U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001

1 

44–412 2009

[H.A.S.C. No. 110–165] 

HEARING 

ON

NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT 

FOR FISCAL YEAR 2009 

AND

OVERSIGHT OF PREVIOUSLY AUTHORIZED 

PROGRAMS 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

TERRORISM, UNCONVENTIONAL THREATS AND CAPABILITIES 

SUBCOMMITTEE HEARING 

ON

BUDGET REQUEST ON THE ROLE OF SOCIAL AND 

BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES IN NATIONAL SECURITY 

MEETING JOINTLY WITH 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH AND SCIENCE EDUCATION 

Serial No. 95 

HEARING HELD 

APRIL 24, 2008 


Congress.#13
(II) 

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRORISM, UNCONVENTIONAL THREATS AND CAPABILITIES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

HON. ADAM SMITH, Washington, Chairman 

MIKE McINTYRE, North Carolina 

ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

JIM MARSHALL, Georgia 

MARK UDALL, Colorado 

BRAD ELLSWORTH, Indiana 

KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, New York 

KATHY CASTOR, Florida 

MAC THORNBERRY, Texas 

ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina 

JOHN KLINE, Minnesota 

THELMA DRAKE, Virginia 

MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas 

JIM SAXTON, New Jersey 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

TIM MCCLEES, Professional Staff Member 

ALEX KUGAJEVKSY, Professional Staff Member 

ANDREW TABLER, Staff Assistant 

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH AND SCIENCE EDUCATION

HON. BRIAN BAIRD, Washington, Chairman 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

JERRY MCNERNEY, California 

DARLENE HOOLEY, Oregon 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

BARON P. HILL, Indiana 

BART GORDON, Tennessee 

VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan 

ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland 

RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas 

DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington 

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California 

RALPH M. HALL, Texas 

JIM WILSON, Subcommittee Staff Director 

DAHLIA SOKOLOV, Democratic Professional Staff Member 

MELE ́ WILLIAMS, Republican Professional Staff Member 

BESS CAUGHRAN, Research Assistant 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS 

2008 

Page 

HEARING: 

Thursday, April 24, 2008, Fiscal Year 2009 National Defense Authorization 

Act—Budget Request on The Role of Social and Behavioral Sciences in 

National Security ................................................................................................. 1 

APPENDIX: 

Thursday, April 24, 2008 ........................................................................................ 33 

THURSDAY, APRIL 24, 2008 

FISCAL YEAR 2009 NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT—BUDGET REQUEST ON THE ROLE OF SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL 

SCIENCES IN NATIONAL SECURITY 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Baird, Hon. Brian, a Representative from Washington, Chairman, Research 

and Science Education Subcommittee ................................................................ 2 

Ehlers, Hon. Vernon J., a Representative from Michigan, Ranking Member, 

Research and Science Education Subcommittee ................................................ 3 

Smith, Hon. Adam, a Representative from Washington, Chairman, Terrorism, 

Unconventional Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee ................................. 1 

Thornberry, Hon. Mac, a Representative from Texas, Ranking Member, Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee .................... 25 

WITNESSES 

Schweitzer, Col. Martin P., Commander, 4/82 Airborne Brigade Combat 

Team, U.S. Army .................................................................................................. 6 

Segal, Dr. David R., Professor of Sociology and Director, Center for Research 

on Military Organization, University of Maryland College Park ..................... 10 

Van Tilborg, Dr. Andre ́, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense, Science and 

Technology, Department of Defense ................................................................... 4 

Weiss, Dr. Mark L., Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences, Directorate of Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences, National Science Foundation .................................................................................................................... 8 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Baird, Hon. Brian ............................................................................................. 38 

Schweitzer, Col. Martin P. ............................................................................... 69 

Segal, Dr. David R. ........................................................................................... 52 

Smith, Hon. Adam ............................................................................................ 37 

Van Tilborg, Dr. Andre ́ .................................................................................... 40 

Weiss, Dr. Mark L. ........................................................................................... 59 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

Our Intellectual Freedom article submitted by John Allen Williams .......... 77 

Page

IV 

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

Mr. Lipinski ...................................................................................................... 83 

Mr. Smith .......................................................................................................... 89 

(1) 

FISCAL YEAR 2009 NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT—BUDGET REQUEST ON THE ROLE OF SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES IN NATIONAL SECURITY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED

SERVICES, TERRORISM, UNCONVENTIONAL THREATS AND

CAPABILITIES SUBCOMMITTEE, MEETING JOINTLY WITH

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, RESEARCH

AND SCIENCE EDUCATION SUBCOMMITTEE, Washington, 

DC, Thursday, April 24, 2008. 

The subcommittees met, pursuant to call, at 9:07 a.m., in room 

2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Adam Smith (chairman 

of the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and 

Capabilities) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ADAM SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM WASHINGTON, CHAIRMAN, TERRORISM, UNCONVENTIONAL THREATS AND CAPABILITIES SUBCOMMITTEE 

Mr. SMITH. Good morning. We have witnesses and a lot of other 

folks in other places, and hopefully while Mr. Baird and I are making our opening statements, Mr. Ehlers will show up. Mr. Thornberry had a briefing this morning and informed us that he would 

be a little late. So we will just go ahead and get started. So I call 

the committee to order. 

This is a joint committee this morning between the Terrorism, 

Unconventional Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee, and we 

are joined by Mr. Baird from the Science Subcommittee on Research and Science Education from the Committee on Science and 

Technology. 

I appreciate all of you being here. We are here this morning to 

discuss the role of social and behavioral science in national security. I have an opening statement which I will submit for the 

record. Having read the witness testimonies yesterday, I think this 

will be a very interesting hearing, which touches on a number of 

different issues. 

Certainly, understanding the culture of the communities that our 

military forces are going to are critical wherever they are, and it 

varies from community to community, but it is a critical element 

in the type of warfare that we are fighting now especially, which 

is basically counterinsurgency where we are trying to win over the 

local population. So understanding their cultures, their interests, 

and their human behavior and how it varies from place to place is 

critical. 

Also very interesting are some of the studies that are going on 

in terms of evaluating overall populations so that you can begin to 

2 

predict behavior of populations, and predicting that behavior can 

have an impact on military decisions on a number of different levels. That is an area that frankly I don’t understand. I am very interested to hear this morning about how we are developing that, 

as well as the other issues that have been raised. 

With that, I will turn it over to my Washington state colleague 

from the Science Committee, Representative Baird, for any opening 

statement he has. 

STATEMENT OF HON. BRIAN BAIRD, A REPRESENTATIVE 

FROM WASHINGTON, CHAIRMAN, RESEARCH AND SCIENCE 

EDUCATION SUBCOMMITTEE 

Mr. BAIRD. I want to thank Chairman Smith, Ranking Member 

Thornberry, and the staff, particularly our good friend Tim 

McClees for his work on this, and also my staff on the Science 

Committee and my personal staff. Dr. Ehlers also has been very instrumental in this. 

As a clinical psychologist by training, but someone who has 

taken a great interest in defense issues as well, I find this a particularly exciting and interesting topic. Many members of the public and the media have been surprised to learn about the role of 

the social sciences in our defense strategies, but as Chairman 

Smith mentioned, the changes in the type of warfare we are fighting and the situations our soldiers are finding themselves in necessitates this kind of preparation and this kind of research. 

It struck me as I was in Iraq last time, we were in one of the 

new Mine Resistant Ambush Protection (MRAP) vehicles. Of 

course, when it was discovered or demonstrated that those vehicles 

saved a lot of lives, we spared virtually no expense to get them in 

the field to protect our soldiers. As our witnesses are going to report, and from some of the written testimony, some of the interventions that we are seeing and the advice getting to our soldiers in 

the field from the social sciences are saving lives as well. 

Helping to understand that role in our military posture and the 

training of our troops in an international involvement I think is 

particularly important, as is the importance of understanding the 

stresses and opportunities and strains facing our soldiers and their 

families here at home, and the extensive research that we hear 

about today in that area is particularly illuminating. 

I think it is especially exciting that we have research in this area 

being done by both National Science Foundation (NSF) and by the 

armed services. To be perfectly honest, I think joint committee 

hearings are relatively rare in this institution. We have been 

siloing elsewhere in the government and realize that was not a 

good idea. Thanks to Chairman Smith and the staff on the Republican and Democratic side, bringing two different committees which 

people might not usually see as having common interests together 

around something like this, I think will be quite illuminating. 

So I thank our witnesses today for not only being here, but far 

more importantly, for your lifetime of service, through your research and your service in the military. Thank you and I look forward very much to your testimony. I am glad you are here and 

very grateful. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

3 

I will now turn it over to Mr. Ehlers for any opening statement 

he may have. 

STATEMENT OF HON. VERNON J. EHLERS, A REPRESENTATIVE 

FROM MICHIGAN, RANKING MEMBER, RESEARCH AND 

SCIENCE EDUCATION SUBCOMMITTEE 

Dr. EHLERS. Thank you very much. I apologize for being late. I 

was chairing another meeting, and unfortunately I have to leave 

for yet another one almost immediately, but I appreciate you calling this hearing. I am pleased to be a part of this joint hearing because I agree that social and behavioral science research has a tremendous role to play in the security of our Nation. 

General Patton, who as you probably know did not practice social 

sciences very well, said, ‘‘Wars may be fought with weapons, but 

they are won by men. It is the spirit of the men who follow and 

of the man who leads that gains the victory.’’ Social and behavioral 

research can help us determine what motivates the spirit of our 

military men and women and their leaders, as well as those who 

wish our Nation harm. 

It is perhaps that last category where we need help in understanding the unorthodox enemies that we face in the world today. 

I meant ‘‘unorthodox’’ in a non-religious sense. Clearly, most of 

them are orthodox in the religious sense. 

I know that the National Science Foundation is doing yeoman’s 

work in the social and behavioral sciences, much of which could 

have applications for our military. I look forward to hearing today 

about the behavioral science research currently being conducted by 

the Department of Defense (DOD) and how that research is being 

applied. This issue creates numerous opportunities for these two 

agencies, namely the Department of Defense and the National 

Science Foundation, to work together on the research areas recommended in the National Research Council (NRC) and U.S. Army 

Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences study, ‘‘Human Behavior in a Military Context.’’ 

In the military context, advanced understanding of other cultures, teamwork in complex environments, technology-based training, nonverbal behavior, emotion and behavioral neurophysiology 

can make the difference between life and death. These factors affect more than the Army combat engineer on the ground in Iraq 

and her family here at home, or the Navy admiral and everyone 

under his command. 

They also affect all of our service-members, all the families that 

support them, all of us who they are defending, and yes, even those 

who threaten our freedom. Therefore, social and behavioral research is of crucial importance to this entire Nation and our own 

security as we move forward in an ever-changing world filled not 

only with new technological achievements, but also with increasingly complicated human dimensions. 

I certainly want to thank our witnesses for being here this morning. I look forward to their testimony. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

4 

Now we will go to our witnesses’ statements and then go to questions. I want to welcome our panel. I will introduce all of you first, 

and then go in order in terms of your testimony. 

First, we are joined by Dr. Andre Van Tilborg, Deputy Under 

Secretary of Defense for Science and Technology. Welcome. 

Colonel Martin Schweitzer, Commander, Fourth Brigade Combat 

Team, 82nd Airborne Division. 

Dr. Mark Weiss, Division Director for Behavioral and Cognitive 

Sciences at the National Science Foundation. 

And Dr. David Segal, Professor of Sociology and Director of the 

Center for Research on Military Organizations at the University of 

Maryland. 

Before you start, I just want to echo something that Congressman Baird had said, and that is the importance of joint hearings. 

What I am discovering in a lot of the areas in national security, 

particularly now when we are looking at warfare counterinsurgency dealing with all these issues, there is so much crossover from 

agency to agency. 

Traditionally, there has been an enormous amount of crossover 

in the Department of Defense, just within their different agencies. 

But now increasingly we are seeing it move over into areas that 

outside of the DOD. So finding ways for those different organizations to work together and be coordinated is enormously important 

and we certainly need to start here in Congress. So I appreciate 

that aspect of this hearing as well. 

With that, we will start with Dr. Van Tilborg. Please go ahead. 

STATEMENT OF DR. ANDRE ́ VAN TILBORG, DEPUTY UNDER 

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 

Dr. VAN TILBORG. Chairman Smith, Chairman Baird, ranking 

members, and distinguished members of both subcommittee, thank 

you for this opportunity to discuss the role of the behavioral and 

social sciences in national security. My name is Andre Van Tilborg. 

I am the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Science and Technology. 

This morning, I will limit my remarks to only a few of the department’s research efforts that specifically relate to unconventional warfare and the global war on terror (GWOT). First, a very 

short history lesson apropos to the theme of today’s hearing. In 

roughly the year 512 B.C., a Chinese military strategist named Sun 

Tzu wrote a remarkably timeless handbook of pithy advice for 

warfighters called ‘‘The Art of War.’’ In this book Sun Tzu writes 

the following admonition: ‘‘Know your enemy.’’ End of history lesson. 

Then 2500 years later, a National Academy of Sciences panel on 

human behavior in a military context reminds us that people are 

the heart of all military efforts. Similarly, the Defense Science 

Board (DSB) writes that DOD must gain deeper understanding of 

how individuals, groups, societies and nations behave. Just last 

week, the Secretary of Defense told the Association of American 

Universities that DOD must ‘‘further its understanding of foreign 

countries and cultures with the help of the social sciences research 

community.’’ 

5 

Today, our nation confronts the challenges of irregular warfare. 

The battlefields are often civilian neighborhoods where our forces 

come into personal contact with an indistinguishable mix of combatants, innocents and unknowns. Adequate cultural knowledge 

can make the difference between gun battles and non-kinetic conflict resolution and can be used to shape the optimal balance of 

combat power and diplomacy. 

This fiscal year, DOD’s investment in social science research is roughly $150 million, of which about one-third is focused on the 

topic of today’s hearing. That amount represents slightly more than 

one percent of DOD’s science and technology (S&T) appropriations. 

Relevant social science research is sponsored broadly in the department, including the military services, Defense Advanced Research 

Projects Agency (DARPA), and the director of defense research and 

engineering (DDR&E). 

The DDR&E launched a vertically integrated research initiative budgeted at $10 million this year called Human Social Culture and 

Behavior Modeling, HSCB for short. HSCB is focused on developing 

the required science base and maturing technologies that support 

cultural understanding and forecasting across a range of mission 

areas and geographic regions. 

As an adjunct to the HSCB, the department is using the small business innovation research (SBIR) program to invest another $10 

million this year on topics such as training soldiers to decode nonverbal cues in cross-cultural interactions, and secondary language 

retention in non-Western languages. In addition, the department’s 

multi-disciplinary university research initiative has made two $1 

million per year grant awards to universities for research in computational modeling of adversary attitudes and behavior. 

Also, the Army Research Institute funds research into how to 

think about culture in contrast to how to memorize facts about specific cultures. DARPA is conducting relevant research in a program 

called Integrated Crisis Early Warning Systems, and also makes 

considerable investments in foreign language translation technologies. 

The human terrain system that Colonel Schweitzer will discuss 

shortly represents only one of many ways in which the research results from these S&T investments can be employed. 

