11 The Human Terrain System: Some Lessons Learned and the Way Forward

As earlier chapters discuss in detail, the Human Terrain System (HTS) was catapulted into existence by urgent operational needs for socio-cultural knowledge to inform the irregular warfare missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. After Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan in 2002 and the “shock and awe” invasion of Iraq in 2003, the US military required something beyond technology and superior lethal force to accomplish their morphing missions. By 2005, deployed forces were engaged in counterinsurgency and stability operations. While the continued presence of al-Qaeda and the Taliban would require continued kinetic combat capabilities, engaging the local population and cooperating with Coalition partners to stabilize and support Afghanistan and Iraq would require a different (or at least an additional) set of tactics and skills. Unfortunately such socio-cultural capabilities were in short supply within the military. The rapid acquisition of “in-house” socio-cultural knowledge was unfeasible; and so HTS was created by the Army.

This chapter reviews the socio-cultural knowledge requirements that resulted from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, noting the limitations of the military’s in-house capabilities, and the resultant need for HTS. As an experimental program, HTS needed a flexible, adaptable management structure that could accommodate the evolving nature of the program and enable control over personnel and human resources to produce Human Terrain Teams (HTTs). Unfortunately HTS lacked such a management structure and instead faced obstacles and obstructions both from its higher echelon command, TRADOC, and the prime contractor. Despite these obstacles, the HTTs did add value to the military units they served, as demonstrated by both internal and external assessments of the program.

While the US military is heralded for its technical, tactical, and warrior competencies, there are critical deficiencies in cross-cultural competence. That is, US forces lacked the capacity to perceive, monitor, manage, understand, and employ socio-cultural information to guide reasoning and action. Although US officers proved to be effective leaders of their own troops in more traditional combat operations, US military leaders were vulnerable with regard to building trust and cultivating relationships with local nationals in their areas of responsibility.¹Close Cross-cultural interactions are often stymied by differences in language, religion, behavior, values, beliefs, social organizations, political systems, economic systems, education, history, law, customs, and social controls.²Close Furthermore, as discussed in the Introduction to this volume, the brigade combat team (BCT) and regimental combat team (RCT) rotation schedule and process further exacerbated the socio-cultural deficits. Just as a brigade was making some, albeit limited, headway in getting to know the local community leaders and area needs, it was time to depart. Thus, a new brigade with its own priorities and methods would start from scratch on each rotation.

This socio-cultural gap established the requirement for HTS, especially its core component, Human Terrain Teams (HTT). Indeed, the brigades wanted and needed social scientists to help them understand the target area culture and its impact on operational decisions.³Close

In addition to combat specialties, the US military includes a host of service and support occupations to which military members are assigned. Indeed, behind the “teeth” of the military is a huge “tail” of technicians, clerks, administrative associates, mechanics, computer specialists, high-tech equipment operators and repairers, health care specialists, and other workers. Additionally, well trained and disciplined soldiers are led by a smaller cadre of capable professional officers. Practically all officers have a college degree and a multitude have credentials beyond the bachelor level.⁴Close And while US military officers have a background in a variety of academic disciplines—to include the behavioral and social sciences—there is a bias towards engineering, the “hard” sciences, and certain segments of the humanities (e.g. history, geography, English).⁵Close Generally speaking, military officers are proficient engineers and technocrats who take command and seek great precision and control. But in the counterinsurgency and stability operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the traditional military skill sets around precision guided munitions, firefights, cordon and search operations, and patrols proved to be inadequate to the task at hand. Military operations other than war require a different mindset. In “traditional” combat it is perhaps counterproductive to get to know the human terrain. Dehumanizing the enemy—Krauts, Japs, Gooks, and Hadjis—reduces the moral and spiritual repugnance about killing.⁶Close In counter-insurgency, however, understanding the local population is critical.

