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Author: Christopher J. Sims
Publisher: Declassified Press
ISBN: 396376435X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 186
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Book Description
To avoid the footpaths which may have been mined with improvised explosive devices (IEDs), Ryan Evans, a U.S. federal civilian, was walking across a wheat field in Babaji, Helmand Province, in the spring of 2011. Evans was attached to the Royal Highland Fusiliers (2 Scots), C Company, a heavy infantry patrol tasked with providing security in the vicinity. Begun 2 years earlier, the Helmand Food Zone Program was a form of development intervention which offered subsidies, seed, and fertilizers to farmers who replaced lucrative opium cultivation from poppies with growing and harvesting wheat and vegetable crops. Babaji had been in the control of insurgents until a few months earlier and had not received any assistance from the program during the previous year; consequently, there were tensions between the community and British forces. As Evans and the patrol emerged from the field, an Afghan man sitting nearby, clearly irate, shouted in Pashto that the British soldiers had wanted the farmer to grow wheat instead of poppy, and then the same British soldiers walked through their fields. At the immediate level, the encounter demonstrated the direct link between conflict, food security, and local trade, but conflict has many interrelated and mutual dependencies such that the anecdote is instructive on myriad broader milieus. Where, for example, is the tipping point that makes a civilian value creating an expression of discontent to a heavily armed patrol above his immediate physical security? Do livelihoods and cultures affect military strategies? Are there interdependencies between insurgencies, societies, and economies? Does the language of war require a sociological grammar in order to be understood? Armed conflict is a human enterprise such that, by extension, understanding of the human dimension in a given area of operations should be thought integral to planning successful operations...
Author: Christopher J. Sims
Publisher: Department of the Army
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 528
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Book Description
The Human Terrain System embedded civilians primarily in brigade combat teams (BCTs) in Iraq and Afghanistan between 2007 and 2014 to act as a collection and dispersal mechanism for sociocultural comprehension. Set against the backdrop of the program's evolution, the experiences of these social scientists clarifies the U.S. Army's decision to integrate social scientists at the tactical level in conflict. Based on interviews, program documents, material from Freedom of Information Act requests, and secondary sources, this book finds a series of limiting factors inhibiting social science research at the tactical level, common to both Iraq and Afghanistan. Complexity in integrating civilians into the military decision-making cycle, in creating timely research with a high level of fidelity, and in making granular research that resonated with brigade staff all contributed to inhibiting the overall effect of the Human Terrain System. Yet, while high operational tempo in contested spaces complicates social science research at the tactical level, the author argues that there is a continued requirement for a residual capability to be maintained by the U.S. Army. Related items: Other resources produced by the Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College can be found here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/agency/1609 Weapon of Choice: U.S. Army Special Operations Forces in Afghanistan can be found here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-029-00431-3 Counterinsurgency Leadership in Afghanistan, Iraq and Beyond can be found here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-046-00274-6 Surging South of Baghdad: The 3d Infantry Division and Task Force MARNE in Iraq, 2007-2008 can be found here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-029-00522-1 Iraq and Persian Gulf Wars collection can be found here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/catalog/us-military-history/battles-wars/iraq-persian-gulf-wars Training Humans for the Human Domain can be found here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-000-01173-7 Paid to Perform: Aligning Total Military Compensation With Talent Management can be found here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/node/49300/edit The Effective Use of Reserve Personnel in the U.S. Military: Lessons From The United Kingdom Reserve Model can be found at this link: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-000-01100-1 Afghanistan War collection can be found here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/catalog/us-military-history/wars-conflicts/afghanistan-war
Author: Christopher J. Sims
Publisher: Declassified Press
ISBN: 396376435X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 186
Get Book Here
Book Description
To avoid the footpaths which may have been mined with improvised explosive devices (IEDs), Ryan Evans, a U.S. federal civilian, was walking across a wheat field in Babaji, Helmand Province, in the spring of 2011. Evans was attached to the Royal Highland Fusiliers (2 Scots), C Company, a heavy infantry patrol tasked with providing security in the vicinity. Begun 2 years earlier, the Helmand Food Zone Program was a form of development intervention which offered subsidies, seed, and fertilizers to farmers who replaced lucrative opium cultivation from poppies with growing and harvesting wheat and vegetable crops. Babaji had been in the control of insurgents until a few months earlier and had not received any assistance from the program during the previous year; consequently, there were tensions between the community and British forces. As Evans and the patrol emerged from the field, an Afghan man sitting nearby, clearly irate, shouted in Pashto that the British soldiers had wanted the farmer to grow wheat instead of poppy, and then the same British soldiers walked through their fields. At the immediate level, the encounter demonstrated the direct link between conflict, food security, and local trade, but conflict has many interrelated and mutual dependencies such that the anecdote is instructive on myriad broader milieus. Where, for example, is the tipping point that makes a civilian value creating an expression of discontent to a heavily armed patrol above his immediate physical security? Do livelihoods and cultures affect military strategies? Are there interdependencies between insurgencies, societies, and economies? Does the language of war require a sociological grammar in order to be understood? Armed conflict is a human enterprise such that, by extension, understanding of the human dimension in a given area of operations should be thought integral to planning successful operations...
