1.
HUMAN TERRAIN SYSTEMS
&
The Future of Anthropology in
Military Operational Analysis
W. Gregory Kleponis, Ph.D,
Colonel, USAF (ret)

2.
"Know the enemy and know yourself in a hundred
battles you will never be in peril. When you are
ignorant of the enemy but know yourself, your
chances of winning or losing are equal. If ignorant
both of your enemy and of yourself, you are certain in
every battle to be in peril."
Sun Tzu

3.
Human Terrain Defined
• Defined in military documents as "the human
population in the operational environment ... as
defined and characterized by sociocultural,
anthropologic and ethnographic data and other
non-geographical information"
▫ Kipp, Jacob; et al. (September–October 2006). "The Human Terrain
System: A CORDS for the 21st Century (full document)" (PDF). Military
Review: 8–15. Archived from the original on 8 April 2013.

4.
Human Terrain System
• The Human Terrain System (HTS) was a United
States Army, Training and Doctrine Command
(TRADOC) support program employing
personnel from the social science disciplines –
such as anthropology, sociology, political
science, regional studies, and linguistics – to
provide military commanders and staff with an
understanding of the local population (i.e. the
"human terrain") in the regions in which they
are deployed.

5.
Role of HTS in US Army
• HTS is defined as an "intelligence enabling
capability", and is categorized as "Intelligence
support activity". According to the HTS website, the
aim of the program is to "provide sociocultural
teams to commanders and staff" in the US Army in
order to "improve the understanding of the local
population", and to "apply this understanding to
the Military Decision Making Process (MDMP)".
• The website also argues that the program was
designed to address an identified "operational need"
in the US Army for "sociocultural support".

6.
Background
• The beginnings of HTS can be traced to a pilot proposal for a
"Pentagon Office of Operational Cultural Knowledge",
published in 2005 by Montgomery McFate and Andrea
Jackson
• July 2005, the Foreign Military Studies Office (FMSO)
initiated an HTS pilot project (named Cultural Operations
Research – Human Terrain System, or COR-HTS),
• February 2007, the first team was deployed to Afghanistan.
Further teams were deployed to Iraq in the summer of that
year.
• 2010, HTS was approved by the US Army and became a
permanent Army program.[

7.
Driving Requirement
• The culture gap was yawning, and tactical failure
stacked on failure as soldiers and marines
struggled to figure out the fundamental nature of
Iraq’s insurgency
• Recognized gap in capability of Coalition and US
forces to properly understand language, culture,
motivation and more importantly "mental maps"
of local populations as well as enemy forces.
• Intelligence organizations at that time no
configured for this type of intel analysis & distr.

8.
HTS Part of Irregular Warfare
METT-T to METT-TC
• Fundamental condition of irregular warfare and
counter-insurgency operations is that the
Commander and staff can no longer limit their
focus to the traditional Mission, Enemy, Terrain
and weather, friendly Troops and support
available, and Time.
• Local population in the area of conflict must be
considered as a distinct and critical aspect of the
Commander’s assessment of the situation

9.
Irregular Warfare
• Irregular warfare (IW) is defined in United
States joint doctrine as "a violent struggle
among state and non-state actors for
legitimacy and influence over the relevant
populations.

10.
Irregular Warfare Ops
• In an irregular warfare environment
“Commanders and planners require insight into
cultures, perceptions, values, beliefs, interests,
and decision-making processes of individuals
and groups” and should be evaluated according
to their “society, social structure, culture,
language, power and authority, and interests.”1

11.
▪ The human dimension is the very essence of irregular
warfare environments.
▪ Understanding local cultural, political, social, economic,
and religious factors is crucial to successful
counterinsurgency and stability operations, and
ultimately, to success in the war on terror.
▪ In stability operations and irregular warfare, the human
aspect of the environment becomes central to mission
success.
▪ Information on social groups and their interests, beliefs,
leaders, and the drivers of individual and group behavior
is needed to conduct effective counterinsurgency
operations.

12.
Human Terrain Teams
• HTTs are comprised of a mix of Soldiers and
Department of the Army Contractors that provide a
mix of senior military specialists and academicians
with strong social sciences credentials.
• An HTT integrates into the unit staff, conducts
unclassified open-source and field research, and
provides operationally-relevanthuman terrain
information in support of the planning, preparation,
execution and assessment of operations.

13.
Social science research of a host nation’s
population produces a knowledge base that is
referred to as the Human Terrain,
or
“The element of the operational environment
encompassing the cultural, sociological, political
and economic factors of the local population.”