The department coordinates its social science research through 

many venues, including recent scientific conferences such as the 

first international conference on computational cultural dynamics 

sponsored by the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL), and the first 

international workshop on social computing, behavioral modeling, 

and prediction, with participation by DARPA, Office of Naval Research (ONR), AFRL, Army Research Office (ARO) and other agencies. 

Mr. Chairman, distinguished members, I ask that you recall from 

my opening testimony the recommendations of the DSB, the national academies, the yes, the military strategist Sun Tzu to learn 

as much as possible about the behavioral, social and cultural aspects of our adversaries and of the indigenous populations in which 

U.S. and coalition forces operate. 

DOD’s S&T enterprise has both anticipated and listened to this 

advice. In conducting this research, it is crucial that DOD continue 

6 

to respect the scientific integrity of the academic disciplines on 

which we depend. 

Thank you for this opportunity to address both subcommittees 

and for your continued support. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Van Tilborg can be found in the 

Appendix on page 40.] 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

We will now turn to Colonel Schweitzer. I do want to acknowledge his service. He has just returned 10 days ago, according to my 

notes, from a 15-month tour in Afghanistan. His unit was the first 

to deploy with the pilot human terrain team program. So we look 

forward to your insights from your experience in the field. 

Colonel Schweitzer. 

STATEMENT OF COL. MARTIN P. SCHWEITZER, COMMANDER, 

4/82 AIRBORNE BRIGADE COMBAT TEAM, U.S. ARMY 

Colonel SCHWEITZER. Chairman Smith, Chairman Baird, ranking 

members of both subcommittees, thank you for this opportunity to 

testify on how mission-critical irregular warfare, nontraditional 

and non-kinetic enabling capabilities and technology are achieving 

desired effects in Afghanistan. 

Having just 10 days ago returned from a 15-month deployment, 

let me first thank the Congress and the Nation for your continued 

support as we persevere against a determined, adaptable enemy. 

The context of my comments today will be the Fourth Brigade 

Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division’s experience in Afghanistan, 

and specifically the significant non-kinetic effects the pilot human 

terrain system program has provided to our combat leaders at all 

levels within the brigade. 

Let me first explain what the human terrain system is. It is a 

capability to assist commanders and soldiers to better understand 

the human terrain they are surrounded by, and discern soft-power 

means of achieving desired effects. It is built about a five-to eightperson human terrain team, HTT, at the brigade combat team level 

comprised of social scientists and other trained military personnel. 

They use a mapping human terrain toolkit to assist with research 

and analysis and maintain a human terrain data repository concerning the local population, social groups, interests, beliefs, motivating factors, leaders, et cetera. 

HTTs do not merely serve as embedded cultural advisers for commanders, but they assist commanders at every level to maneuver 

formations within local communities in such a manner that reduces 

the threat to all parties involved. To help with this, there is a theater-specific reach-back research center at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas which provides 24/7 subject-matter expert support for deployed 

teams. 

So what did all this mean for our deployment? It meant by better 

understanding the human terrain, we reduced the number of kinetic operations that otherwise would have occurred. Not only did 

we reduce the risk to our soldiers, but we reduced the risk significantly to the communities that we operated within. Subsequently, 

we were able to assist linking the people of Afghanistan to their 

government at an incredibly accelerated rate. 

7 

The bottom line is my headquarters is uniquely qualified to focus 

on the enemy as the center of gravity. However, today the people 

are the center or gravity, not the enemy. The brigade headquarters 

requires enablers to optimize their effectiveness. One of the 

enablers is this HTT capability which allows the headquarters to 

better focus its efforts on the correct center of gravity. 

Let me tell you what an HTT is not. The team is not an intelligence-gathering tool which is used to target individuals. My staff 

is uniquely organized to run the targeting process and link intelligence systems to time-sensitive targeting. The HTT is sourced to 

its social scientist and is not qualified or trained to provide targeting support. 

Last year, the Army fielded an HTT to my unit as a proof of concept. The HTT was immediately value-added and became missioncritical. The team’s impacts were exponentially powerful. It reduced our kinetic operations, assisted in developing more effective 

non-kinetic courses of action, improved the unit’s overall situational awareness, improved consequence management, increased 

host-nation government support, improved the brigade’s humanitarian assistance efforts, improved the village assessments, improved information operations capabilities, decreased enemy forces 

attacks, and decreased ordinary crime in our area of operation. 

Without the HTT filter on courses of action and the alternative 

maneuver tools they identified to create the exact same effect, we 

would have lost double, in my assessment, the lives both military 

and civilian. Using HTT capabilities, we reduced kinetic operations 

by 60 percent to 70 percent during our 15-month deployment. 

To illustrate the HTT’s effectiveness, I would like to share a few 

vignettes. In the words of one of my company commanders, ‘‘Without the HTT our actions would not have been as precise. If the 

teams weren’t there, I would have cordoned-off the village, gathered local elders and told them what we were doing. I would have 

told them to show me their personally-owned weapons and if they 

didn’t show us their weapons, we would have taken them. Because 

of the HTT, I understood my alternatives. If you could have one for 

every company commander, they would be a phenomenal asset.’’ 

According to one of my provisional reconstruction team commanders, ‘‘Their expertise rapidly identified who to talk to in the 

village. We were just ricocheting around before they got there, talking to random people. The HTT saved me an enormous amount of 

time, 10 to 20 hours per village in terms of who to talk to. I would 

take those guys any day of the week.’’ 

And then finally, the HTT helped the 203rd Afghan National 

Army Corps in our brigade in developing non-kinetic courses of action during combat operations. To provide a specific example, in the 

Ghazni Province, the Taliban had regularly attacked the government of Afghanistan leaders coalition, Afghan National Army and 

Afghan National Police for over five years. 

Despite a very aggressive outreach to village elders, the HTT 

questioned the use of kinetic courses of action in the area, observing that the true power brokers in the areas were the mullahs and 

not the village elders. After redirecting our outreach effort to the 

mullahs, the brigade experienced a rapid and dramatic decrease in 

8 

Taliban attacks to the point where this area is currently attackfree. 

The bottom line is, for five years we got nothing from the people 

of the Ghazni Province. After meeting with the mullahs, we had no 

more bullets for 28 days, captured 80 Afghan-born Taliban and 32 

foreign fighters without a shot being fired. As a result of this operation last June, Ghazni Province today no longer harbors the shadow Taliban government. 

So what was the net effect? When we took over in early 2007, 

only 19 of the 86 formal and informal districts supported the government. Today, we assess 72 of those same districts support their 

government. I absolutely attribute some of this change to the HTT. 

I could elaborate with more metrics and examples of HTT’s success, but let me conclude. We learned that the population is the 

key to the center of gravity. The enemy is hiding among the people 

and we must understand the culture to win. However, it is more 

than just the culture. It is understanding their norms and values 

from an operational standpoint that creates a bridge between the 

people and their government which currently does not exist. 

The HTT’s contribution to the brigades’ ability to assess their operating environments, to routinely develop and consider non-lethal 

input to military planning, and to achieve greater operational success with less kinetic operations is invaluable. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Colonel Schweitzer can be found in 

the Appendix on page 69.] 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, colonel. 

Dr. Weiss. 

STATEMENT OF DR. MARK L. WEISS, DIVISION OF BEHAVIORAL AND COGNITIVE SCIENCES, DIRECTORATE OF SOCIAL, BEHAVIORAL AND ECONOMIC SCIENCES, NATIONAL 

SCIENCE FOUNDATION 

Dr. WEISS. Chairman Smith, Chairman Baird and distinguished 

members of the subcommittees, thank you for the opportunity to 

discuss the social, behavioral and economic, or SBE sciences, and 

their relationship to the military. The SBE sciences are concerned 

with human actions at every level, from an individual’s brain to individual behavior, to the actions of social groups and organizations. 

From fighting the war on terrorism to understanding and overseeing an immense organization, SBE research can assist military 

policymakers in developing knowledge-based solutions. About a 

dozen different disciplines comprise the SBE sciences. Anthropologists study the workings of cultures and societies. Neuroscientists 

and psychologists probe the inner workings of the mind and brain. 

Linguists seek the neural basis of language. And economists, political scientists, sociologists, and geographers map the forces at work 

in today’s societies. 

Collectively, these researchers study teambuilding, risk management, metrics for assessing U.S. competitiveness, disaster response, 

radicalization, the dynamics of conflict and much more. Federal 

support of basic SBE research is largely provided by NSF through 

grants to researchers, most of whom are located in U.S. academic 

institutions. NSF provides about 60 percent of the Federal support 

9 

for basic research in anthropology, social psychology and the social 

sciences. For some disciplines, NSF supplies more than 90 percent 

of the funding. 

We estimate that approximately 10 percent to 15 percent of this 

research might be of clear and immediate interest to the military. 

In fact, NSF supports significant levels of basic research in all six 

of the major research areas called for in the National Research 

Council’s Human Behavior in Military Contexts report: intercultural competence, teams in complex environments, technology and 

training, nonverbal behavior, emotion, and behavioral 

neurophysiology. Each subject is relevant to the military in a variety of areas, including leadership, training, personnel, social interactions, and organizational structures. 

I will illustrate with three recent SBE awards from what I believe is a rich and diverse portfolio of SBE research relevant to the 

DOD mission. First, the University of Michigan researchers are 

studying human behavior motivated by ethical or religious beliefs. 

This research has far-reaching implications for military operations 

in regions where religious beliefs heavily influence local cultural 

and political systems. 

Second, the Learning in Informal and Formal Environments Center is an interdisciplinary collaboration led by scientists at the University of Washington and Stanford University. Its goal is to unlock 

the powers of human learning. This research will provide valuable 

insight to any organization that trains an ethnically diverse population of young adults such as the military. 

And third, researchers at the City University of New York are 

studying our ability to selectively attend to the relevant elements 

in our environment, while ignoring distracting information. This 

skill is of supreme importance in a military setting. 

Many NSF-supported research projects such as these could inform DOD efforts. With an increasing appreciation of the benefits 

that accrue to the military by SBE research, NSF and DOD might 

co-develop innovative solicitations. NSF can also provide expertise 

on the process of peer review and NSF has very strong ties to the 

academic community which could be leveraged to help develop new 

DOD research themes. NSF program managers might also provide 

the military with novel perspectives on the potential applications 

of SBE research. 

Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittees, I hope that 

I have been able to articulate NSF’s unique role in supporting fundamental social, behavioral and economic research, and the added 

value that NSF-supported research might provide to the DOD. 

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you. I would be 

happy to respond to any questions. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Weiss can be found in the Appendix on page 59.] 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much. 

Dr. Segal. 

10 

STATEMENT OF DR. DAVID R. SEGAL, PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY AND DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR RESEARCH ON MILITARY ORGANIZATION, UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND COLLEGE 

PARK 

Dr. SEGAL. Congressman Smith, Congressman Baird, esteemed 

members of the subcommittees, I am honored to have been invited 

to testify to you on the role of the social and behavioral sciences 

in national security. I have been asked to address four issues, and 

although I am a professor, I will try to be brief. 

First, I have been asked to provide an overview of the University 

of Maryland Center for Research on Military Organization. The Sociology Department at Maryland is unique in that it has continuously taught courses in military sociology and the sociology of war 

since World War II. I was not there at the time. Military sociology 

is a relatively small field and our program is the largest in the nation. 

In 1995, the research efforts of a number of faculty and graduate 

students were consolidated into the Center for Research on Military Organization. We were designated a center of excellence by 

the Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social 

Sciences, with the dual missions of conducting cutting-edge research and educating a successor generation of military sociologists. 

Our research program has four primary foci: diversity in the 

military, military families, military operations, and the intersection 

of the military and society. Our program is currently implemented 

by four faculty members, ten graduate students, and one post-doctoral research fellow. 

Since 1985, we have granted 18 Ph.D. degrees to students specializing in the study of the military, with 10 of them since the 

year 2000. Over the last decade, our research has been supported 

by over $4 million in extramural funding. More than 80 percent of 

it has come from the Army Research Institute. About 14 percent 

has come from the National Science Foundation. About six percent 

has come from industry. The remainder has come from private 

foundations. 

Second, I have been asked how research such as ours can achieve 

national security goals. Research in the social and behavioral 

sciences has afforded America’s armed forces maximized soldier 

and unit performance since World War I when psychologists first 

developed tests to determine who should serve and in what jobs. 

In World War II, a generation of America’s best sociologists and 

social psychologists were mobilized to support soldier morale and 

performance through survey research and training experiments. 

Today, as the domestic labor force and the international environment changes, the social and behavioral sciences can make continued contributions. 

Understanding the nature of culture and cultural differences, for 

example, can help soldiers function in a force that itself is increasingly culturally diverse, reflecting the changing ethnic and racial 

composition of society. It will help them participate in coalition operations where they share the battle space with allies who come 

from different cultural backgrounds. And it will help them function 

in unconventional military operations where the opponent is not a 

11 

modern army whose soldiers wear uniforms that distinguish them 

both from friendly forces and from indigenous civilians, but rather 

irregular forces who blend in with the local population. 

In addition, the increasing importance of small units in these operations highlights the potential contributions of research on group 

processes such as cohesion and leadership, a research area in 

which the armed forces currently invests less heavily than they did 

in the years after the Korean War. 

Third, I was asked to identify current and emerging areas of research that contribute to the effectiveness of our national security 

apparatus. Many of the important areas, such as cohesion and 

leadership, have long been important, but continued research is 

necessary as research methods and concepts evolve. Others are 

identified in the 2008 National Research Council report on Human 

Behavior in Military Contexts, which has been referred to already. 

This volume focuses on the contributions of psychology, and particularly on cognitive psychology. Other social sciences and other 

fields of psychology also have contributions to make. At the individual level, research on the life course decisions of young adult 

Americans contributes both to an improved understanding of the 

decisions they make on choices of trajectory, whether they go into 

the military services, into civilian employment, or to universities, 

as well as how the Nation can best serve its veterans who have incurred personal cost through their contributions to our defense. 

At the institutional level, research on the ways in which American organizations and professions are being restructured can contribute to our understanding of the contemporary military profession, its organization, and its relation to society. In researching the 

military, new research tools such as computer and Web-based survey research may make data collection easier. 

Qualitative research approaches such as ethnographic and archival research can enrich the statistical pictures that our surveys 

provide. Application of recent theoretical approaches such as culture theory and social network theory can help us understand the 

structure of the military, its relationship to society, and the adversaries we are likely to have to face. 

Finally, I have been asked to comment on how we communicate 

our findings to DOD and the military services. Part of this is done 

through normal vehicles of science, meetings of professional associations that span the civilian and military boundaries, and peerreviewed journals of these organizations. We also contribute to 

user-oriented scientific reports published by the armed forces. Perhaps most importantly, we have found the military to be enthusiastic consumers of our research and are frequently asked to serve 

as consultants to senior military leaders and to participate in military conferences and study groups. 

Thank you very much for your attention. I will be happy to expand on any of these points and answer any questions you might 

have. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Segal can be found in the Appendix on page 52.] 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you all very much. 