Although the warrior role is far from narrow, the military’s missions have grown well beyond warfighting, to include peacekeeping, disaster relief, deterrence, reconstruction, and now counterinsurgency. Because of its size, structure, and organization, the military must often undertake assignments as an agent of American security and diplomacy that might otherwise be functionally more fitting for another government department or agency. Although the military might have been stretched thin and be unprepared for the complexities of counterinsurgency, they did not waste time whining but saluted and got on with the mission. But a warrior spirit and a “can do” attitude were not sufficient for the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) situations that prevailed after the shock and awe phase of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

While the military has uniformed professionals in seemingly relevant career fields like intelligence, foreign area officers (FAOs), civil affairs, and military information support operations (MISO, formerly called psychological operations), neither their availability nor their skills sets were congruent with the need for operationally relevant social science expertise to provide understanding of the human terrain so as to optimize the military decision-making process. As discussed in McFate’s chapter in this volume, intelligence officers, for example, were certainly “in the fight” but they were focused on the enemy. FAOs had languished owing to severe staffing shortfalls and a lack of organizational support.⁷Close Similarly, although Civil Affairs (CA) with its core of reserve professionals (e.g. doctors, lawyers, engineers, farmers) had relevance for reconstruction and development projects, they were in short supply.⁸Close These officers and soldiers had other assignments and duties that precluded them from adopting the particular mission of social science support. Those who argued for using in-house capabilities⁹Close such as FAOs or CA failed to consider that FAOs are assigned to higher echelons or to US embassies, and were not available to fill this capability gap. Using FAOs and CA to fulfill this role would have taken many years to recruit, educate, train, and deploy them, leaving an immediate warfighter requirement unfulfilled. In response to a capability shortfall identified by deployed military units at all levels, HTS had to be created from scratch three years after the war began.

Things typically move s l o w l y in a bureaucracy and the Pentagon is no exception. But the need to understand the human terrain was urgent and required immediate attention. As discussed in the introduction, HTS had to recruit, train, deploy, support, and sustain a dedicated, embedded social science capability so as to conduct operationally relevant research and analysis. Further, it had to develop and maintain a socio-cultural knowledge base, in order to preserve and share the accumulating socio-cultural knowledge. This was far from easy, especially under the “needed it yesterday, so give it to me NOW” mentality engendered by Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). Shortly after the need was identified in 2006, the first HTT deployed to Afghanistan in February 2007. Another was slated for Afghanistan and three for Iraq by early 2008. The demand for teams from the senior leaders of both combat theaters steadily increased. By 2009 HTS had fielded twenty-seven teams with a demand for a dozen more at the brigade or higher levels of command. This warp speed pace was truly remarkable for the defense establishment.

HTS was experimental, and thus the whole HTS program, especially training, was meant to evolve. As a learning organization, HTS adjusted in response to experience on the ground as the organization learned how to serve the military mission better. Training was iterative; the composition of teams was iterative; human capital strategies and program and personnel management practices were iterative. One might even say that the whole war was iterative. Even the behemoth of bureaucracies, the Pentagon, recognized that continuous change was necessary in the face of uncertainty. The need for flexibility and adaptability were explicitly called for in the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) and reinforced in the 2010 QDR.¹⁰Close US forces were required to adapt to the conditions in their Areas of Responsibility (AOR)—the specific regions in Afghanistan or Iraq. Having a one-size-fits-all HTT would not have worked. HTS understood this and embraced this second-order flexibility into its design.

Especially early on, HTS was not in a position to make a clear definition of the mission in training. As Callahan’s chapter notes, research access to Afghanistan and Iraq had been limited or non-existent for thirty years, and thus detailed information could not be included in the HTS training curriculum. Furthermore, HTT research had to satisfy the brigades’ operational needs rather than the scientific curiosity of the team members. Because the brigades were in the “you don’t know what you don’t know” quadrant of the Johari window,¹¹Close operational relevance of certain research topics could not be pinpointed. Thus, training was tweaked periodically on the basis of formal and informal feedback from the field. As part of the assessment team for the original HTS proof-of-concept experiment, I sent feedback to the training director and deputy program manager before leaving the field and long before the assessment report was published internally. Such assessments continued with the Program Development Team (PDT). Information was accumulating from what the military required and what teams actually did in the field. This prompted a total overhaul of training that began early in 2009 and was fully implemented in 2011. In addition to changing content and emphasis, training redesign included separate modules for civilian social scientists and the military students. For example, the military trainees did not need to sit through the basics of military culture and the social scientists did not need to sit through social science research methods 101. Another key training improvement was replacing the British Aerospace Systems (BAE) contractors with returned team members as trainers.

