of the RAND Arroyo-TRADOC-MCWL-OSD 

Urban Operations Conference, March 22-23, 2000, available from

www.rand.org/pubs/conf_proceedings/CF162.html.

14. R. Halloran, “Strategic Communication,” Parameters, 

Autumn 2007, pp. 4-14.
39

15. “Where does the phrase ‘boots on the ground’ come 

from?” BBC News, September 30, 2014, available from

www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-29413429.

16. A further example from the Muslim world is provided 

by Dr. Usama Hasan of the UK Quilliam Foundation, who reminded the author that “in the Arab & Muslim world it is common to see (heterosexual) male friends walking whilst holding 

hands.” It was reported during the Iraq war in 2003 that several 

U.S. soldiers assumed that the Iraqi men they saw frequently 

doing this must be gay.

17. The author has articulated the need for these skill sets 

in many previous papers but is grateful to Dr. Dave Sloggett, 

an independent consultant to the UK Armed Forces, for this 

particularly resonant phrasing.

18. This is a term that seems to have multiple “fathers”; many 

attribute it to Lieutenant General Peter Leahy of the Australian 

Army who wrote in 2002 that: “The era of the strategic corporal 

is here. The soldier of today must possess professional mastery 

of warfare, but match this with political and media sensitivity.” 

However some 3 years before, General Charles Krulak of the U.S. 

Marine Corps wrote on exactly the same subject in his paper, 

“The Strategic Corporal: Leadership in the Three Block War,”

Marines Magazine, January 1999.

19. The temporary adoption of the strapline, “An Army of 

One,” by the U.S. Army in the mid-2000s serves as recognition 

of this concept.

20. “Campbell Interrupted Blair as He Spoke of his Faith: 

‘We don’t do God’,” The Daily Telegraph, May 4, 2003, available 

from www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1429109/Campbell-interrupted-Blair-as-he-spoke-of-his-faith-We-dont-do-God.html, accessed 

January 10, 2015.

21. “Britain Is a ‘Post-Christian’ Country Says Former Archbishop,” BBC News, April 27, 2015, available from www.bbc.com/

news/uk-politics-27177265, accessed January 10, 2015.
40

22. “David Cameron Fosters Division by Calling Britain a 

‘Christian country’,” The Daily Telegraph, April 20, 2014, available 

from www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/letters/10777417/David-Cameron-fosters-division-by-calling-Britain-a-Christian-country.html, 

accessed January 31, 2015.

23. “Military Losing Faith in God,” The Daily Telegraph, 

June 16, 2014, available from www.telegraph.co.uk/news/

religion/10902040/Military-losing-faith-in-God.html, accessed 

February 1, 2015.

24. “Fundamentalist Religion Rampant in U.S. Armed Forces, 

Says National Security Expert,” Amherst, NY: Center for Inquiry, 

March 4, 2013, available from www.centerforinquiry.net/newsroom/

fundamentalist_religion_rampant_in_u.s._armed_forces_says_national_security/, accessed February 1, 2015.

25. See old.aclj.org/military-rights/prayer-and-religion-in-themilitary.

26. The Force of Faith—Understanding Islam, Andover, Hampshire, UK: Seminar Land Warfare Centre, September 18, 2014.

27. Senior Officer’s Information Operations Course, Oberammergau, Germany: NATO School, Presentation by Wahid 

Feroz, 2014.

28. E. Tylor, Primitive Culture. Researches into the Development 

of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Art, and Custom, Cambridge, 

UK: Cambridge Library, 1903.

29. Instructions for American Forces in Britain, Washington, DC: 

Department of the Navy and War Department, 1942, available 

in reprint from www.amazon.co.uk/Instructions-American-ForcesBritain-1942-ebook/dp/B00A9GHLSY/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&tag=

oxfordschoolofre&qid=1411813199&sr=8-3.