I think we will stick to the five-minute rule for everybody. We 

will probably have time to go around for a second round of quesVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:46 Feb 04, 2009 Jkt 044412 PO 00000 Frm 00015 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\110-165\44412.TXT HAS1 PsN: LINDA
12 

tions if you don’t get all of them answered in the first five minutes. 

I will start. 

The first question I am interested in, in focusing on Afghanistan 

and Iraq, but this can apply elsewhere, how do you gather the cultural information that Colonel Schweitzer talked about in terms of 

how useful it was? How do you go about figuring out what the 

rules are in a given Afghan village or Iraqi village? I have also 

been to the southern Philippines where we are doing some of this. 

How do you gather that information? How do you basically make 

sure that it is reliable? 

I don’t know if Dr. Van Tilborg or Colonel Schweitzer, you can 

answer that. 

Colonel SCHWEITZER. Sir, I will just summarize if I could, and 

then expand it if there is a requirement. The human terrain teams, 

we embed them within the provincial reconstruction teams ahead 

of the operation that is going to be conducted. The provisional reconstruction teams by their very nature have incredible access to 

the population, but not trust, nor do they understand the human 

dimension that they are operating within. So using that access vehicle, the human terrain team then engages the community leaders, identifies who they are. 

Mr. SMITH. And the human terrain team—sorry to interrupt—is 

trained how? Are they a mix of military and civilian, or just one 

or the other? 

Colonel SCHWEITZER. They have some uniformed personnel assigned to the teams, but the teams are built around the folks from 

the social science community that bring the unique skill sets and 

the processes to do the human dimension analysis, to capture the 

norms, values, cultural challenges or ways that they operate on. 

Mr. SMITH. And they will have some background in the specific 

culture where they are headed to, I assume? 

Colonel SCHWEITZER. Sir, they may, but I have to tell you we 

found out that that is not a pre-condition. The pre-condition that 

we found out is the process that the anthropological community has 

been trained on their whole lives. That process is much more important than their respective regional area of experience. 

Mr. SMITH. So knowing what to look for, whether you have seen 

it before or not. 

Colonel SCHWEITZER. Yes, sir. And it does help if they have experiences from that perspective. You know, if they are an Afghan expert, absolutely it is value-added. But we found that it is not a necessity. So they collect up through their engagement, through the 

constant impression. 

Look, here is the other piece. It is not done on one visit. Nothing 

is done on one visit. This is an Afghan timeline, not a Western 

watch. So to get the human terrain teams down there, to create the 

relationships, to get the dialogue going takes time. They have to 

capture the assessments and the analysis that they are making. 

And then they bring that back. They use their reach-back to that 

facility that I spoke of at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas to confirm or 

deny behaviors. And then they turn that into usable information 

for maneuver commanders so we can properly engage and operate 

within those communities, reducing friction. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

13 

In terms of the number of these teams that we have, now there 

are a number of different places other than Iraq and Afghanistan 

that this is applicable to, I understand, but just focusing on those 

two places, how many HTTs do we have deployed in either Afghanistan or Iraq? 

Colonel SCHWEITZER. Sir, there is a total of eight as of today. The 

second team just came in yesterday from Afghanistan. It is stationed in the northern portion of the regional command. And then 

there are six additional teams in Iraq is what my current understanding is. 

Mr. SMITH. To really cover those areas, how many would we 

need? 

Colonel SCHWEITZER. Sir, that is a great question. 

Mr. SMITH. Go ahead. Throw a big number at me. That is fine, 

but seriously. 

Colonel SCHWEITZER. My assessment is—and this is just mine— 

that every battalion, every O–5 command, needs a human terrain 

team assigned to it, and not just at game time. Deploying them is 

certainly an approach that enables that command to maneuver 

within the communities, but if we wanted to optimize the battalion’s ability to make the people the center of gravity, to link people 

to their government, those human terrain teams need to be assigned to the unit months before its deployment, so you can train, 

develop the relationships, go through the training center, conduct 

a series of simulations, so you train just not the staffs and just not 

the commanders, but the young staff sergeant who is on the ground 

in Afghanistan engaging that mullah or tribal leader within a particular village. 

Mr. SMITH. So we are talking dozens? 

Colonel SCHWEITZER. Sir, for example, I had 12 O–5 commands, 

eight maneuver, and four PRTs. I would like a human terrain team 

in each of those O–5 commands. Additionally, I would like one at 

the brigade level, where I currently have one, and I use it at the 

brigade level for planning, and then we send it out to their subordinate formations for operational execution. 

Mr. SMITH. And how many members are on each HTT? 

Colonel SCHWEITZER. Sir, it is stable right now. It is five to eight. 

It is based upon the problem and size density. Now, frankly it is 

still a pilot program. I think the ultimate manning has yet to be 

determined. 

Mr. SMITH. Yes. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Baird. 

Mr. BAIRD. Absolutely fascinating. I want to echo the chair’s 

thanks to all of you. 

The issue of training, I used the MRAP analogy earlier. We really rushed those into service, but we probably can’t rush folks into 

this training. But what needs to happen? I saw Dr. Segal nodding 

his head earlier when Colonel Schweitzer was speaking in terms of 

getting folks integrated into the force early-on. 

I have two questions. What needs to happen in terms of training 

people to do this? It would seem to be some kind of a hybrid between social science training and understanding how the military 

works. If academic institutions or businesses or the military itself 

14 

were to ramp-up to try to get folks, what needs to happen in that 

area? 

Dr. Segal, I will start with you and then any of the others. 

Dr. SEGAL. I will answer anecdotally, because it is the quickest 

way I know. We have students who are serving officers who come 

through our program and then go out in the field. One of our 

Ph.D.s, who by the way applied social network training to help capture Saddam Hussein, is now commanding a Stryker battalion getting ready to go back to Iraq. His sensitivity to what is important 

in culture is being transmitted to his company commanders and to 

his soldiers. 

Now, this is not a substitute for a human terrain team, but if you 

have to come in at some level, coming in at the battalion commander, company commander level, and assuming that you can 

teach some cultural sensitivity at those levels, including them in 

company and squad training down through the force, I think is a 

good start. 

Mr. BAIRD. Colonel Schweitzer. 

Colonel SCHWEITZER. Sir, we were discussing this in the last couple of days. Let me explain it in this manner if I can. When we 

built the Stryker brigade back in the late 1990’s, I think we did 

that correctly. We did a series of simulations. We developed tactics 

techniques and procedures. We developed a playbook, if you will. 

And then we equipped and manned the force. And then we put it 

in a training environment and we trained it. 

With the human terrain teams, one could argue we did this a little bit ass-backwards. We had the maneuver formation and then 

we gave it a human terrain team and built an airplane while in 

flight. It is probably not the way we want to do business. So I 

would tell you let’s default back to how we built the Stryker brigade, because what we are developing is a capability and a capacity 

that ultimately is going to be, I believe, in my opinion, an enduring 

requirement for military formations to be able to have that skill set 

in their tool bag to make the people the center of gravity so we can 

link government to their people. 

Mr. BAIRD. A dear friend of mine was former general commander 

of the 104th Timberwolf Division out of my district. He is of the 

belief that the reserves might be a good way to do this, and maybe 

break our reserves into—not break—but assign responsibilities for 

different regions of the world, and then pre-train people on this 

kind of skill in addition to their warfighting. Maybe this is not in 

addition. Maybe this is central to it. Maybe ‘‘addition’’ is the wrong 

term. 

Colonel SCHWEITZER. Sir, where it actually resides, that is certainly one solution. It is probably a bit beyond my purview, but I 

am convinced that the capability itself is one that is a necessity for 

new maneuver formations to have. Despite the conflicts that are 

going to be in the future, clearly this asymmetrical enemy within 

the population is going to be present. That is now a given. Since 

that doesn’t look like it is going to change and we are going to go 

back to a symmetrical type of warfare, not having this tool in the 

kitbag, not being educated—— 

And I will tell you, it cannot be limited to the officer corps. When 

I say ‘‘commanders,’’ I mean commands. So the squad leaders and 

15 

above need to have these skill sets so when they are doing these 

engagements, they are properly equipped to link in with the 

human terrain teams, with the eventual reconstruction teams, so 

they can then create the most important effect, which is freedom. 

Mr. BAIRD. Well put. I want to thank you and all your forces for 

helping to bring that freedom to people. 

Dr. Van Tilborg, you mentioned earlier that it is not memorization of facts. It is a way of thinking. Could you expand on that? 

Dr. VAN TILBORG. Yes. Actually, I want to follow up a little bit 

on what Colonel Schweitzer was saying here, the point being to 

train as many of the deploying troops as possible, not just certain 

individuals. I think what is critical here is to include language 

skills. Language is well known to be very important to an understanding of cultures. 

I think what we need to be able to do is employ to a much greater degree than we do currently the various forms of immersive 

training, sometimes referred to as ‘‘games,’’ but they are a lot more 

than games. They are much more serious than that. The department’s S&T program has developed some rather important capabilities in this immersive training regime. 

We also need to draw more upon distance learning kinds of techniques so that a larger group that goes to be deployed has this kind 

of knowledge when they go. Thank you. 

Mr. BAIRD [presiding]. Thank you very much. 

We will go to Mr. Ellsworth and then Mr. Conaway will be after 

Mr. Ellsworth. 

Mr. ELLSWORTH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, gentlemen, for witnessing here today. 

Colonel, thank you for your service. I am glad you are back 

home. 

I was just kind of curious. We are pretty big on stats and numbers. When we are spending the people’s money, they like to know 

this many MRAPs, this many bullets, this many bombs. Can you 

tell me anything about the measurement of success? I know, Colonel, you were saying that you had this much less violence. Could 

you tell me a little bit more how you measure? 

I know it is a pilot program, but how are you measuring the success that we can report back to our folks or to us? 

Colonel SCHWEITZER. Sure. I will first speak to the threat, which 

unfortunately is measured only in terms of kinetics, the number of 

bullets fired and the number of people injured, which really is 

probably a mistake to measure it only in that manner, so let me 

put two together. 

Prior to using the human terrain teams in Afghanistan, the previous five combined operations with the Afghan national army resulted with about 30 or 40 enemy killed, and my memory says 

about 15 to 20 civilians were also killed. I don’t know if that is exactly right, but that is the ballpark. 

The five operations we did with the human terrain teams, that 

we spent just under 6 months, had a total of zero civilian casualties, zero enemy casualties, over 100 Taliban detained, over about 

50 cumulative foreign fighters during those five operations. So that 

is one measure. 

16 

Another measure, and I think it is the one that is more important, are the number of districts that are now in support of its government because of one of the human terrain teams’ contributions 

of creating access. The human terrain teams helped us create access to population centers that we previously did not have access 

to. When I say ‘‘we,’’ I am not talking coalition. I am talking the 

Afghan-led effort which we were in support of. 

So what is the effect of that? Well, the effect of that is district 

and provincial governors being able to get down there to these communities, to be able to address and attend to their needs, and then 

provide for basic services, which I think is what government is all 

about. 

And then once they did that over a period of time, the people for 

the first time in 35 years in Afghanistan have an alternate choice, 

not of oppression, not of this constant fear of death or reprisal, but 

a government trying to take care of them. It wasn’t perfect. It is 

not perfect today, but the numbers don’t lie when we say 19 of 86 

districts before we used the human terrain teams, and today we 

are 72. 

Do I think that the human terrain team is the only reason why? 

No. I think that there are a bunch of things that you guys have 

sourced, and we are incredibly thankful for what you all have done 

for us, everything from Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat 

Organization (JIEDDO) to the law enforcement personnel, to the 

Commander’s Emergency Response Plan (CERP) money, to all 

those things that you are giving unit commanders on the ground. 

But the human terrain teams played a critical role in creating that 

access. 

Mr. ELLSWORTH. Thank you. What about losses on our side in 

these HTTs, the civilian members, non-soldiers? Have we had casualties? 

Colonel SCHWEITZER. Sir, we have not had casualties to date, but 

when we talk about the number of casualties on the uniformed 

side, when I said about the five operations that we did, I left out 

the coalition casualties. There were no coalition casualties in those 

five operations that spanned just under six months. So I think it 

is a contributing factor. 

I also have to acknowledge the development and performance of 

the Afghan government. It is a connected entity. The government 

is able to develop because it is being provided daily opportunities 

to provide for their people. It is being able to provide those daily 

opportunities because of the access that is there. The access that 

is there has been created or contributed to the creation of the 

human terrain teams. 

Mr. ELLSWORTH. What about the acceptance from the troops, the 

uniformed people? I know that in my former life, when I would introduce something new to my officers, sometimes there was resistance. Are you meeting that? What is your reaction? 

Colonel SCHWEITZER. No. This is my sixth or seventh deployment. I have been deploying since 1989. So when the enemy was 

the center of gravity, this capability was not required. Now that 

the people are the center of gravity, I will just use the quotes that 

I use to my subordinate commanders. It is a desired commodity caVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:46 Feb 04, 2009 Jkt 044412 PO 00000 Frm 00020 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\110-165\44412.TXT HAS1 PsN: LINDA
17 

pability that we need so we can make the people the center of gravity. 

I will tell you that no one likes to get shot at, particularly in Afghanistan. It is an unpopular insurgency. The death of any, whether it is enemy Taliban or an innocent, is a step back. So as we can 

continue to develop tools that enable us to engage communities and 

settle the disputes through governance, it is a win for everyone. 

Mr. ELLSWORTH. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH [presiding]. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Conaway. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, gentlemen. 

I apologize if this question re-plows ground you guys have already plowed, but ‘‘mapping human terrain’’ is not a term that I 

intuitively understand what you are talking about. Could you go 

through that a little bit and explain exactly what the method is? 

Colonel SCHWEITZER. Sir, let me just topically answer that, because what you are asking me is what is this toolbox. Like any mechanic, I understand the toolbox and I can use the tools. I don’t 

know much more beyond that, quite frankly. But simply stated, the 

MAP HT kit is a piece of hardware. It is a computer laptop. It is 

used to produce the products and decision-making tools that enable 

a subordinate commander to figure out how he best can conduct 

maneuvers inside a respective community. 

It is also used as a repository, as a hand-off. So as we do the release-in-place between the brigades, the battalions, the companies, 

the provincial reconstruction teams, and the human terrain teams 

themselves, that they have a good, constant hand-off of material 

and data and information that gets handed-off. So it is really their 

hardware and software system from my view that provides me 

those necessary tools that we can then go out and give to our subordinate commanders and sergeants who engage with these communities. Anything beyond that, sir, it is beyond my expertise. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Can you give me an example of what a tool is? 

How do you gather the data that is in the toolkit? 

Colonel SCHWEITZER. Okay, sir. We did cover that, so I will just 

summarize it if I can. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Thank you. 

Colonel SCHWEITZER. The human terrain teams normally get embedded inside the provincial reconstruction teams. 

Mr. CONAWAY. I understand that, but you said it is a tool. What 

is it that they have gathered? The number of brown-haired folks 

or—? 

Colonel SCHWEITZER. No, no, sir. Let me give you an example 

and see if that answers it. Sir, the Pashtunwali has 15 tenets. 

These are basically the values and norms that the Pashtun tribe, 

which is the largest tribe in Afghanistan, lives under. Those 16 tenets you would think would be interpreted in just one manner. 