Not only was training adjusted, but so too was the HTT structure. For example, team structure and placement within the BCT structure were assessed. Team size was also examined. Teams in Afghanistan needed to be larger, with nine members rather than five. The vastness of a BCT’s area of responsibility led to teams being split up. More team members with the right skills were required. In addition to growing the number of HTTs, Human Terrain Analysis Teams (HTATs) were added to synchronize research and facilitate integration of social science research and analysis products at division level. Theater Coordination Elements (HTS-TCE) at the corps level provided pro-grammatic support to teams and coordinated HTS operations at theater and combatant commands. HTS also contracted for Social Science Research and Analysis (SSRA) support in both theaters, thus necessitating an SSRA Research and Analysis Management Team (RAMT). And although not detailed here or elsewhere in this volume, there were other program elements that were adjusted as needed. Among these elements were the Research Reachback Cell (RRC), the Subject Matter Expert Network (SMEnet), the Program Development Team, and the database toolkit (Mapping the Human Terrain—MAP-HT). None of this expansion represented empire building. Rather, the additional elements were either requests from brigade, division, and corps levels or proved necessary to run the program.

As this discussion shows, HTS was designed to respond to urgent and unfolding operational needs. In turn, the innovative nature of HTS required a flexible, adaptable management structure that could accommodate the adaptive program. Unfortunately, HTS did not have such a management structure, a topic we will return to soon.

Building the HTS organizational infrastructure was hard enough, but the toughest part was building the HTT, the embedded social science capability. As mentioned in Chapter 1 and detailed in Chapter 2 of this volume, the military was not comfortable with social science, let alone those practitioners who conducted interviews and observed interaction. And, truth be told, social scientists (especially PhDs from the academy) were not comfortable with the military and the need for “fast action” research. Yet somehow these diverse professions had to be melded together.

As discussed in the Introduction, qualitative social scientists with field research skills held great promise and value for the military operating in Afghanistan and Iraq. Unlike typical military professionals, social scientists understand how culture shapes beliefs, values, and behavior and are comfortable with multidimensionality, including the lack of perfect prediction and control inherent in understanding human nature. In addition to their content expertise, social science methods and tools (such as making observations and conducting interviews) were germane for eliciting and identifying socio-cultural considerations pertinent to the military’s engagement with local populations. A detailed discussion of social science epistemological assumptions and orientations from positivism to constructivism is beyond the scope of this chapter.¹²Close However, it is important to note that while quantitative approaches were useful at higher theater levels, in general HTS focused on qualitative, naturalistic methods. Although they came from a broad variety of disciplines, the social scientists selected for HTTs were expected to be seasoned field researchers, rather than novices or even journeyman researchers.

Although social scientists were expected to be experts in their craft, they were not expected to be savvy with regard to the profession of arms. If they were going to be deployed and embedded with a brigade combat team in an active war zone they would need some help. The HTT “Team Leader” position was designed to provide this linkage between the HTT and the brigade. The team leaders were expected to understand the military. Active component uniformed personnel were not available for HTS and thus the team leaders were selected from military retirees or available members of the Reserves. Whereas retirees were recruited and hired under the BAE contract, reservists or members of the National Guard were recruited through an individual process of negotiating with each volunteer’s unit. Other positions such as human terrain and/or cultural analysts and research managers rounded out the HTT and were designed to aid the conduct and communication of the social science research.

The HTT was not a typical team and especially not a typical cohesive military team. Not only were HTT members deployed individually, but the team had no goal of its own. The team was to conduct research and provide situational awareness to the brigade commander. Neither the social scientist nor the team leader defined the goal. Not only did this model run counter to the typical military idea of a “team,” it also ran counter to the typical academic research role where an individual researcher determines the parameters of the study.¹³Close As for the HTT leader, well, this flew in the face of leadership theories such as “path–goal theory” where leaders generate performance motivation by defining goals, clarifying the path, removing obstacles, and providing support.¹⁴Close The HTT leader did not set the goal; that was the purview of the brigade commander. While the HTT leader did get some training regarding social science, he or she was not really able to help the social scientist to overcome research obstacles. Path–goal theory also suggests that a directive leadership style is best for subordinates accepting an authoritarian environment and a task that is is ambiguous and complex. Reserve or retired team leaders were generally accustomed to a directive style, whereas the typical academic social scientist was often less comfortable with this management style.