Author: Christopher J. Sims
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Author: Montgomery McFate
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190613092
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 398
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Book Description
The Human Terrain System (HTS) was catapulted into existence in 2006 by the US military's urgent need for knowledge of the human dimension of the battlespace in Iraq and Afghanistan. Its centrepiece was embedded groups of mixed military and civilian personnel, known as Human Terrain Teams (HTTs), whose mission was to conduct social science research and analysis and to advise military commanders about the local population. Bringing social science - and actual social scientists - to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was bold and challenging. Despite the controversy over HTS among scholars, there is little good, reliable source material written by those with experience of HTS or about the actual work carried out by teams in theatre. This volume goes beyond the anecdotes, snippets and blogs to provide a comprehensive, objective and detailed view of HTS. The contributors put the program in historical context, discuss the obstacles it faced, analyse its successes, and detail the work of the teams downrange. Most importantly, they capture some of the diverse lived experience of HTS scholars and practitioners drawn from an eclectic array of the social sciences.
Author: Montgomery McFate
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190613378
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 398
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Book Description
The Human Terrain System (HTS) was catapulted into existence in 2006 by the US military's urgent need for knowledge of the human dimension of the battlespace in Iraq and Afghanistan. Its centrepiece was embedded groups of mixed military and civilian personnel, known as Human Terrain Teams (HTTs), whose mission was to conduct social science research and analysis and to advise military commanders about the local population. Bringing social science - and actual social scientists - to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was bold and challenging. Despite the controversy over HTS among scholars, there is little good, reliable source material written by those with experience of HTS or about the actual work carried out by teams in theatre. This volume goes beyond the anecdotes, snippets and blogs to provide a comprehensive, objective and detailed view of HTS. The contributors put the program in historical context, discuss the obstacles it faced, analyse its successes, and detail the work of the teams downrange. Most importantly, they capture some of the diverse lived experience of HTS scholars and practitioners drawn from an eclectic array of the social sciences.
Author: Montgomery McFate
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780190492137
Category : Counterinsurgency
Languages : en
Pages : 383
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Book Description
Author: Scott A. Schmunk
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Anthropological ethics
Languages : en
Pages : 22
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Book Description
""The future of HTS is unclear," writes Roberto J. Gonzalez, Associate Professor of Anthropology at San Jose State University and staunch critic of the United States Army's Human Terrain System (HTS). With the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan drawing to a close and military budgets projected to tighten significantly over the next decade, the professor's statement couldn't be more timely and relevant. Initiated in 2006 as a quickly developed capability to fix the military's admitted lack of sociocultural knowledge about the peoples and regions in which it was deployed, the HTS program quickly became hailed as a vital, and emphatically non-lethal, tool in counterinsurgency operations by some while likewise being decried as a wrongful use of social science by others. ... Given present controversy and the benefit of hindsight to reflect on nearly six years of HTS successes and failures, the uncertainty surrounding the future of HTS and its affiliation with the military must be addressed. The ensuing discussion focuses on providing a potential solution."--Abstract.
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 103
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Book Description
The United States military must fundamentally evolve its strategy and capabilities to better meet the unconventional challenges that define the post 9/11 era. Two principal requirements of this evolution are: (1) adopting a population centric strategy for counterinsurgency and nation building, and (2) developing capabilities that better integrate U.S. forces and Host Nation civilians, leadership, and security forces. This thesis shows how a new Army initiative called the Human Terrain System (HTS) advances the U.S. Army toward achieving these requirements by embedding Human Terrain Teams (HTTs) within U.S. Army units performing counterinsurgency and nation building in Iraq and Afghanistan. The research uses the case study method to analyze a currently deployed Human Terrain Team. The analysis leverages Knowledge Flow Theory to explain how the HTT creates, shares, and harnesses relevant cultural knowledge to improve the competitive performance of the host unit and advance the adoption of a population centric strategy. The thesis concludes that the embedded HTT concept is valid and necessary in counterinsurgency and nation building contexts. The thesis recommends developing a sufficient pool of career military social scientists to serve as future candidate participants, and integrating a knowledge management mechanism and policy into the HTS framework.
Author: Jennifer Carol Greanias
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Afghan War, 2001-
Languages : en
Pages : 39
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Book Description
Author: Christopher J. Lamb
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780988864207
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 308
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Book Description
This study explains the performance of Human Terrain Teams, why the large majority of commanders found them useful, and why collectively they did not ameliorate-much less reverse-growing cross-cultural tensions between U.S. forces and Afghans. It examines the tremendous challenges the Human Terrain Team program faced in starting and rapidly expanding a non-traditional military capability, and why some challenges were met successfully while others were not. First, a historical analysis explains how external forces and management decisions affected team performance. An organizational analysis then explains the variations in team performance by examining the teams with variables substantiated by previous studies of small cross-functional teams. Finally, all available commander observations on Human Terrain Team performance are analyzed to better determine why commanders were satisfied or dissatisfied with their teams. The insights from the three analyses-historical, organizational and commander assessments-are then integrated. The results demonstrate that Human Terrain Teams had to overcome numerous organizational limitations to perform well, but that they were able to meet the expectations of commanders who did not fully appreciate the optimum role the teams could play in an integrated counterinsurgency strategy.