14.
Three Key Points to HTT Mission
1. Social Science Research
2. Operationally relevant data gathering
3. Analytic cultural framework for operational
planning, decision-making and assessment.

15.
Social Science Research
• HTTs are unique in that they embed social scientists who
are expert at developing and executing field research.
• Identifying the "what" of what is needed based on
Commanders intent.
• The research methods used to illicit this required human
terrain information include classic anthropological and
sociological methods such as semi-structured and open-
ended interviews, polling and surveys, text analysis, and
participant observation. Both qualitative and
quantitative methodologies are used, based on the
research required.

16.
Operationally Relevant Data
• Key functions of the Team Leader and Research
Manager is to take that data from the social
science research and couch it in terms familiar
to a military audience, making it not
significantly time-consuming, and insure it is
operationally-relevant to the unit’s operations
and problem-set.
• Must be distributed and briefed in a relevant
manner.

17.
Analytic cultural framework for
operational planning, decision-making and
assessment
• Team must not only conduct relevant research and make
it usable to the unit; they must also insure it is
incorporated into the continuous planning
processes conducted by the commander and staff.
Human terrain information is of no use to the unit
unless it is integrated into the continuous planning and
decision making processes. The team must be tied into
all planning processes, including relevant working
groups, assessment boards, etc. that can utilize human
terrain data and sociocultural awarenes

18.
HTT
• Regionally-focused, modular special staff that
brings capabilities that exist outside of organic
Battalion, BCT, and Division structure. They
deploy as trained and organized teams, attached
to USMC Regimental Combat Teams, Army
Brigade Combat Teams, and Division, Corps,
and Combined Joint Task Force, level HQs. Each
team is recruited and trained for a specific
region, then deployed and embedded with their
supported unit.

19.
Human Terrain Teams (HTTs)
• 5-9 person teams deployed to support field
commanders by filling their cultural knowledge
gap in the current operating environment and
providing cultural interpretations of events
occurring within their area of operations.
▫ composed of individuals with social science and
operational backgroundsthat are deployed with
tactical and operational military

20.
Afghanistan
• Essentially the same challenges
• Taliban Insurgency
• Less complex scenario
• Still a complex culture
• Particularly challenging for Americans

21.
Iraq
• Coalition forces shortly after 2003 found
themselves in an insurgency situation
▫ Al Qaida & indigenous groups
▫ Sunni v Shi'ia
▫ Collapse of central government – breakdown in
security – return to traditional power structures
▫ Western Lack of understanding the "why, what &
how" and especially "who"
• Particularly challenging for Americans

22.
• What is cultural competence in
anthropology?
• Cultural competence, also known as
intercultural competence, is a range of
cognitive, affective, and behavioral skills
that lead to effective and appropriate
communication with people of other
cultures. Intercultural or cross-cultural
education are terms used for the training to
achieve cultural competence.

23.
My Definition of Cultural Competence
• "Cultural competency means being aware of
one's own cultural beliefs and values and
how these may be different from other
cultures—including being able to learn about
and honor the different cultures of those
one works with."

24.
What are the 4 elements of cultural
competence?
• Cultural competence is comprised of four
components:
• (a) Awareness of one's own cultural
worldview,
• (b) Attitude towards cultural differences,
(c) Knowledge of different cultural
practices and worldviews, and;
• (d) Cross cultural Skills.

25.
• What are the two keys to achieving
cultural competency?
• These attributes will guide you in developing
cultural competence:
• Self-knowledge and awareness about
one's own culture. Awareness of one's own
cultural worldview.

26.
Ethnocentrism
• Ethnocentrism is the tendency to look at the
world primarily from the perspective of
one's own culture. Part of ethnocentrism is
the belief that one's own race, ethnic or cultural
group is the most important or that some or all
aspects of its culture are superior to those of
other groups.

27.
Ethnocentrism often leads to incorrect
assumptions about others' behavior based on
one's own norms, values, and beliefs.
In extreme cases, a group of individuals may
see another culture as wrong or immoral and
because of this may try to convert, sometimes
forcibly, the group to their own ways of living.

28.
Ethnocentrism rests upon the assumption
that the worldview of one's own culture
is central to all reality.
An ethnocentric person expects everyone to
think and behave like him after, of course, you
scrape away the superficial differences such as
colorful clothing, unusual food, quaint
practices, and even skin color.