Although this civilian and military melding of five to nine members per HTT developed expertise in their respective areas, training was still required to fuse the capabilities for operational purposes. The training should have created team cohesion, but unfortunately it did not. The balance between teamwork and “taskwork” was, out of necessity, tipped in favor of the latter. Once hired as contractors (or under orders for reservists), prospective HTT members reported for four and a half months of training at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. The curriculum evolved in response to operational needs but included an overview of HTS, military culture, military decision-making process, counterinsurgency theory, research methods, basic language, area background, and team building. After the schoolhouse training, HTT members attended a combat simulation exercise with an active duty unit at a combat training center (CTC). And then they deployed for at least nine months.

After the initial fielding of an HTT with a brigade, HTT members rotated onto existing teams as individuals and not as intact units. While this is not optimal for team development and orientation, it was a necessary “evil.” To mitigate the loss of knowledge and relationships with local nationals as brigades came and went, the HTT was designed to stay put and accept the burden of individual replacements for the good of the military unit and mission. Therefore, in deference to operational needs, HTT members did not train or deploy as a team. Neither could they do their capstone CTC exercise with the brigade to which they would eventually be attached. As with individual replacements, this unfamiliarity between the HTT and the BCT inevitably delayed team orientation and the development of shared mental models.

As an experimental program, HTS needed a flexible, adaptable management structure that could accommodate the iterative nature of the program and enable control over personnel and human resources to produce HTTs. Unfortunately, HTS had neither. What HTS had were plenty of obstacles.

For the sake of expediency, HTS was housed in the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) and more specifically within the TRADOC Intelligence Support Activity (TRISA). The TRADOC Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence (DCSINT or G-2) had learned of the burgeoning concept during a stint with the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO), an organization that was an early champion and funder of HTS.¹⁵Close TRISA had some socio-cultural capabilities, including the Foreign Military Studies Office (FMSO) at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. However, while TRADOC ran schools, conducted war games, and developed training and doctrine for the Army, it was not geared toward team fielding and management. TRADOC had never deployed anything in its organizational existence before HTS. Deployment is the purview of the US Army Forces Command (FORSCOM). This organizational mismatch became problematic as HTS grew and was institutionalized.

In 2006, HTS was approved for implementation as a proof-of-concept project. It was not a government program, agency, or activity; HTS was not a government anything. Because of HTS’s status as a project that did not officially exist, the project had access to neither active duty military members nor DOD civilians. But what the TRADOC G-2 had was a so-called omnibus contract with BAE. From its office in Hampton, VA, BAE had been providing information technology and personnel support services (e.g., data entry and database management) to TRADOC G-2 on site in such places as Fort Monroe, VA and Fort Leavenworth, KS. And so, without a competitive bidding process, BAE was tasked under its existing contract to hire all the HTS human resources, including the HTT members, trainers, and support staff. Even key HTS leadership was brought on board under Intergovernmental Personnel Act (IPA) assignments. Qualified subcontractors under the BAE contract also hired personnel, and after ninety days in contractor status these people would become quasi-government personnel. This was a cash cow for BAE and put them in the enviable catbird seat.

While the controversy and criticism levied by the academic anthropology community made HTS’s recruiting of anthropologists more difficult, an additional problem was that recruiting efforts were conducted via BAE Systems under contract to TRADOC. Although the contract was meant to expedite the typically onerous and untimely government hiring process, the critical ongoing problems with contractor performance, support, and responsiveness negated this ostensible benefit. Furthermore, BAE did not know how to locate, recruit, or select social scientists with the requisite skills. The contractor was perusing internet job sites, waiting for replies to newspaper ads, or holding job fairs. BAE did not have dedicated, informed staff members who were knowledgeable about the program and the qualifications of applicants. Social science professionals with the requisite expertise tended not to be looking for a job but looking for a professional challenge. The potential candidates had options, were savvy, and demanded information regarding the program, working conditions, remuneration, and so forth. HTS needed not just any field-experienced social scientists, but those who were willing and physically and mentally fit to work for the military in a war zone; those who were security clearance eligible; and those with the temperament for teamwork. BAE would not or could not provide accurate, realistic information to HTT candidates about the nature, context, or details of the HTS project and their assignments in particular. Questions from candidates (who were expected to deploy to a war zone) were often met with disdain, hostility, or silence. As noted above, the BAE contract included a few subcontractors, but their candidates were often wait-listed in favor of direct BAE hires. BAE also ignited perceptions of inequity with regard to compensation. Rather than tying salary to duties and experience, BAE would try to get the best deal for itself and would low-ball subcontractor candidates. HTS did warn BAE that affronts to equity could be expected to hurt team cohesion and functioning; this fell on deaf ears.