Well, the Suleiman Khel tribe, as an example, is made up of 26 

sub-tribes. Those 26 sub-tribes each view the 16 tenets of 

Pashtunwali a bit differently. 

So the human terrain teams get down there inside these communities, get their understanding of how they view the 16 tenets of 

Pashtunwali, give that back to us. We then incorporate that into 

18 

our rehearsals so we can properly maneuver within their communities. So we are engaging the tribal leader of this village, the 

mullah of that district. So it enables us to better maneuver, reduce 

the friction, and reduce the risk to everyone involved. 

And here is the other thing, sir, that we have found quite interesting. The Afghan national army folks are made up across all of 

Afghanistan. So their understanding of tribal values and tribal 

issues are not much greater than some of ours. So these products 

are used throughout the entire combined force so we can reduce the 

number of kinetic or potential kinetic activities that otherwise may 

have occurred. 

Mr. CONAWAY. I have been to Fort Riley to see the training 

teams there, that training regimen. How long does it take to form 

up an HTT and deploy that team? 

Colonel SCHWEITZER. Sir, I don’t know that answer because my 

experience was when I was at the Joint Readiness Training Center 

at Fort Polk, Louisiana, I started asking for a psychologist in that 

community because I was ignorant. That is who I needed to help 

me understand the human terrain. A guy by the name of Steve 

Fondacarrow showed up out of nowhere and said, what you need 

are anthropologists or people from the social science community. 

So on the third day of my rotation at the Joint Readiness Training Center two months before I deployed, five American heroes 

showed up and plugged in and helped us grow this capability. So 

I can tell you that we didn’t do it right in terms of how to form, 

man it, train it, and embed it. The formation that just replaced me 

linked in with their human terrain team prior to their deployment 

to their readiness exercise and stayed with them and is with them 

today. That certainly feels, sounds, and smells like that is more the 

right link-up. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Are we using these tools in Iraq as well, or just 

in Afghanistan? 

Colonel SCHWEITZER. Sir, we are using the tools in Iraq, but that 

is really about the extent of my knowledge of what is occurring in 

Iraq. I am fresh back from Afghanistan. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Well, thank you for your service. 

I yield back. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

Ms. Gillibrand. 

I am sorry. I apologize. Mr. Lipinski was here first. I am sorry. 

We have a dual committee here. I apologize. I looked at the wrong 

name on the list. We will get to you soon. 

Go ahead. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to thank both Chairman Smith and Chairman Baird for 

holding this hearing today. 

I really want to go in a little bit different direction here. As the 

hearing charter said, we want to explore opportunities for partnerships between the DOD and NSF for this type of research. So I 

want to go down that road. 

Last year, there was a bit of a skirmish over social science research funding with NSF. Chairman Baird led the way and I joined 

with him to help protect that funding. I am a political scientist, so 

I have an interest in that. But what I really want to ask is, I want 

19 

to start with Dr. Van Tilborg, and then go to Dr. Segal, and then 

I want to hear what Dr. Weiss has to say about this. 

Dr. Segal is in academe. Dr. Van Tilborg has been there. What 

can and what do you think the NSF should be doing in regard to 

any partnership with the DOD? I want to also get into how much 

responsibility do you think NSF has for doing things like this. 

Should the NSF be purposefully focused on research that could 

help in this area? Or should we be focusing the NSF so much in 

a particular direction? 

I have started out with a lot of questions. Let me see what you 

have to say. But is there value to research that is not directly related, say, to something related to the military that we have here, 

but may in some way tangentially help train somebody, a researcher who then can later do work in this area? So all the questions are on the value of the NSF research. That is why I want to 

get your ideas on that. 

So let’s start with Dr. Van Tilborg. 

Dr. VAN TILBORG. Congressman, thank you for your questions. 

Yes, I am very much in favor of the kind of unfettered basic 

science research that the National Science Foundation conducts. I 

think there are often situations where without any kind of knowledge as to how that new understanding from their research will be 

used, that eventually our nation benefits greatly from that kind of 

knowledge. 

We do in our DOD basic science so-called six-one research program have a lot of grassroots interactions with the National 

Science Foundation staff. I think it is actually quite common that 

the principal investigators in the universities who primarily conduct the National Science Foundation’s research and our six-one research tend to be if not one and the same individuals, then sitting 

down the hallway from those people who are supported by the 

other agency. Of course, they run across each other a lot in the professional societies and world. 

My personal view is that, yes, the National Science Foundation 

does in fact have as part of its charter to be concerned about the 

national security. That is not foreign to their responsibility. But it 

is important for them to maintain the relationship that they have 

with the science community. This is a very long-term relationship 

that has been established. I think we on the Department of Defense side have to develop the techniques that can draw upon NSFfunded research effectively for our purposes without interfering 

with their ability to work honestly and openly with their research 

communities. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Dr. Segal. 

Dr. SEGAL. I agree with Dr. Van Tilborg. I think that the mission 

of NSF to sponsor unfettered research is paramount. At the same 

time, I think it is important for NSF from the point of view of the 

country and the academic community to recognize a responsibility 

to support research generally in the public interest. I think national security is in the public interest. 

In terms of mobilizing human capital in support of national security needs, quite frankly I think that NSF brings to the funding of 

social science research a level of credibility and legitimacy that in 

20 

the current environment, and probably since the Vietnam War, 

DOD has not had, for better or for worse, deserved or undeserved. 

There are indeed a number of social scientists who do research 

that would be relevant to national security who would not go to 

DOD for funding, and others who probably would, but do not have 

the same access to Department of Defense-Veterans Affair’s (DODVA’s) broad agency announcements that they do to information on 

what funding is available through NSF. So I believe that NSF 

funding in this area would increase the range of social science talent available to be brought to bear on national security needs. 

Mr. SMITH. I am sorry. We will have to perhaps come back to 

this if we have more time. 

Mr. Kline. 

Mr. KLINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, gentlemen, for being here. Colonel Schweitzer, it is 

good to see you back on this side of the world. I appreciate your 

hospitality when we were out there a few months ago. It is good 

to see you here. 

I apologize because I wasn’t here earlier. Like Mr. Conaway, I 

don’t want to re-plow old terrain for you as I am catching up. So 

I would just like, if I could, Colonel, to address a question and 

thought to you. I know that part of the issue that you and others 

are dealing with over there are the Afghani government leaders 

themselves. I know that there are a couple of examples. Governor 

Jemal for example is top-flight, first-rate, but some others not so. 

Does this tool—does the system, the HTT and the people who are 

involved in that—does that help you identify the capabilities, the 

qualities, if I can use that word, of the Afghani leaders that you 

are dealing with or that others would deal with? 

Colonel SCHWEITZER. Sir, we do not use it in that manner. We 

used it truly to define the human terrain and the human dimension that we are operating within. We are focusing it on the communities, the tribal challenges, the tribal norms, how those subtribes did and did not work together, how they worked or did not 

work together with adjacent tribes. So we focused it truly on being 

able to paint the appropriate human landscape so we could operate 

within. 

Having said that, most of the governors are not from the provinces that they operate within. So these output products were incredibly beneficial for them as well so they could create proper access. We found it really unique that as a matter of fact the Paktia 

governor was from a different tribe, and he had great difficulty engaging his tribal leaders at the lower district and the village level. 

He was using his own procedures and techniques that he had used 

in the tribe that he came from. 

Well, we were coaching him collectively on, hey look, it ain’t 

working what you are doing. The products that came out from the 

human terrain team were those products that we used to help him 

understand that community that he was trying to engage and discuss and deal with. That is how we applied it. 

Mr. KLINE. So that tool is not only helpful to you and your soldiers for understanding the human terrain that they are navigating through, but you are actually able to turn it around and 

help an Afghani leader use it as well. But it doesn’t address the 

21 

problem and couldn’t of just corruption, low character, or something like that that might be in place. 

Colonel SCHWEITZER. You can’t help but get back information 

from the village leaders, the tribal leaders, the mullahs, when corruption is out there, when they think governance is not working on 

behalf of them. That does come. It is an output product. It is not 

the primary product, but it certainly is additional information that 

comes back. 

So you do get this kaleidoscope of responses and data points to 

be able to put into the kitbag to figure out, okay, how do we reduce 

this friction? How do we create this access? How do we then coach 

the governors, the police chiefs, the army chiefs, to have better behavior or proper behavior as expected by that community and give 

them ultimate options? At first there is just one option—the same 

thing it does for us. 

So what I alluded to earlier was that these teams, the products 

that they are creating, they benefited the Afghan national security 

forces as much, if not more, than the coalition forces. To our moms 

and dads that are out there, that are providing their sons and 

daughters to go into uniform, they can rest assured that is saving 

lives. 

In terms of the mission, it has a significant impact with developing governance within the Afghan structure, of enhancing economic development, as well as developing the Afghan national security forces. 

Mr. KLINE. Thank you very much. 

I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

Ms. Gillibrand. 

Mrs. GILLIBRAND. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you all for your testimony and your work and your service. It really sounds like you have developed a program that is extraordinarily value-added. 

I want to ask Colonel Schweitzer, in your prepared remarks and 

through your stated remarks, you went through all the advantages 

that you have seen both on the ground with our own troops, with 

reducing violence, with working better with the local governments. 

I just want a little more context about how are our men and 

women on the ground who are doing this work perceived. 

Colonel SCHWEITZER. You mean the human terrain teams, how 

they are perceived? I guess the best way to judge that is the access 

that they are and are not granted. Do I think that every engagement that the human terrain teams have had has been one of success? I am sure that is not the case. I am sure that there have been 

times that either it has stumbled or that a community has just not 

been willing to accept it because at the end of the day, it still is 

a foreigner on the other end of the discussion. 

So there are going to be those challenges that are out there. But 

what I have found is that through time, if we don’t use a Western 

watch that I alluded to earlier, and if we allow the Afghan condition set to be achieved, that that access has never not been 

achieved. That is just due to constant engagement, consistent performance, constant behavior on both sides of the equation, so they 

22 

can develop enough of a trust where they are willing to open up 

and discuss. 

But simply stated, we have never—I cannot recall a single incidence where they did not gain access eventually. But I can tell you 

numerous times where we didn’t gain it immediately. Again, that 

is because we did default to our Western watch that we quickly 

threw away so we could focus on getting the right conditions set 

to establish the necessary trust that allowed the communication 

flow. 

Mrs. GILLIBRAND. Have you considered, or is there already coordination with United States Agency for International Development (USAID), with Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), with the 

State Department? It seems to me that if you look at other areas 

where we are not combat-focused, but more population-focused and 

intelligence-gathering-focused, that this kind of information would 

be extremely valuable in other applications of the U.S. government’s role. 

I am thinking of different applications, but looking at Pakistan 

for example. When I was there last summer, we have certain missions there—intelligence missions, USAID missions. There are 

enormous amounts of efforts that go on there. I am wondering, is 

this something that you would like to see expanded that it could 

be used in coordination with the other agencies so that everyone 

has the benefit of this very valuable cultural and ethnic information that could inform their operations and their missions to be 

more successful? 

Colonel SCHWEITZER. Ma’am, that is probably a bit outside of my 

own personal scope, but I am pretty confident that this is not mutually exclusive to what we did in the last 15 months. I clearly can 

see the benefits as it could apply to different organizations and 

agencies to enable them to properly engage with communities. 

That is probably about as far as I can go with it, not because I 

don’t want to go more, I am just not privy enough to the other 

agencies’ missions. I do not believe that it is mutually exclusive to 

just what we were doing. 

Mrs. GILLIBRAND. Do any of the other panelists have any view 

on that? Do you have any knowledge of those subjects? Okay. 

Let me ask Dr. Van Tilborg something. This training obviously 

is much more than just the do’s and don’ts of a given society. I am 

thinking that we have sensitivity training that we give our troops 

before they go into combat. Often they are deployed to Iraq, then 

Afghanistan, then some other location. Is this something that we 

can expand so that all of the men and women that we train for 

missions, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan, will have the benefit of this kind of in-depth cultural knowledge? 

Dr. VAN TILBORG. Thank you for the question. 

I think it is up to our actual men and women in uniform to decide precisely what they need at each echelon level in the operating 

forces. But I think that probably every man and woman who goes 

over does need to have some sort of basic understanding of these 

kinds of cultural, social, religious, economic, political, et cetera, 

kinds of issues. 

I think that that level of training is quickly dawning on the military, the need for doing that. I think the Marine Corps probably 

23 

has picked up on this the quickest. My understanding is their facility down at Quantico called the Center for Advanced Operational 

Culture Learning (CAOCL)—I don’t remember what it stands for, 

but the ‘‘C’’ in it is for ‘‘cultural’’ learning—is running lots of young 

Marines through so that they have an understanding that is meaningful. 

We are not talking here about a travelers tourist guidebook. This 

is information that needs to be of a different nature. Not everyone 

needs the same level of training. There are people who have special 

jobs that require very deep understanding, including language 

training, and others who can do a good job in what they are assigned with a lesser degree of training. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

Mr. McIntyre is next. 

Mr. MCINTYRE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, gentlemen, for being with us today. 

Colonel, as one of those who represents Fort Bragg, let me state 

to you how proud we are of your service and your commitment and 

all that you do with the 82nd Airborne. 

I just simply wanted to ask, given the testimony and the questions that have already been asked, the concern of how what you 

were doing may tie into the concern we hear over and over with 

regard to progress both in Afghanistan and, for that matter, in Iraq 

as well, about the situation involving the local police. 

I notice in your testimony on page five at the top you state that 

the true power brokers in the area were the mullahs, not the village elders, who were mostly Taliban supporters in a certain situation you were describing there. Later in your next paragraph, you 

talk about the net effect of moving from 19 of 86 formal districts 

that supported the government, and today you assess 72 of those 

districts as supporting the government. You attribute that change, 

or at least some of that change, to HTT. 

Is this an area that can or is working with regard to helping an 

understanding and a respect and a need for the work of the local 

police to be successful? When I was in Afghanistan and talked to 

Dan McNeil, our friend who as you know has served from Fort 

Bragg for many years, that continued to be a concern—the situation with the local police. We have also heard that from other panels that have some before us. 

Colonel SCHWEITZER. Sir, I think one of the overarching problems 

is corruption. So whether that is corruption within the Afghan national police or the governmental structure, no matter where it is, 

it is damaging because once you create a separation from the 

enemy, and you then get government to come down there to their 

community—government being represented by police, army, actual 

government employees—who then skim off the top or do not provide for the community, you then cause that community to say forget government, I am going to turn back toward the Taliban. 

The human terrain teams help us at the front end of this piece 

with gaining the appropriate access and providing us alternate options and courses of action to be able to conduct appropriate engagements so we can, (A), link in those security forces or those government representatives with their people. If the government strucVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:46 Feb 04, 2009 Jkt 044412 PO 00000 Frm 00027 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\110-165\44412.TXT HAS1 PsN: LINDA
24 

ture or the government representatives then are corrupt, that is a 

significant step back. That has happened. 

Frankly, in the remaining 14 districts, four of them are going to 

real hard nuts to crack because that happened on a continual basis. 