30. R. Schiff, The Military and Domestic Politics: A Concordance 

Theory of Civil-Military Relations, Abingdon, Oxon, UK: Cass 

Military Studies, 2008.

31. Human Terrain Team Handbook, available from www.vho.

org/aaargh/fran/livres9/humterrainhandbo.pdf, accessed June 9, 2015.
41

32. Schiff.

33. D. Rohde, “Army Enlists Anthropology in War Zones,” 

The New York Times, October 5, 2007.

34. “Anthropology in Conflict: An Exchange, Survival 

Magazine, Vol. 50, No. 3, June-July 2008, pp. 127-162.

35. Military Specialists Aim to Improve Cultural Understanding, 

NATO: International Security Assistance Force, available from 

www.isaf.nato.int/article/news/military-specialists-aim-to-improvecultural-understanding.html, accessed February 1, 2015.

36. Mike Martin, An intimate War: An Oral History of the 

Helmand Conflict, London, UK: Hurst & Co, 2014.

37. See www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/05/08/portrait_

army_work_in_progress_regionally_aligned_forces_raymond_odierno.

38. For a specific examination of the particular challenges of 

training effective FAOs, see Colonel Timothy D. Mitchell, The 

Army FAO Training Program: Time to Break More Glass, Strategy 

Research Project, Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College Class 

of 2013.

39. J. Watson, Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It, first 

published in Psychological Review, Vol. 20, pp. 158-177.

40. A. Maslow, Motivation and Personality, New York: 

Harper, 1954.

41. S. Milgram, Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View, 

London, UK: Pinter & Martin, 2010.

42. Richard LaPiere, “Attitudes Versus Actions,” Social 

Forces, 1934.

43. I. Ajzen, Belief, Attitude, Intention, and Behavior: An 

Introduction to Theory and Research, Reading, MA: AddisonWesley, 1975, available from people.umass.edu/aizen/f&a1975.html, 

accessed January 10, 2015.
42

44. D. Myers, J. Abel, A. Kolstad, F. Sani, Social Psychology, 

New York: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2010.

45. In early-2014, foreign defense attachés in Moscow were 

treated to a demonstration of Russian “peacekeeping” at a training range near Moscow. They discovered that this consisted 

of an all-out assault, with use of air support, to “create peace” 

by subduing the target location. See also Keir Giles, “Ukraine: 

Vladimir Putin’s Military Action Reveals a Wider Plan,” BBC 

News, August 28, 2014, available from www.bbc.co.uk/news/worldafrica-28971901.

46. Boaz Keysar, Sayuri L. Hayakawa, and Sun Gyu An, “The 

Foreign-Language Effect: Thinking in a Foreign Tongue Reduces 

Decision Biases,” Psychological Science, 2012, pp. 23-661.

47. UK MOD DCDC JDP-04 Understanding. This observation 

from an official British military doctrine publication, is a corruption of an extract from a “List of Universal Truths” attributed 

to British comedian Peter Kay. See www.triffle.org/jokes/lists/1607/

universal_truths_from_peter_kay/, accessed January 12, 2015.

48. Libyan Armed Forces to be Trained in UK, London, UK: UK 

Government, available from https://www.gov.uk/government/news/

libyan-armed-forces-to-be-trained-in-uk, accessed January 10, 2015.

49. Mohammed El-Katiri, State-Building Challenges In A PostRevolution Libya, Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. 

Army War College, October 2012, p. 36, available from www.

strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/pub1127.pdf.

50. Libyan Cadets Arrive in UK for Training, London, UK: UK 

Government, available from https://www.gov.uk/government/news/

libyan-cadets-arrive-in-uk-for-training, accessed January 11, 2015.

51. “MoD Was Warned of Security Risks in Training Libyan 

Soldiers in UK, The Guardian, November 30, 2014, available from 

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/dec/30/mod-warned-securityrisks-training-libyan-soldiers-uk, accessed January 10, 2015.