In addition to recruiting, the selection and management of personnel was inadequate, deficient, arbitrary, and capricious. While bona fide occupational qualifications, position descriptions, performance objectives, and performance management required a comprehensive job analysis, which was outside BAE’s purview, one would nevertheless have expected some technical expertise on the part of the contractor. Given federal contracting regulations, HTS was not allowed to screen résumés and curricula vitae nor otherwise vet prospective HTT members. But other interim measures that BAE could have taken, based on sound professional judgment and experience and continuing project feedback, were eschewed or ignored. BAE could not or would not develop and implement sound, professionally recognized personnel practices for the HTS effort. HTS staff members were precluded from interviewing or interacting with potential HTT candidates. Job descriptions provided by HTS were not used in job advertisements. Candidates were given a cursory interview over the phone, or none at all. Requests that applicants be screened on the basis of personnel security, physical and psychological fitness, relevant team and technical experience were resisted and ignored. Among the consequences were wasted time and resources spent on candidates who were too frail (e.g. an 81-year-old man with obvious physical limitations), morbidly obese (posing a serious health risk in a war zone), unable to meet security requirements, and in other ways unable to adapt to the unique technical and deployment demands of HTS. Although highly unlikely, it is plausible that BAE thought the 300-pound man would get thinner by the end of training; there is no way the octogenarian would get any younger. It appeared to HTS management that BAE was simply delivering bodies to Fort Leavenworth for training. They made money on every hire, for every day that a candidate was in training, regardless of quality and regardless of whether that person was fit for deployment. Misfit training dropouts may have been lucrative for the contractor but they wreaked havoc on HTS, affecting deployment plans and team processes.

In addition to poor interaction with candidates, many of whom withdrew from the recruitment process, HTT members reported feeling cast adrift. This is no small wonder, since BAE continued to be responsible for HTS human resources through deployment and redeployment. Pay issues forced deployed civilians to argue with BAE via email about errors in their pay stubs. BAE’s response to requests from employees regarding logistics, deployment schedules, and insurance was inconsistent, owing to deficient personnel tracking and coordination systems (a supposed core competency of the contractor). There was no support lifeline for dealing with personal affairs (e.g. family emergencies, finances, etc.) once downrange. As for performance management, there was anarchy, with undefined reporting and accountability chains. Deployed military team members and civilian personnel in theater were confused and suffered from a lack of clarity regarding who supervised and appraised whom. As contractor employees, civilian HTT (and CONUS HTS staff) members were not obligated to comply with performance requirements set by HTS leadership/management or HTT leadership. TRADOC undermined HTS’s authority and abdicated its own responsibility.

Frustration with BAE was palpable and pervasive within HTS. The morale of team members and the cohesion of teams in theater were negatively affected. HTT members were distracted from performing their duties for the brigade because of the lack of trust and confidence in their ostensible employer. HTT members even quipped that BAE stood for Bad At Everything! The potential consequences of these failings in recruiting, selection, training, movement, and support were more than a nuisance and had repercussions for individual safety, team performance, brigade integration, and mission success.

The omnibus support nature of the BAE contract with TRADOC, while expected to be flexible, adaptive, and responsive to the needs of the developing and evolving HTS, did not serve HTS’s mission requirements. The task statement was vague at best and there were no standards of performance.¹⁶Close The contractor could not be held accountable for failing to meet requirements because there were no requirements. Although there is the expectation that the government oversees a contract, the perception of HTS leadership and HTT members was that functionally the contractor was in charge. BAE, tasked with providing support to HTS, refused to take direction from HTS leaders. BAE representatives asserted that they would only respond to contractually relevant requests from the TRADOC Contract Officer Technical Representative (COTR). Sadly the COTR apparently was not knowledgeable about or interested in HTS. HTS had all of the responsibility but none of the authority—not even to terminate the BAE contract.