We had a pretty good understanding of the human terrain, a pretty 

good understanding of the human dimension, the cultural expectations. And then we had governors or sub-district governors make 

poor choices that resulted in those communities hardening against 

their government. So that is a different part of the problem, but 

in my opinion it is one of the underpinnings that we have to continually work at. 

Again, though, the human terrain teams enable us to get access 

and re-get access. And here is the other thing, sir, that was helpful, 

is when we did get these communities that were troubled, the 

human terrain teams helped us understand that human dimension 

even better because that is the last place that we need to go shoot, 

the last place. 

When you have that kind of a problem, that kind of an attitudinal opposition to the government structure, going in there with 

force in Afghanistan is the wrong answer. You have to go in there 

with a better idea. You have to go in there with better performance. And you have to be able to access those communities, those 

villages, those tribal leaders, and show them that their government 

can and will provide for them in a manner that is based on integrity. So they have been critical with us getting into the hard places. 

Mr. MCINTYRE. Thank you for the excellent answer. If I can just 

clarify, so in places like those 14 remaining districts that you said 

are going to be pretty hard situations to deal with, is there a concentrated effort to coordinate the HTT with those that can influence to try to crack those hard nuts, as you said? 

Colonel SCHWEITZER. Yes, sir. Here is the other dynamic that is 

occurring in Afghanistan. I subordinated my brigade to the 203rd 

Corps commander, Major General Khaliq. He has built a campaign 

plan. I just hearken back to five years ago when they said they 

couldn’t have a government because they didn’t have the human 

capital. They couldn’t have an army because they didn’t have the 

human capital. 

And now here today, four and a half years later, Major General 

Khaliq is developing a campaign plan that we are in phase two of, 

of cleaning out the provinces that he is responsible for and getting 

government down there to their people. Sir, he is the one who has 

set the table. So these products that came from the human terrain 

team went into their effects-cell because they have a mirrored effect-sell that our headquarters has, that went into their campaign 

planning. So they have a strategy to get out to all 14 districts. 

Their next of operations are occurring today, and started about a 

week ago in one of those real hardened areas. 

Mr. MCINTYRE. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

Mr. Thornberry. 

25 

STATEMENT OF HON. MAC THORNBERRY, A REPRESENTATIVE 

FROM TEXAS, RANKING MEMBER, TERRORISM, UNCONVENTIONAL THREATS AND CAPABILITIES SUBCOMMITTEE 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. Van Tilborg, I am wondering if we put the same rigor in behavioral and social science research as we put into other areas of 

research, with things like metrics and what-not. Part of the reason 

I wonder is that I recently read a book by a psychologist who tried 

to explore why people turn to terrorism. And then there has been 

a considerable amount of controversy about that book regarding his 

methods and the conclusions that he reaches based on those methods. 

It seems to me just inherently more difficult to have objective 

metrics and other standards for this area of research as physics or 

chemistry or something. How does that shake out? 

Dr. VAN TILBORG. Congressman, I would certainly have to agree 

with you, but of course I am not a researcher in this domain. Professor Segal might be able to say that the metrics are in fact extremely rigorous. In my experience, it kind of depends on the specific let’s say social science that you are examining. If you are in 

a situation where you can examine, say, the reaction of an individual who is now tapping with a pen and you are able to make 

numerical measurements regarding that individual’s reactions or 

behavior, I think you wind up with the kinds of traditional metrics 

that we use in other branches of science. 

In other areas, for example also in language training and language understanding, I believe that you can do relatively conventional kinds of testing in simulation-types of environments. But 

then there are other areas where, I agree with you, it is very difficult. I think fundamentally it is difficult because it is not that 

easy to run controlled experiments in some aspects of the social 

sciences. 

For example, in the case of the human terrain teams that Colonel Schweitzer has been explaining so well, you can’t really do the 

controlled experiment of a particular scenario with a HTT, and 

then run that same scenario without the human terrain team and 

be able to say, well, you see in one example we had nine casualties, 

and in the other we had three, so that is the difference by having 

the human terrain system. 

I believe that is probably a fundamental difficulty in this business. However, I would say that in a sense there is no less rigor 

in this field. They get as much rigor out of it as they can, in my 

view. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Well, a fair point. It just strikes me that when 

you are talking about people’s motivations and policy is based upon 

an assumption of those motivations, it is somewhat murky territory. 

Dr. Segal, I would be interested in your comments on this. Let 

me throw out one other aspect of it. I was recently on a commission 

that recommended that our nation take greater advantage of immigrant and expatriate communities in the United States to help aid 

our understanding in other nations, other cultures, and especially 

other motivations, which is not so easy to study. 

26 

Are we doing that? Do you agree we need to do that? How would 

we? And then in terms of the research that goes on, how do we tell 

whether it is good enough to make a policy decision on? 

Dr. SEGAL. Thank you for those questions. 

I will certainly agree it is very difficult to be rigorous in the social sciences I would argue because the systems that we study are 

so complex. I tell my colleagues at the University of Maryland that 

God must have loved the physicists; He gave them all the simple 

questions. But when you start looking at complex individuals in 

complex social systems, and you have a very, very difficult task. 

So I would say that for that element of the social sciences that 

is in fact oriented toward measurement and rigor, those of us who 

are influenced by positivism, we do the best we can. But as Dr. Van 

Tilborg said, we are dealing with situations where you can’t bring 

things into a laboratory and hold variables constant. You have to 

figure out what to do. 

It is kind of like astronomers studying the universe. It is out 

there, but we can’t bring it into the lab. We can still measure elements of it. We are not sure we know everything about it that we 

need to know. We are not sure we know what we need to measure, 

but we try. The experimental model doesn’t fit. 

In terms of whether we should take advantage of immigrant 

communities to learn from them, I have argued repeatedly—my 

business is primarily military manpower—and I have argued that 

in the military, we take less advantage of immigrants in the country than we could in terms of recruitment, which would help not 

only in terms of numbers, but in terms of a way of building cultural sensitivity and recognition of cultural diversity into the force. 

I think on a national level, we could do a better job of that. We 

have historically been a nation of immigrants. We have enriched 

our country because of the human capital brought in from other 

countries. There is a kind of pendulum swing against that right 

now in the country, I think, and it is unfortunate. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Could I ask, Dr. Weiss, do you have any comments on this—on how you know whether the science is good 

enough? 

Dr. WEISS. In regards to the rigor of science, yes, I would certainly agree with my colleagues here that studying human behavior can be very problematic, much more complicated than studying 

the movement of atoms at times. However, I would also stress that 

we are now seeing the incorporation of new technologies and new 

ways of thinking about human behavior that are allowing us to 

provide added levels of rigor that improve our understanding of 

basic human behavior. 

Just as one quick for instance, the use of functional magnetic 

resonance imaging to really get a literal picture of what is going 

on inside a human skull as somebody is undertaking a particular 

task. So we are getting more and more adept. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Thank you. 

Thank you all. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much. 

I just had a couple more questions. I want to follow up a little 

bit on that last question as far as the rigor of these particular social sciences. First of all, in terms of Colonel Schweitzer’s experiVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:46 Feb 04, 2009 Jkt 044412 PO 00000 Frm 00030 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\110-165\44412.TXT HAS1 PsN: LINDA
27 

ences, when you go in to specific cultures, you can get reasonably 

specific answers in terms of the norms and mores of that culture 

that are very helpful. It is not a guarantee. I am sure not every 

Afghan in a given village adheres strictly to those cultures and 

mores, but it is probably a pretty high percentage. 

My second comment is that really what you are dealing with 

here is percentages. As understand a broader population in a given 

area, you can say 80 percent of the time we think this person will 

react that way, and they probably will. That is different than in 

physics where 100 percent of the time when I drop the rock, it is 

going to hit the ground, but that is still incredibly valuable. 

I will throw a basketball analogy out there. If you are picking 

who to put on the line, you pick the guy who shoots 80 percent instead of the guy who shoots 50 percent. It is not a guarantee. 

Maybe the guy who shoots 50 percent happens to hit those two free 

throws and the other guy doesn’t, but it significantly ups your odds 

of success. That is why I think these social sciences are very, very 

valuable. 

I did want to give Dr. Weiss the opportunity to answer the question that Mr. Lipinski raised earlier about how the National 

Science Foundation and the broader scientific community reacts to 

sort of, if you will—I will be a little bit more blunt than Mr. Lipinski—being dragged into the military world, and if there is any 

push-back on that, or if you see that as an incredibly valuable part 

of what you are doing, or is there more controversy within either 

NSF or the broader scientific community. 

Dr. WEISS. Well, within NSF, I do not see a sense of being 

dragged into anything. NSF, as has been mentioned, supports basic 

scientific research. What we have found over time is that we receive unsolicited proposals to conduct research, some of which has 

clear and obvious applicability to military settings, as I alluded to 

in my oral presentation. 

Other research that we fund does not necessarily have any obvious application, but as the research develops and as the implications of the research evolve, what we find is that much of the research that for instance might have to do with the way that organizations are structured, may have ultimately very clear applications 

in a military setting. 

We have on occasion been involved in collaborative work with the 

Department of Defense. For instance, last year we collaborated 

with them on a solicitation, the topic of which was the detection 

of explosive threats, that was initially going to be targeted at the 

math and physics communities, but indeed the social, behavioral, 

economic sciences became part of that, and indeed several awards 

were made which deal with aspects of the psychology detecting 

mal-intent. 

Mr. SMITH. Who is going to plant the bomb? I mean, if you look 

into a community, it is part of the counter-IED approach. Instead 

of just focusing on the explosives, focus on the people, and if you 

find them, it is as effective as finding the bomb. 

Dr. WEISS. Absolutely. Technology is wonderful or can be, but the 

fact is that technology is used within a human context and you 

have to understand the human context as well. 

28 

Mr. SMITH. So just one more question for Colonel Schweitzer. 

That was on the role of our special operators that is in the jurisdiction of our subcommittee and we spend a lot of time focusing on 

it. They have some training in this area. Certainly in irregular 

warfare and counterinsurgency, part of it is cultural awareness. 

They have training within that. 

I was wondering how their efforts, since they are such a large 

presence in Afghanistan, and their sort of cultural training, meshes 

with the HTTs. How short are they of what the HTTs have and 

how do the two work together? 

Colonel SCHWEITZER. Yes, sir. That is a great question, because 

I think that may be some of the confusion. It is not the same. The 

cultural training that our special forces get is similar to the same 

training that the conventional forces get with respect to cultural 

understanding and being able to grow the capacity of the individual 

soldier, his understanding of the cultures, the norms, and the communities and their concerns, and what the friction points are. 

What the human terrain teams do is they create access. What 

the human terrain teams do is they help us operationalize their 

values and norms so we can properly maneuver within them. I 

would argue, and I can’t speak for the special operations community, but as they did operations in coordination with us, they absolutely leaned and relied on the products that the human terrain 

team produced. 

Mr. SMITH. Right. Thank you. That is all I have. 

Mr. Conaway. 

Mr. CONAWAY. If I might, Dr. Weiss, do you study the transition 

that ultimately winds up? We have very poor phraseology in terms 

of describing these folks, but describe the violent radical jihadist, 

the mindset that leads a person to strap something on themselves 

and walk into this room and blow themselves up. That person 

didn’t start life with that being their goal, I don’t think. Maybe 

they did. 

Do you look at, or is there someone at NSF as a part of this cognitive looking at that transition and how those folks go from— 

again poor phraseology—moderates to fundamentalists to radical 

jihadists? How does that transition occur? If it occurs in poverty 

circumstances, like in Palestine where there is no hope, no future, 

I can get my head around that. But looking at what occurred in 

England and other places where folks who were raised in a society 

where they were educated and had opportunities and had futures, 

and even doctors involved in this conduct, do you guys look at that 

issue? 

Dr. WEISS. Yes, we do. In fact, we have supported a number of 

researchers who are interested in exactly the sort of question that 

you are asking. To jump back to the point I was making earlier, 

sometimes the insights that we gain into the question that you are 

asking come from a source that you might not have imagined to 

begin with. 

For instance, there are researchers at the University of Michigan 

who are interested in exactly the question you are asking, and are 

asking it in terms of what values within a society are, (A), sacred 

and therefore not negotiable; and what happens when we try to neVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:46 Feb 04, 2009 Jkt 044412 PO 00000 Frm 00032 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\110-165\44412.TXT HAS1 PsN: LINDA
29 

gotiate what they consider to be a sacred value. In fact, that results 

in increased radicalization. 

Now, the point in part is that that rose out of basic research that 

actually was initiated in Mexico talking to farmers about their view 

of their local ecology. From that basic research, these researchers 

were able to transition and apply their knowledge in a whole new 

setting, the one that you are asking about. 

We have supported, funded research by other investigators looking at the question of whether it is poverty that breeds 

radicalization. Not intuitively, the answer is it seems not. In fact, 

as you mentioned, it is often individuals who may have at one 

point been at a poverty level, but have risen, and now have the 

freedom to act further on their radical ideas. So to some degree, it 

is not the poverty itself. It is the opening up, the availability of resources that liberates them to undertake these actions. 

Mr. CONAWAY. As that research progresses, will we reach a point 

where we can apply that to stop this radicalization? The other 

question would be, are your researchers Muslims? Because I don’t 

know that I, as a Christian, can have any real positive impact on 

that progression in the stream. It seems to me that this has to be 

fellow Muslims or Islamists who have to figure out a way to stop 

that conversion from fundamentalist to radicals. Is there something 

you could actually do with the research that you are coming up 

with? 

Dr. WEISS. Well, let me highlight a different undertaking that 

the National Science Foundation provides funding for. That is the 

World Values Survey. This is a global survey of attitudes. We, as 

well as a number of other nations, provide funds to gather these 

data. Researchers within the United States at Eastern Michigan 

University, who I believe are of Middle-Eastern background, in fact 

just last week were in Egypt at an international convention or symposium to discuss their findings regarding attitudes among Iraqis 

in this particular case, and how the data from the surveys could 

be interpreted to help mitigate the problems in the Middle East. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

Mr. Baird. 

Mr. BAIRD. I again appreciate all your testimony. 

Dr. Weiss, just very briefly, I just want to thank you for acknowledging the people who step forward to help you with this. I know 

that in the academic literature there was some debate about 

whether it was appropriate for academicians to be helping the military, and there was actually some criticism about that which I 

found rather frustrating. 

I wish the folks who criticize those academicians could hear your 

testimony and hear that they were saving lives, not just U.S. lives, 

but coalition lives and soldiers on the ground, and civilians to a 

large number. So thank you for acknowledging them and for that 

recognition. And thanks to them on behalf of this committee. 

Dr. Weiss, one of the things that I have been particularly focused 

on as the chair of our subcommittee has been grand challenges in 

the social sciences. You could look at those such as energy, health 

care, national security. One of the questions as I look at research 

that we fund through NSF is a notion that they call path-to-impact. 

30 

Your comparable agency down in New Zealand refers to it as pathto-impact. 

So someone proposes to NSF that this is the research we want 

to do. The question is I think on the minds sometimes of this committee and sometimes of the Congress is if we are spending taxpayer dollars on research, where is the path-to-impact? I know 

there is this balance between basic research, but somewhere in the 

general public—the loggers, the fishermen, the steelworkers, the 

nurses, whoever is working for their living, wanting to get the 

money out—they want to know what the path-to-impact is. 