52. “Libyan Troops Charged with Rape of Young Man in 

Cambridge Park,” Cambridge News, November 3, 2014, available 
43

from www.cambridge-news.co.uk/Libyan-troops-charged-rape-youngman-Cambridge/story-24051252-detail/story.html;“Bassingbourn 

Libyan Soldiers Charged with Cambridge Sex Attacks,” BBC 

News Cambridgeshire, UK, October 28, 2014, available from 

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-29798855.

53. “Libyan Troops Sent Home after Sexual Assault Allegations,” The Guardian, November 4, 2014, available from www.

theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/nov/04/lansley-criticises-ministrydefence-serious-failure-libyan-military-training.

54. “Libyan Troops Flown Home as Cameron Scraps UK 

Training Camp,” The Guardian,” November 5, 2014, available 

from www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/nov/05/libyan-troopsflown-home-uk-training-camp, accessed January 10, 2015.

55. “Libyan Bassingbourn Cadets ‘Not in Prison Camp’, 

Army Chief Says,” BBC News, November 5, 2014, available from 

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-29923774.

56. “Libyan Cadet in Bassingbourn Claims ‘Poor Treatment’,” BBC News Cambridgeshire, November 5, 2014, available 

from www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-29923770.

57. “2000 Libyan Soliders Coming to the UK for Training 

with the British Army,” London, UK: Army Rumour Service 

(ARRSE), July 9, 2013, available from www.arrse.co.uk/community/

threads/2000-libyan-soliders-coming-to-the-uk-for-training-with-thebritish-army.201280/.

58. David Skorton, “America’s Foreign Language Deficit,” 

Forbes Magazine, August 27, 2011, available from www.forbes.

com/sites/collegeprose/2012/08/27/americas-foreign-language-deficit/, 

accessed January 10, 2015.

59. Ibid.

60. Sam Jones, “Language Made Obligatory for Senior 

British Officers, The Financial Times, July 27, 2014, available from 

www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f0a849ca-140d-11e4-b46f-00144feabdc0.html, 

accessed January 10, 2015.
44

61. Ibid.

62. See www.arrse.co.uk.

63. “Language Training Made Obligatory for Officers!” 

thread, Army Rumour Service, July 28, 2014, available from 

www.arrse.co.uk/community/threads/language-training-made-obligatory-for-officers.216979/.

64. As described in Raven Bukowski, John Childress, Michael 

J. Colarusso, and David S. Lyle, Creating an Effective Regional 

Alignment Strategy for the U.S. Army, Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, November 2014, p. 3.

65. See, for example, the Foreword to Keir Giles, Russian Military Transformation—Goal In Sight? Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies 

Institute, U.S. Army War College, June 2014, but completed in 

September 2013, which warned that countries neighboring Russia—like Ukraine—should already be deeply concerned at developments in military policy and capability.

66. Jason Horowitz, “Russia Experts See Thinning Ranks’ Effect on U.S. Policy,” The New York Times, March 6, 2014, available 

from www.nytimes.com/2014/03/07/world/europe/american-expertson-russia.html?_r=0, accessed January 10, 2015.

67. The distinction between education and training is key in 

this respect. Senior commanders will continue to require education designed to develop their intellects for application in multiple tasks and different environments. Less senior personnel will 

continue to need training in the sense of preparation for specific 

tasks requiring specific skills.

68. “Transforming The British Army, An Update—July 

2013,” London, UK: MoD, available from www.army.mod.uk/documents/general/Army2020_Report_v2.pdf.

69. Ibid.

70. For another view on this issue, see Dr. Shima Keene, “The

Effective Use of Reserve Personnel in the U.S. Military: Lessons 

from the UK Reserve Model,” forthcoming.
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

Authors

Dr. Steve Tatham

with 

Mr. Keir Giles

Editor for Production

Dr. James G. Pierce

Publications Assistant

Ms. Rita A. Rummel

*****

Composition

Mrs. Jennifer E. Nevil