HTS was toggling between strategic and tactical issues as they worked to build the program and overcome the obstacles posed by BAE. They were developing and modifying program specifications, updating job descriptions, managing the evolution of training, conducting site visits to evaluate performance, and briefing Army and Pentagon officials. When the numerous efforts of HTS leadership to fix the situation with BAE failed, HTS lobbied TRADOC for a new contract designed and written to mission requirements. HTS was unique, transformational, and human resource intensive. HTS needed a contract that would at least allow them to tell contractors the general requirements for personnel and would put HTS in control of compliance. Calls for a new contract seemed to be blocked by TRADOC. Furthermore, TRADOC would not relinquish control of the HTS task order to HTS. HTS was denied control over human resources, control over budget, control over facilities—control over everything. TRADOC even resisted moving the program to another command more experienced with deploying forces. Neither TRADOC nor BAE was evil or unethical per se. But the non-operational part of the DOD bureaucracy often tends not to be focused on the mission or soldiers downrange but on amassing power through fiefdoms and allocating budgets to pet projects.

HTS battled not only BAE but its parent organization, TRADOC, to guard its budget, adjust the program, and meet the mission.¹⁷Close A significant battle was fought over whether TRADOC would allow HTS to bid for a contract for job analysis, which would provide the technical and legal basis for HTT personnel decisions. Job analysis entails systematically collecting, analyzing, and interpreting job-related information so as to define a job in terms of tasks performed and the competencies, knowledge, and characteristics needed to perform those tasks. It also provides the basis for defensible performance standards, allowing for the counseling and, if need be, the termination of poor performers. In 2007 HTS recommended that a job analysis be conducted, but TRADOC declined to authorize it.¹⁸Close This was an unfortunate decision, as the basic building block of any reliable, valid, effective, and legally/professionally defensible human resource system is a job analysis.

After a great deal of argument, in 2008 TRADOC reluctantly authorized the conduct of a professional job analysis. After the completion of the job analysis in 2009, HTS now had a credible footing on which to base HTS recruitment, selection, training, and performance management decisions.¹⁹Close During the course of conducting the job analysis, the processes, procedures, and policies regarding HTS personnel were documented. This documentation clarified responsibilities and work to promote a consistent process on the part of the HTS contractor and its subcontractors. Furthermore, it promoted process equity for HTS candidates by articulating a validated salary and benefit policy. In addition to laying the groundwork for interview protocols and tools for scoring résumés, the job analysis was also a key part of reconfiguring the training program based on input from sound samples of returning team members and data from Program Development Team reports.

Another windfall for HTS human resources and personnel accountability was transferring HTT positions from contractor to civil service status. In December 2008, the pending rules of the new Security Agreement between the US and Iraq forced TRADOC to change its manning approach. This agreement placed contractors within the primary jurisdiction of Iraqi civil and criminal law rather than US law, which left the long-term impacts on the contractor workforce unclear. HTS management believed that the situation placed the safety, security, support, and mission effectiveness of deployed HTT members at risk, and that the best way to mitigate potential problems was to convert all deployable HTS positions to government term-hire civil service positions. This transition was complex and did not eliminate BAE from the picture. Although all deployed team members became civil servants, for reasons of expediency, HTS candidates entered training as temporary contract employees and were converted to government status at the end of the training cycle. Although this conversion was associated with a spike in attrition because of the reduction in pay for personnel, it (along with the personnel decisions based on the job analysis) did have long-term positive effects on personnel quality and accountability.

The growing animosity between TRADOC and HTS, and especially the program manager, led to an internal review with regard to the contracting situation. The topline result of the Office of Internal Review and Audit Compliance (IRAC) stated that “The contract management and oversight framework for the HTS contract needs significant improvement. We recommend re-competing the current contract as soon as possible.”²⁰Close The IRAC report validated all of the problems that HTS had raised over the years concerning the BAE contract. Essentially the report concluded that BAE had too much power and control and that HTS should not be working for the contractor. It needed dedicated government personnel who were accountable to the HTS mission rather than to the contractor. IRAC observed that the conversion of HTT members was a step in the right direction and reinforced HTS’s call for earlier and improved screening of recruits and trainees in accordance with the job analysis results. There were costs paid for this showdown with TRADOC and BAE. The IPA-status program manager, who was acting as a good steward of HTS resources and had welcomed the internal review, was dismissed shortly thereafter. Of course the TRADOC DCSINT was also sent packing a short time later.

Despite the urgency and the parade of obstacles that HTS faced, it did enhance the operational effectiveness of military units in Afghanistan and Iraq. HTTs conducted operationally relevant research and analysis and enabled more culturally astute decision-making by the units that they supported. HTTs represented the voice of the local community, and helped them communicate their needs more effectively to US and Coalition forces. HTTs contributed to decisions regarding the security of the area, infrastructure restoration, and economic development. Social scientists served as advisors to the brigade and as interlocutors between the local people and the commander. They provided situational awareness about how the local people made a living and how they governed themselves.