How do you relate that to the testimony we have heard today 

and the challenges we face in national security? 

Dr. WEISS. Well, as mentioned, the National Science Foundation 

funds basic research. But we judge the proposals on two primary 

criteria. Those are the scientific merit, as well as what we call the 

broader impacts. The path-to-impact would be an alternative. All 

proposals are judged on both those criteria. 

Now, granted that in some cases the impacts may not be obvious 

at first, but what we have often found is that 10 years down the 

road, there may be a payoff that was never anticipated. But there 

can also be impacts that revolve around the basics of the research. 

Those are training future generations, research on areas that may 

not have any obvious immediate payoff, but which intrigue people 

and as a result improve scientific literacy in our public. 

We do understand what you are saying, however, and we have 

made a concerted effort of late to ensure that the titles of research 

projects cut to the importance of it, that the abstracts of the awarded research demonstrates why the research does have the potential 

for an impact. So we are very sensitive to the point that you are 

raising. 

Mr. BAIRD. I appreciate that very much. 

Dr. Segal, one final question is, you know, you have done some 

really remarkable work. I appreciated reading your testimony and 

the topics you and your graduate students and others have studied. 

One of the intriguing questions—and Chairman Smith and I were 

just discussing it briefly—so many of these cultures and the environments we are operating in have just had generations now of 

horrific conflict, Afghanistan, Iraq, Darfur. It is not just that we 

are no longer in just the sort of symmetric warfare, but the cultures we are in, the people have been through hell, literally. Do we 

have some insights into how that is affecting people and how that 

can change the human terrain as it were? 

Dr. SEGAL. I certainly can’t speak to changes in the human 

brain. That is for a physiologist, but the terrain, okay. 

Mr. BAIRD. The kind of thing that Colonel Schweitzer referred to. 

Dr. SEGAL. Sorry. Clearly, we know that exposure to conflict has 

an impact on people. One doesn’t have to be in an area of the world 

where conflict has been going on for generations. We can see it in 

the soldiers that we have coming back from Afghanistan and Iraq. 

Where it has become part of the social fabric, there is every reason 

to believe—and I am here talking about probabilities; this is not an 

area where we have rigorous measurement—that it will take a long 

time to get over it. 

31 

We are not talking about well, gee, we can improve the situation 

in Iraq or Afghanistan within a few years, and then everything will 

be fine. You really have a generation of people on the ground who 

have grown up in that environment. It is very possible that that 

generation will have to pass on, and another generation that grows 

up in a different environment comes to power in that area, to really 

begin to see the long-term consequences. 

Mr. BAIRD. One final comment, and it would be just that our 

country has invested many, many billions of dollars in mapping the 

physical terrain. The Global Positioning System (GPS) systems 

which we now find in our automobiles were based on the recognition that it is foolhardy to send our military forces into a world in 

which they don’t know the terrain. You are endangering the soldiers, you are endangering the civilians, you are endangering the 

success of the mission. 

What I find so encouraging and interesting and challenging 

about today’s hearing is the recognition that that human terrain, 

which we may not be able to map from a satellite or trace with the 

GPS, may be absolutely as important to the success of the mission 

and the survival of our soldiers and the people we are trying to 

serve. 

Thank you for your testimony and your work. 

I thank the chair for holding this hearing. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

I will close simply by agreeing with everything Mr. Baird just 

said. I think that was the purpose of this hearing. I think it was 

very, very informative. We look forward to finding ways within 

both of our committees to be helpful to what all of you are working 

on. 

I thank you for your testimony today. 

We are adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 10:44 p.m., the subcommittees were adjourned.] 

A P P E N D I X 

APRIL 24, 2008 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

APRIL 24, 2008 

(37) 


44412.001
38 


44412.002
39 


44412.003
40 


44412.004
41 


44412.005
42 


44412.006
43 


44412.007
44 


44412.008
45 


44412.009
46 


44412.010
47 


44412.011
48 


44412.012
49 


44412.013
50 


44412.014
51 


44412.015
52 


44412.016
53 


44412.017
54 


44412.018
55 


44412.019
56 


44412.020
57 


44412.021
58 


44412.022
59 


44412.023
60 


44412.024
61 


44412.025
62 


44412.026
63 


44412.027
64 


44412.028
65 


44412.029
66 


44412.030
67 


44412.031
68 


44412.032
69 


44412.033
70 


44412.034
71 


44412.035
72 


44412.036
73 


44412.037
DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

APRIL 24, 2008 

(77) 


44412.038
78 


44412.039
79 


44412.040
80 


44412.041
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SUBMITTED FOR THE 

RECORD 

APRIL 24, 2008 

(83) 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. LIPINSKI 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Your university’s program in military sociology is the largest of its 

kind in the country, but you have only four faculty and ten graduate students. Approximately how many other university-based military sociology research programs 

are there? And which universities conduct most of this research? 

Dr. SEGAL. Military sociology is a small specialty within the discipline, and since 

the 1950s it has been dominated by only one sociology department at any one time: 

first by the University of Michigan, then by the University of Chicago, then by 

Northwestern University, and, since the 1980s, by the University of Maryland. 

These departments have accounted for the greater part of the corpus of research in 

the field. However, there are military sociologists on the faculties of other universities who conduct research and train graduate students, particularly Texas A&M, 

the University of Texas at Austin, and Buffalo. And our PhD.s have gone on to other 

institutions, including Johns Hopkins and Western Illinois University in recent 

years. In addition, graduate students are doing doctoral work at other universities 

that involve writing dissertations in military sociology, although their faculty advisors are not military sociologists. They frequently coordinate with Maryland faculty 

in writing their dissertations, and we have served on dissertation committees at 

other universities. In addition to the departments named here, research in military 

sociology is conducted at the U.S. Military Academy, the U.S. Naval Academy, and 

the U.S. Air Force Academy. Although these institutions do not have graduate students, they have faculty members, both civilian and military, who have Ph.D.s in 

military sociology, and who have active research programs. These programs are 

helping to groom the next generation of military officers who will be military sociologists during their academy educations. We coordinate closely with the service academies. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Do you have a sense of the total number of faculty and graduate 

students working in this area across the country? Is there a critical mass of researchers in the field now? What are the prospects for the future? 

Dr. SEGAL. The numbers are hard to estimate. The major professional association 

of military sociologists—the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces & Society 

(IUS)—has over 600 members, but it is international, interdisciplinary, and the 

number includes advanced graduate students. On the basis of the number of professional papers given at IUS meetings, meetings of the American Sociological Association, meetings of regional sociological societies, and meetings of interdisciplinary organizations that have heavy sociological participation, I would estimate that there 

are more than 50 but fewer than 100 sociology Ph.D.s at American universities currently doing research in military sociology. I would also estimate that in addition 

to students in our program, there are another 10-15 at other Ph.D. granting institutions in the United Stats. In Terms of critical mass, this is enough to sustain the 

field, but far from enough to meet the research needs of the field. There is much 

basic research that needs to be done, and we get far more offers to support applied 

research projects than we have the personnel to address. With regard to the future, 

the field is growing slowly. Over the last decade, I have seen significantly increased 

interest among young graduate students in studying the changing military and the 

changing nature of military conflict. Moreover, the American sociological Association, our major discipline-based professional organization, has been increasingly 

supportive of sociologists studying the military (unlike professional organizations in 

anthropology and psychology). However, my generation of military sociologists—primarily people trained at the University of Chicago in the 1960s and early 1970s— 

is nearing retirement, and while there is a very promising younger generation currently in graduate school or recently finished, the generation in between is generally 

missing—a casualty, I suspect of academic opposition to the Vietnam War. To create 

the next generation of leaders in the field of military sociology, we will have to attract to the field with training grants mid-career scholars who bring other human 

capital to the table, e.g., organizational sociologists and demographers, or accelerate 

the development of the younger generation through post-doctoral training programs. 

Increasing the number of Ph.D.s in the field, particularly at institutions that have 

84 

already established a record of training military sociologists, will in turn enable us 

to educate an increased number of new research-oriented Ph.D.s. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Dr. Van Tilborg, does DOD or the individual services that support 

social and behavioral research have difficulty identifying sufficient numbers of 

scholars to carry out the needed research? In the wake of Secretary Gates’ recent 

efforts to expand DOD’s support for this kind of research, are you aware of any concerns about insufficient numbers of graduate students or researchers? 

Dr. VAN TILBORG. At this time, the Department is not aware of a shortage of 

graduate students or researchers to support social and behavioral research. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Your university’s program in military sociology is the largest of its 

kind in the country, but you have only four faculty and ten graduate students. Approximately how many other university based military sociology research programs 

are there? And which universities conduct most of this research? 

Dr. SEGAL. Military sociology is a small specialty within the discipline, and since 

the 1950s it has been dominated by only one sociology department at any one time: 

first by the University of Michigan, then by the University of Chicago, then by 

Northwestern University, and, since the 1980s, by the University of Maryland. 

These departments have accounted for the greater part of the corpus of research in 

the field. However, there are military sociologists on the faculties of other universities who conduct research and train graduate students, particularly Texas A&M, 

the University of Texas at Austin, and Buffalo. And our Ph.D.s have gone on to 

other institutions, including Johns Hopkins and Western Illinois University in recent years. In addition, graduate students are doing doctoral work at other universities that involve writing dissertations in military sociology, although their faculty 

advisors are not military sociologists. They frequently coordinate with Maryland faculty in writing their dissertations, and we have served on dissertation committees 

at other universities. In addition to the departments named here, research in military sociology is conducted at the U.S. Military Academy, the U.S. Naval Academy, 

and the U.S. Air Force Academy. Although these institutions do not have graduate 

students, they have faculty members, both civilian and military, who have Ph.D.s 

in military sociology, and who have active research programs. These programs are 

helping to groom the next generation of military officers who will be military sociologists during their academy educations. We coordinate closely with the service academies. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Do you have a sense of the total number of faculty and graduate 

students working in this area across the country? Is there a critical mass of researchers in the field now? What are the prospects for the future? 

Dr. SEGAL. The numbers are hard to estimate. The major professional association 

of military sociologists—the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces & Society 

(IUS)—has over 600 members, but it is international, interdisciplinary, and the 

number includes advanced graduate students. On the basis of the number of professional papers given at IUS meetings, meetings of the American Sociological Association, meetings of regional sociological societies, and meetings of interdisciplinary organizations that have heavy sociological participation, I would estimate that there 

are more than 50 but fewer than 100 sociology Ph.D.s at American universities currently doing research in military sociology. I would also estimate that in addition 

to students in our program, there are another 10–15 at other Ph.D. granting institutions in the United States. In terms of critical mass, this is enough to sustain the 

field, but far from enough to meet the research needs of the field. There is much 

basic research that needs to be done, and we get far more offers to support applied 

research projects than we have the personnel to address. With regard to the future, 

the field is growing slowly. Over the last decade, I have seen significantly increased 

interest among young graduate students in studying the changing military and the 

changing nature of military conflict. Moreover, the American Sociological Association, our major discipline-based professional organization, has been increasingly 

supportive of sociologists studying the military (unlike professional organizations in 

anthropology and psychology). However, my generation of military sociologists-primarily people trained at the University of Chicago in the 1960s and early 1970s— 

is nearing retirement, and while there is a very promising younger generation currently in graduate school or recently finished, the generation in between is generally 

missing—a casualty, I suspect of academic opposition to the Vietnam War. To create 

the next generation of leaders in the field of military sociology, we will have to attract to the field with training grants mid-career scholars who bring other human 

capital to the table, e.g., organizational sociologists and demographers, or accelerate 

the development of the younger generation though post-doctoral training programs. 

Increasing the number of Ph.D.s in the field, particularly at institutions that have 

already established a record of training military sociologists, will in turn enable us 

to educate an increased number of new research-oriented Ph.D.s. 

85 

Mr. LIPINSKI. You mention in your testimony that of the basic research supported 

within the Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBE) at NSF, 

approximately 10–15% might be of clear and immediate interest to the military. Is 

that an estimate based on the SBE budget or on the total number of SBE grants? 

Please provide an estimate of both total funding and number of these grants. 

Dr. WEISS. The National Science Foundation (NSF) supports basic research in the 

social and behavioral, or human, sciences. As such it is often the case that research 

in what might appear to be one scientific realm informs scientists and policy makers 

more broadly. For instance, research on teamwork in one setting may be predictive 

of human interaction in a multitude of circumstances. thus, any attempt to determine which basic research projects might be of interest to the military is indeed an 

estimate. 

Prior to preparing my testimony I informally surveyed relevant program officers 

as to the percent of awards they felt might be of clear and immediate interest to 

the military and the 10-15% figure was often mentioned. In making the estimate 

program officers considered awards that might be relevant to the Department of Defense (DOD) either by virtue of a focus on topics directly related to national security 

or through a focus on topics that bear on teamwork or the operation of organizations 

such as DoD. 

The two research divisions within the Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences 

are the Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences (BCS) and the Division of Social and Economic Sciences (SES). In 2007, the two divisions combined to process 

approximately 1,000 award actions. This figure includes new awards as well as increments granted to awards made in prior years. Thus we estimate that approximately 100-150 award actions involved proposals that we believe the military would 

find to be of value. 

Please note that these awards run the gamut from support of doctoral dissertation 

research to large, multi-institutional and interdisciplinary team projects. A reasonable estimate of total investment in awards related to either national security or 

the operation of teams or organizations is approximately $10-20M per year. 

A few examples of projects that we view as pertinent include: 

I. Social & Behavioral Science Research Relevant to National Security 

Title: Collaborative Research: Mitigating Disaster and Terrorism Impacts 

to Critical Infrastructure 

PI(s): Timothy Matisziw (Ohio State University), Tony Grubesic (Indiana 

University) 

Program: Geography and Regional Sciences 

Award ID: 0720989, 0718091 

Award $: $234,197 

Summary: This collaborative research project will develop several new approaches for examining critical network infrastructures such as 

transportation, communication, and utility systems, and assessing 

their vulnerability to debilitation caused by disaster, accident, or 

intentional harm. 

———————————— 

Title: Collaborative Research: Interactive Deception and its Detection 

through Multimodal Analysis of Interviewer-Interviewee Dynamics 

PI(s): David McNeill (University of Chicago): Judee Burgoon (Univerity of 

Arizona); Dimitris N Metaxas (Rutgers University New Brunswick); Timothy R. Levine (Michigan State University) 

Program: Human and Social Dynamics 

Award ID: 0725607, 0725685, 0725762, 0725895 

Award $: $1,253,851 

86 

Summary: This collaborative multi-disciplinary research seeks to uncover the 

complexities and dynamics of the communication processes that 

make deception possible, as deception is a pervasive feature of social life that is often undetected because deceivers capitalize on 

features of the interpersonal communication process The highly 

multi-disciplinary team includes researchers in communication, 

linguistics, psychology computer science and management information systems. 

———————————— 

Title: Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: The Treatment 

of Ethnic-Others During Violent Conflicts 

PI(s): Lisa Wedeen (University of Chicago) 

Program: Political Science 

Award ID: 0418474 

Award $: $12,000 

Summary: The proposed project will advance knowledge about the role of ethnicity in violent contexts by both testing it against alternative explanations such as military strategy, and by exploring whether 

and why the importance of ethnicity varies among different communities 

———————————— 

Title: Risk-based Methodological Framework for Scenario Tracking and 

Intelligence Collection and Analysis for Terrorism 

PI(s): Yacov Haimes University of Virginia 

Program: DRMS (also MMS, Disaster Response Teams, and Infrastructure 

Systems Management and Hazard Responses 

Award ID: 0322146 

Award $: $473,399 

Summary: This project seeks out useful insights about how to anticipate and 

more readily discover terrorist attacks in the planning phase, 

based on the major premise that in planning, supporting, and carrying out a terrorist plot, those involved will conduct a series of 

related activities constituting a threat scenario, which can be systematically observed and analyzed with the right intelligence and 

acquirable evidence. 

———————————— 

Title: Perceptions of the Past, Present, and the Future: A Survey of the 

Iraqi Public 

PI(s): Mansoor Moaddel (Eastern Michigan University) 

Program: Human and Social Dynamics 

Award ID: 0433773 

Award $: $120,438 

87 

Summary: This project examines worldviews of the Iraqi public and the social 

effects of the Iraqi State’s swift breakdown, and the resulting new 

social conditions. In addition to broad social science implications 

on cultural transformation, state formation, foreign occupation, 

and national identity, this research will make important contributions specific to the political situation in Iraq, enhancing understanding between the American and Iraqi publics, and providing 

insights into Iraqi society necessary for building a post-Saddam 

democratic polity. 

———————————— 

Title: The Impact of Terrorism on Perceptions of Justice and DecisionMaking 

PI(s): Angela Cole (Howard University) 

Program: Social Psychology, Decision Risk & Management Sciences 

Award ID: 0422544 

Award $: $125,376 

Summary: This research project will investigate the effects of security threats 

and death-related thoughts on people’s decision-making processes, 

which is a particularly relevant research question in light of the 

events of September 11, 2001, during and after which Americans 

appear more willing to defer without reservation to authorities’ 

imposition of severe restrictions on civil liberties, with very little 

opportunity for public comment and discussion. 

II. Social & Behavioral Science Research Relevant to Teamwork & Cooperation 

Title: Doctoral Dissertation Research: Group Allegiance and State Institutions in Kyrgyz Identity 

PI(s): Roy G. D’Andrade, with graduate student Schuan G. Wheeler (University of Connecticut) 

Program: Cultural Anthropology 

Award ID: 0717091 

Award $: $14,530 

Summary: This research will build a general model of how individuals navigate 

group allegiances in ways that motivate them to participate in 

large scale social action, and will yield a useful modeling tool for 

the development of successful policies, development programs, 

and social interventions for an array of geopolitical contexts. 

———————————— 

Title: A Field Experiment Incentivizing Exercise Among Workers 

PI(s): Heather Royer (Case Western University) 

Program: Decision & Risk Management Sciences, Economics 

Award ID: 0819804 

Award $: $264,288 

88 

Summary: This research explores theories of economic incentive as motivational factors in the exercise habits of American adults, and the 

duration of an intervention’s effect on participants’ long-term behavior. The results will help improve the design of wellness plans 

and healthcare policies will contribute significantly to the understanding of self-control, psychological barriers, and motivation in 

diverse domains beyond that of exercise and will have important 

implications for promoting successful motivation practices among 

workers, teams and other groups. 

———————————— 

Title: Reciprocal Learning in Problem-Solving Teams: A Multi-method Investigation of Knowledge Bridging in Emergent Groups 

PI(s): Philip Birnbaum-More (University of Southern California) 

Program: Innovation and Organizational Sciences 

Award ID: 0725088 

Award $: $449,188 

Summary: This study will examine key mechanisms in the functioning of innovative emergent groups, or teams of relative strangers who cross 

disciplines, functions, and organizations, to rapidly come together 

and leverage diverse knowledge to solve problems, focusing specifically on how such a team decides who has relevant knowledge 

and capabilities, and who can be trusted as problems and their solutions evolve and change. The study will yield practical, empirically validated job aids to facilitate rapid group problem-solving, 

which will be relevant to any organization or teamwork scenario, 

including those within the structure and mission of DoD. 

———————————— 

Title: Accuracy in the cross-cultural understanding of others’ emotions 

PI(s): Hillary Anger Elfenbein (UC Berkeley) 

Program: Social Psychology 

Award ID: 0617634 

Award $: $205,517 

Summary: This proposal seeks to better understand how humans recognize the 

emotional states of other people which is important for gauging 

reactions, attitudes, intentions, and likely future behaviors, with 

the research focusing how and why the accuracy of such perceptions is demonstrably lower when reading emotional expressions 

of individuals from foreign cultural groups. The project will also 

provide guidance to overcome this cross-cultural challenge. 

III. Education & Training for Social & Behavioral Science Research Relevant to National Security 

Title: REU Site: Hazards, Disasters, and Society: Training the Future 

Generations of Social Science Researchers 

PI(s): Havidan Rodriguez (University of Delaware) 

89 

Program: Researh Experiences for Undergraduates, Co-funded by DOD (ASSURE program) 

Award ID: 0451219 

Award $: $217,330 

Summary: This research site involves undergraduates in social science research projects related to disaster mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery, warnings and technology, and disaster vulnerability and resilience, and also provides professional development workshops to prepare students for research careers. 

———————————— 

Title: Research, Experience for Undergraduates in Fatigue Effects on Performance in Military, Medical, and Law Enforcement Personnel 

PI(s): Lauren Fowler (Weber State University) 

Program: Researh Experiences for Undergraduates, Co-funded by DOD (ASSURE program) 

Award ID: 0648735 

Award $: $106,880 

Summary: This program will provide support for undergraduate students to design and conduct independent research in collaboration with researchers from Weber State University and the Air Force 

Warfighter Fatigue Countermeasures Branch, examining the effects of fatigue on physiological, psychological, cognitive, behavioral, health, and social performance in military, medical, and law 

enforcement personnel. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. SMITH 

Mr. SMITH. There are some inside and outside of the anthropological community 

who are resisting the participation of academic community or anthropologists to 

support HTT efforts. How have you handled this resistance? 

Colonel SCHWEITER. From the unit perspective there is no impact. The Program 

Manager (PM) Human Terrain System (HTS) has engaged the anthropological community in an open manner. PH HTS has been a member of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) and Society for Applied anthropology for over a year. PM 

HTS personnel attended the last AAA convention as well as numerous AAA and 

other anthropological associations’ conferences. Many of the HTS program’s Social 

Scientists are long-standing members of the AAA and other anthropological associations. As such HTS personnel are continually engaged in the discussion within their 

professional community. It should be noted that many within the anthropological 

community support and participate in the HTS program. This is substantiated by 

the professionals that supported my unit, and the ever-growing number of social scientists that participate in the HTS program as it provides support to more units 

in OIF and OEF. 

Mr. SMITH. There are some inside and outside of the anthropological community 

who are resisting the participation of academic community or anthropologists to 

support HTT efforts. Has the resistance affected your ability to work with the HTTs 

to accomplish your mission? 

Colonel SCHWEITER. Not at all. The experts on the HTTs have been and will continue to be value added in every regard of dealing with the complex operations in 

Afghanistan. Their contributions have been invaluable. 

Mr. SMITH. There are some inside and outside of the anthropological community 

who are resisting the participation of academic community or anthropologists to 

support Human Terrain Team (HTT) efforts. What would you say to mollify their 

concerns? 

Dr. VAN TILBORG. I understand their criticisms and concerns. The strongest argument in favor of HTTs that comprise academics is that they seem to work. The evidence seems to indicate that HTTs reduce the intensity and scale of combat operVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:46 Feb 04, 2009 Jkt 044412 PO 00000 Frm 00093 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 C:\DOCS\110-165\44412.TXT HAS1 PsN: LINDA
90 

ations considerably, resulting in significantly reduce the intensity and scale of combat operations considerably, resulting in significantly reduced casualties for both Coalition Forces and the local population. 

Mr. SMITH. What legal or regulatory structures are in place to guide this type of 

research (for example, privacy protection regulations or policies related to human 

or animal testing)? Are there structural prohibitions that prevent the effective development or use of socio-culture tools, anthropologists, etc. . .? 

Colonel SCHWEITER. Research involving human rights is covered by 32 Code of 

Federal Regulations 219 ‘‘Protection of Human Subjects’’ and DoDD 3216.02 ‘‘Protection of Human Subjects and Adherence to Ethical Standards in DoD-Supported Research,’’ among others. 

Mr. SMITH. The Defense FY09 request included a significant increase in the over- arching basic research budget (about $270 million). How much is the Department 

currently spending on behavioral and social science basic research? 

Dr. VAN TILBORG. The basic research program is executed primarily through the 

Military Departments research offices. Currently, there are three Multidisciplinary 

University Research Initiative (MURI) topics, one per Military Department, focused 

specifically on socio-cultural understanding. This is equivalent to a $3M/year investment. In Fiscal Year 2008, the other investments of basic research funds (Budget 

Activity 1) for social science research are $6.2M for the Navy, $9.7M for the Army, 

and $3.5M for the Air Force. 

Mr. SMITH. The Defense FY09 request included a significant increase in the over- arching basic research budget (about $270 million). And how much of the increased 

funding is planned for this area across the Defense future budget? 

Dr. VAN TILBORG. For Fiscal Year 2009, the increased basic research amount will 

fund two separate Department-wide Broad Agency Announcements (BAA), one each 

in Defense Research Sciences and University Research Initiatives (URI). 

Increased funding will be applied to specific areas from a set of eleven Grand Capability Challenges. One of those areas is Human Sciences (cultural, cognitive, behavioral, neural). Contingent on the quality and relevance of responses received for 

this area, up to $25 million annually could be awarded for this research over the 

Future Years Defense Plan (FYDP). 

DoD issued a separate BAA found at http://www.arl.army.mil/www/default.cfm?Action=6&Page=8 for the MINERVA social science initiative which will be 

funded in Fiscal Year 2009 by each Service at around $3 million from the URI portion of those funds. The anticipated duration of each project is one five year term 

with the possibility of one renewal. The Department projects that the URI component of the MINERVA initiative will cost about $10 million each year over the 

FYDP, depending on the number, quality, and scope of the proposals that are received, evaluated, and selected. 

Mr. SMITH. The Defense FY09 request included a significant increase in the overarching basic research budget (about $270 million). Does any of this funding support 

the generation of a new workforce that the Department may call on to support its 

socio-culture needs? 

Dr. VAN TILBORG. Yes, DOD basic research in the social sciences will support undergraduate and graduate students who the Department may be able to call on. 

Mr. SMITH. Are we putting the same rigor in behavioral and social science research, as we put in other areas of research—especially in terms of understanding 

the risk and the need for robust metrics? 

Dr. VAN TILBORG. Yes the intention is to put the same rigor into social science 

research as we find in the more traditional ‘hard’ sciences. It is a misperception to 

think that the so-called ‘soft’ sciences do not follow rigorous experimentation and inferential statistical methodologies. Work in the area of Human Social, Culture and 

Behavior (HSCB) Modeling will be challenging. To understand and forecast human 

and social behaviors is very complex. Part of this program’s efforts is focused on developing quantitative metrics and validation methodologies and processes for modeling in this area. 

Mr. SMITH. As you know, when new concepts or novel technological capabilities 

emerge we often see a growth of activities, often duplicative efforts across the Department. Do you see an expansion happening in this area? 

Dr. VAN TILBORG. Yes, we are deliberately attempting to expand research in this 

area because of its potential for application in various military missions. The expansion is being done in a collaborative and joint fashion that will assure duplicative 

efforts are avoided. The research community within DOD that is beginning to take 

on this work is relatively small. Coordination within DOD is being managed via existing processes for oversight within the Human Sciences area. 

Mr. SMITH. As you know, when new concepts or novel technological capabilities 

emerge we often see a growth of activities, often duplicative efforts across the DeVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:46 Feb 04, 2009 Jkt 044412 PO 00000 Frm 00094 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 C:\DOCS\110-165\44412.TXT HAS1 PsN: LINDA
91 

partment. What is the Department doing to assure that taxpayers’ dollars are effectively spent on healthy competition of ideas and not wasting their dollars on duplicative programs? 

Dr. VAN TILBORG. The Human Social, Culture and Behavior (HSCB) Modeling 

program is advertised via the issuance of Broad Agency Announcements (BAA), with 

full and open competition for all three budget activities (Budget Activity 2, 3, and 

4). In Budget Activity 1, Multidisciplinary University Research Initiatives (MURI) 

are also executed via a BAA and with open competition. BAAs typically attract a 

large number of competitors throughout industry and academia who propose many 

research and demonstration ideas. These proposals are down-selected by subject 

matter experts to ensure that only the most innovative and meritorious proposals 

are funded, and that duplication is avoided. 

Mr. SMITH. Along this same line, I understand that the Programs, Analysis and 

Evaluation (PA&E) office within the Department recently issued a Request for Information (RFI) regarding an Agent-Based Modeling of Irregular Warfare (ABMIW), 

which is a computer model that will forecast the consequence of specific actions. Are 

you aware of this effort? If so, how are you coordinating with PA&E? 

Dr. VAN TILBORG. We are fully aware of the RFI from PA&E on ABMIW. ABMIW 

did not go beyond the RFI phase. Instead, a decision was made by PA&E and the 

Joint Staff to do an assessment of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency 

(DARPA) Conflict Modeling, Planning, and Outcome Experimentation (COMPOEX) 

program and COMPOEX tools as part of a wargaming effort. The Office of the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Science and Technology) is actively involved with 

this assessment and in discussions with the COMPOEX program managers on the 

possible transition (pending the assessment) of this work into operational use. We 

are also aware of the other modeling efforts, their evaluations of research products 

in this topic area and other interests within PA&E. Staff within PA&E participated 

in the Fiscal Year 2008 Human Social, Culture and Behavior (HSCB) proposal solicitation and review process. 

Mr. SMITH. Along this same line, I understand that the Programs, Analysis and 

Evaluation (PA&E) office within the Department recently issued a Request for Information (RFI) regarding an Agent-Based Modeling of Irregular Warfare (ABMIW), 

which is a computer model that will forecast the consequence of specific actions. 

What mechanisms are in place to promote coordination of behavioral and social 

science research efforts across the Services and Agencies? Is there a formal or process-driven mechanism? 

Dr. VAN TILBORG. The Department’s Science and Technology investments are coordinated through a formal process called Reliance 21. All of the Services and 

Science and Technology (S&T) agencies participate in Reliance 21, led by the Director, Defense Research and Engineering (DDR&E). Coordination of behavioral and 

social science research efforts falls under the Human Systems Defense Technology 

Area, which is overseen by the Director for Biosystems in the DDR&E office. The 

Human Social, Culture and Behavior (HSCB) program and the other related S&T 

work in the DOD Components are coordinated within their purview. 

Mr. SMITH. The DOD S&T community has been primarily managed by scientists 

and engineers with hard science backgrounds. How are you reaching out to recruit 

social scientist to manage human, social, and cultural behavior-type efforts? 

Dr. VAN TILBORG. I believe that the DOD has a sufficient number of social scientists, both military and civilian, who have experience in program management, 

modeling and simulation, training, and decision aid development to manage the 

Human Social, Culture and Behavior (HSCB) program. To supplement that staff, 

the Department is drawing on expertise from social scientist in academia, Federally 

Funded Research & Development Centers (FFRDCs), DOD educational institutions, 

and other agencies of the Federal Government, such as the National Science Foundation, to assist with tasks such as Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) preparation 

and proposal review. 

Mr. SMITH. The DOD S&T community has been primarily managed by scientists 

and engineers with hard science backgrounds. I would imagine that there are others 

in the world, perhaps better qualified to support socio-cultural activities, is there a 

process for getting them into the human terrain system? 

Dr. VAN TILBORG. As noted in the answer to a previous question, staff with relevant expertise is being drawn from a variety of sources outside of the Department’s 

scientists and engineers with hard science backgrounds to assist with the Human 

Social, Culture and Behavior (HSCB) program. 

Mr. SMITH. The DOD S&T community has been primarily managed by scientists 

and engineers with hard science backgrounds. Are we sacrificing the recruiting of 

physical or biological scientists and engineers in an attempt to recruit more social 

scientists? 

92 

Dr. VAN TILBORG. No, I have not seen any evidence of such a trend to date. 

Mr. SMITH. How are the Department’s behavioral and social science research efforts linked with emerging policy and joint concepts (such as the new Counterinsurgency Field Manual; the Army’s new Field Manual on operations; DOD Directive on 

Stability and Reconstruction Operations)? How do you link what is being learned 

in this research to operational users (and vice versa)? 

Dr. VAN TILBORG. The social science research efforts are linked with these concepts via a number of coordination groups that were created out of the Office of the 

Secretary of Defenses Irregular Warfare Working Group. The Human Social, Culture and Behavior (HSCB) program, in particular, is establishing a program oversight group that includes both science and technology experts, as well as the operational users for HSCB and social science products. The users include the operations 

planning community, the training communities, military civil affairs, and field commanders. This oversight group is meant to help elucidate HSCB requirements and 

to ensure the acceptance of technology products in the field. 

Mr. SMITH. The current vision for the Department’s program called Human, Social, and Cultural Behavior (HSCB) Modeling is the low-hanging fruit that will have 

near-term impact for the warfighter. What takes the place of this effort when it is 

completed and transitions to the operational user community? 

Dr. VAN TILBORG. The HSCB program was born out of the recognition that many 

of the ‘products’ being developed and rapidly fielded to support efforts in Iraq were 

not being developed to be sustainable, generalizable to other uses or regions, and 

not being properly configured to be lifecycle managed. The HSCB program is using 

Budget Activity 4 funds in Fiscal Year 2008 and Fiscal Year 2009 to move some 

initial capabilities to the field. The HSCB program is targeting efforts that will 

‘have a home’ within existing command, control, and planning tools that are part 

of formal Programs of Record (POR). These PORs will manage the HSCB products 

life-cycle. Regarding Science and Technology efforts that may eventually follow 

HSCB, it is pre-mature to determine whether such efforts would be prudent investments until HSCB results can be evaluated. 

Mr. SMITH. The current vision for the Department’s program called Human, Social, and Cultural Behavior (HSCB) Modeling is the low-hanging fruit that will have 

near-term impact for the warfighter. Are there foundational efforts that need longerterm research that we should also be focused on? 

Dr. VAN TILBORG. Yes. The HSCB program conducts a limited amount of 

foundational work in Budget Activity 2. Also, related efforts under the Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative in Budget Activity 1 develop the foundational 

science base of socio-cultural modeling within a military context. 

Mr. SMITH. Col Schweitzer mentioned at least one tool, MAP-HT, as being deployed last year to support the Human Terrain Team efforts. Are there other tools 

that are ready for transition? 

Dr. VAN TILBORG. Yes. There are other tools and products that are mature enough 

for transition funding. However, they go beyond just support of Human Terrain 

Teams. The Human Social, Culture and Behavioral (HSCB) Modeling program is 

funding the transition of operational planning tools for Special Operations Forces 

that include socio-cultural considerations. There are also training and experimentation content and tools that could be transitioned in the near-term. 

Mr. SMITH. Col Schweitzer mentioned at least one tool, MAP-HT, as being deployed last year to support the Human Terrain Team efforts. Is there adequate 

funding in place to transition the most promising near-term technology? 

Dr. VAN TILBORG. Funds from Human Social, Culture and Behavior (HSCB) 

Budget Activity (BA) 4 provide a mechanism for transitioning products to the 

warfighter. In Fiscal Year 2008, additional transitions may have been possible if BA 

4 funds had been greater. The Fiscal Year 2009 President’s Budget for HSCB requests funds that would enable an increase in the number of products that transition to the warfighter. 

Mr. SMITH. Can you please explain how you are balancing your investments 

across the spectrum of science and technology (basic research, applied research and 

advanced technology development) in the area of behavioral and social science? 

Dr. VAN TILBORG. Investments in the Human Social, Culture and Behavior 

(HSCB) Modeling program are distributed across Budget Activities 2, 3, and 4 in 

a manner that facilitates maturation of technical concepts into tools that are ready 

for experimentation and demonstration in the relatively near term. The balance of 

resources in HSCB is heavily weighted to develop, demonstrate, and validate applied science and general-use capabilities and software tools to support HSCB applications in intelligence analysis, planning and education, training and experimentation. 

93 

Mr. SMITH. How are you balancing research to understand ourselves, and how to 

understand the cultural process of foreign societies? 

Dr. VAN TILBORG. The Human Social, Culture and Behavior (HSCB) Modeling 

program’s Broad Agency Announcement is not restricted to understanding nonWestern societies and ‘red’ forces. It was intentionally left open to allow for the 

study of our own forces, our own forces’ ability to work within coalition forces, as 

well as in non-coalition environments. 

Mr. SMITH. How are you balancing investigator-driven (grants) versus governmental problem driven (contractors) research? 

Dr. VAN TILBORG. The HSCB Fiscal Year 2008 Broad Agency Announcement 

(BAA) was used as the solicitation for both the commercial/industry offerors as well 

as the basis for government laboratory white paper submissions. The proposals were 

all evaluated by the same group of government experts and awards were made 

based upon merit. The basic research money that funds primarily academic institutions was run through the respective Service BAA processes. 

Mr. SMITH. Is there a feedback mechanism for evaluating outcomes and introducing those lessons learned back into existing and proposed new research? 

Dr. VAN TILBORG. The Human Social, Culture and Behavior (HSCB) Modeling 

program is establishing a program oversight group that includes both science and 

technology experts, as well as the operational users for HSCB and social science 

products. The users include the operational planning community, the training communities, military civil affairs, and field commanders. This oversight group is meant 

to help elucidate HSCB requirements and to ensure the acceptance of technology 

products in the field. In addition, the HSCB program coordinates with other ongoing 

efforts in the Department in the social science area. This includes connections to the 

Human Terrain Initiative, the Measuring Progress in Conflict Environments 

(MPICE) project, and others that are attempting to capture real-world use scenarios 

for social science products/concepts. 

Mr. SMITH. How do we leverage the foreign expatriate communities within the 

U.S. to support behavioral and social research in a military context? 

Dr. VAN TILBORG. Several of the proposed projects under the Human Social, Culture and Behavior (HSCB) Modeling program Broad Agency Announcement and the 

recent U.S. Army Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative Project in this 

area included using these populations as a data resource on non-Western cultures 

and beliefs. Other offerors suggested collaborations in other countries to collect such 

information/knowledge. 

Mr. SMITH. How do we leverage our key partners and allies in these efforts? 

Dr. VAN TILBORG. Staff members responsible for Human Social, Culture and Behavior (HSCB) Modeling program oversight also participate in the North Atlantic 

Treaty Organization’s Human Factors and Medicine and The Technical Cooperation 

Program Human Resources and Performance Group efforts where ongoing panels 

are coordinating work across the represented nations in the area of socio-cultural 

understanding. 

Mr. SMITH. What legal or regulatory structures are in place to guide this type of 

research (for example, privacy protection regulations or policies related to human 

or animal testing)? Are there structural prohibitions that prevent the effective development or use of socio-culture tools, anthropologists, etc. . .? 

Dr. VAN TILBORG. Research involving human subjects is covered by 32 Code of 

Federal Regulations 219 ‘‘Protection of Human Subjects’’ and Department of Defense 

Directive 3216.02 ‘‘Protection of Human Subjects and Adherence to Ethical Standards in DoD-Supported Research,’’ among others. 

Mr. SMITH. There are some inside and outside of the anthropological community 

who are resisting the participation of academic community or anthropologists to 

support HTT efforts. How have you handled this resistance? 

Dr. SEGAL. Since I am a sociologist, not an anthropologist, I have been watching 

this resistance primarily as an outsider. I should note, however, that it is not confined to anthropology, although that is where the strongest opposition has occurred, 

and it is nothing new. The academic social science community turned against the 

military during the Vietnam War, when it failed to differentiate between the war 

and the people the nation sent to fight it. It was manifested in anthropology through 

opposition to Project Camelot. One of the victims was David Marlowe, a social anthropologist who was the long-time head of the Department of Military Psychiatry 

at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. He is a Harvard Ph.D. who was 

basically drummed out of the American Anthropological Association during the war, 

and never welcomed back. 

In sociology, the major military sociologists were all subjected to local attacks and 

harassment. Morns Janowitz was hanged in effigy at the University of Chicago, 

radicals tried to occupy Charles Moskos’s office at Northwestern, and there was a 

94 

sit-in outside my office at the University of Michigan. When I agreed to direct the 

sociological research program at the Army Research Institute during the early years 

of the volunteer army, a number of my colleagues questioned why I would do such 

a thing, but there was no disciplinary opposition as was manifested in anthropology. 

Sociology has since matured, to the point where the president of the American Sociological Association invited me to organize and preside over a panel at our annual 

meeting on sociological research and military policy, and the ASA selected me to receive an award for contributing to public understanding of sociology, for my analyses 

of war and the military. Anthropology has not moved far in this direction of legitimizing study in this area. 

The resistance in anthropology has largely been handled by working within professional organizations. What is now a sizable community of anthropologists who 

study the military has been acting as a caucus within the American Anthropological 

Association? In addition, John Allen Williams, who the president of the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces & Society, which is the major international and 

interdisciplinary professional organization of social scientists who study the military, made the issue of intrusion on academic freedom the theme of his presidential 

address last fall. He did this in support of the anthropologists. His presidential address was recently published in Armed Forces & Society, the major professional 

journal in the field. 

Mr. SMITH. Has the resistance affected your ability to work with the HTTs to accomplish your mission? 

Dr. SEGAL. I haven’t worked directly with HTTs. I have worked with civilian social scientists and with military officers who have worked with HTTs. I have had 

no problems with my colleagues, my university, or my discipline in this regard. 

Mr. SMITH. What would you say to mollify their concerns? 

Dr. SEGAL. I have not been placed in this position. Were it to happen, I would 

argue for the HTT process both on the basis of it enabling military forces to accomplish their missions through the substitution of cultural understanding for firepower, thus reducing casualties and fatalities on both sides, and on the basis of academic freedom. I think the former argument is the more important and more persuasive. 

Mr. SMITH. What legal or regulatory structures are in place to guide this type of 

research (for example, privacy protection regulations or policies related to human 

or animal testing)? Are there structural prohibitions that prevent the effective development or use of socio-cultural tools, anthropologists, etc . . .? 

Dr. SEGAL. All federally funded research on human subjects, whether it is conducted in the United States or abroad, is subject to federal regulations, designed to 

guarantee privacy, confidentiality, and minimization of risk to research subjects. Researchers are also bound by discipline-based codes of professional ethics, although 

these do not have the force of law. Most major American research universities have 

extended the human subject protections to all such research, regardless of whether 

it is federally funded. Thus a social scientist working for a university or for a federal 

agency is generally required to have a research protocol approved by an Institutional Review Board, to assure that human subject protections are in place. Universities and other research entities, in turn, are increasingly having their protection 

programs reviewed and accredited by the Association for Accreditation of Human 

Research Protection Programs, and organization sponsored by a consortium of medical and social science professional associations to assure the quality of such programs. I have served on the site visit teams for a number of such reviews, and can 

vouch for their quality. 

Mr. SMITH. There are some inside and outside of the anthropological community 

who are resisting the participation of academic community or anthropologists to 

support HTT efforts. 

Æ How have you handled this resistace? 

Æ Has the resistance affected your ability to work with the HTTs to accomplish 

your mission? 

Æ What would you say to mollify their concerns? 

Dr. WEISS. The National Science Foundation (NSF) has a statutory mission ‘‘to 

promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; and to secure the national defense . . .’’ To meet this aim, the NSF invests 

in basic research that enables the Nation’s future through discovery, learning and 

innovation. 

Human Terrain Teams (HTTs) are a program of the Department of Defense. As 

we understand these teams, they draw on the knowledge base of the social and behavioral sciences in order to provide the military with insights about social and culVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:46 Feb 04, 2009 Jkt 044412 PO 00000 Frm 00098 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 C:\DOCS\110-165\44412.TXT HAS1 PsN: LINDA
95 

tural phenomena in Iraq and Afghanistan. Recognizing that the results of NSF-supported research are often published and shared across scientific research communities, it is to be expected that these results help to improve fundamental knowledge 

within the human sciences. There are multiple NSF programs that fund basic research in the human sciences. Thus, NSF-supported research certainly informs the 

HTTs, but NSF’s programs do not directly or indirectly fund HTT activities. 

The deliberations that have taken place in the disciplinary communities about anthropologists supporting HTT efforts have been a matter of discussion within NSF, 

most recently at the Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Advisory Committee meeting. Through such discussion we have heard both concerns 

about, and support for, HTTs. These discussions have also served as a forum for 

highlighting the fact that NSF is not involved in the HTT activities. However, there 

was a general feeling within the research communities that the greater the input 

by the human sciences into the DoD’s deliberations, the more positive the outcome 

would be for the DoD, the HTTs, and the people of the local communities involved. 

Mr. SMITH. What legal or regulatory structures are in place to guide this type of 

research (for example, privacy protection regulations or policies related to human 

or animal testing)? 

Æ Are there structural prohibitions that prevent the effective development of 

use of socio-culture tools, anthropologists, etc . . . 

Dr. WEISS. The NSF takes seriously privacy protection, confidentiality, and safety. 

Any basic research project funded through the NSF requires conformance with the 

Common Rule (45 CFR 46) for the Protection off Human Research Subjects. Universities and other institutions must approve through their Institutional Review 

Boards (IRBs) research involving human research subjects. The NSF does not fund 

any research project involving human subjects that has not received IRB approval. 

Similarly, if research involves the use of vertebrate animals, an Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC), must review and certify that the research 

provides sufficient protection for the care and use of laboratory and other animals. 

In both cases, the responsibility for review is placed on the institutions, and NSF 

will not expend funds for a research project in the absence of appropriate IRB and 

or IACUC approvals. 

The HTTs are supported by DoD; they are not funded by NSF. Thus, NSF is not 

involved in the regulation of HTT efforts nor does the agency play any role in decisions related to HTT activities. 

Æ