Teams interacted, chatted, interviewed, observed, and took notes. Social scientists didn’t just “look,” but they “observed” and they knew what they were observing. Social scientists, well versed in theory and practice, had cross-cultural competence and were adept at perspective taking. They did not apply their own cultural lens to understand the society within the unit’s AOR, but picked up on the local customs and beliefs. They had a tolerance for ambiguity and had a framework that enabled them to pick up on body language and non-verbal behaviors like gestures, facial expressions, and personal space. They interpreted others’ behavior and interaction and suggested to the unit how to act accordingly. Because they could read the poker “tell” within the social context, they were able to judge whether or not a person was a true leader.

Teams went beyond “Islam for dummies” and mere “dos and don’ts.” Instead, they explored local clans and their loyalties and disputes. They came to understand the social structure, allegiances, and physical, economic, and security needs. They mapped the political power grid. They did damage-control following cultural incidents, such as a soldier shooting a Qur’an²¹Close or after a patrol inappropriately flex-cuffed and detained a local sheikh’s elderly uncle. They understood that rituals such as celebratory gunfire at an Arab wedding were not aggressive acts. They explained the pique of Kabul residents endangered by combat patrols speeding on narrow roads in their 5-ton trucks to avoid IEDs. They drank tea and talked about tribal disputes and grievances. They focused on relationships rather than weapons, on harm mitigation and conflict resolution. And according to account after account of former HTT members, every reasonable effort was made to conduct their research ethically.²²Close

The HTTs listened to the brigade as well as the population. They advised the brigade on how to interact with local residents and the complexity of the social system. They coached the commander before meetings with elders and political actors. They explained their perceptions and provided insight as to why the people supported the Taliban. Because HTS was alien to military culture, team leaders were instrumental in fitting the social science square peg into the brigade’s round hole. Team leaders informed the brigade commander how to use an HTT. While social scientists were experienced professionals in their disciplines, the team leader helped them to interpret vague orders, kept them centered on the unit’s needs and limited timelines, and helped them conduct their research in the fog of war. Team leaders along with research analysts and managers were the lynchpin in dealing with the puzzle of getting social science to fit into the military decision-making process.²³Close

Teams did not do ideal or even typical social science research. It was practical, on the fly, “action research.”²⁴Close They collected their data not just on Forward Operating Bases (FOBs), but in physically rigorous conditions while on patrol with soldiers. They provided quick and dirty data about tribes in remote territories. In Chapter 3 of this volume, Callahan described what he did as an HTT social scientist as “combat ethnography”—random cursory interviews rather than in-depth participant observation.²⁵Close The research was more like a series of pilot tests than well-designed theses.²⁶Close

HTT contributions were often small but critical. Before HTS, no one knew what commanders wanted or needed to know about the socio-cultural environment. The commanders themselves often did not know. HTTs provided a non-engineering framework for observing the AOR in real time, further opening the Johari window of each AOR for the brigade by collecting data on what they didn’t know and what they didn’t know they needed to know.²⁷Close For example, the brigade might not have wanted to know about pine nuts in a remote Afghan village, but they needed to know. By knowing that pine nuts were an economic key for the Zadran tribe, the brigade came to understand that the people were harvesters not insurgents and so they should not be shot. Such seemingly simple information had second- and third-order effects. As Dorough-Lewis’s chapter notes, social scientists knew the art of asking questions (rather than conducting interrogations) and could make sense of the unique characteristics of the area of operations and the people who lived there.

Certainly not all HTTs were as useful as those whose stories comprise the preceding chapters. But there is compelling evidence that HTS provided valuable socio-cultural knowledge that improved situation awareness and resulting courses of action. This evidence comes from multiple sources. Subsequent to the fielding of the first HTT in Afghanistan in 2007, the demand for teams from senior leaders of both combat theaters steadily increased. Army brigade and Marine corps regiment commanders are tough and discerning customers who take their missions and the lives of their troops seriously. Given the incredible demands that vie for their precious time and attention, asking for HTTs to be embedded with them downrange is not only the highest of compliments but a strong indicator of mission success. The demand for HTTs (or HTATs) at brigade/regiment and higher levels, as well as support for expansion to other combatant commands, is proof positive that HTTs successfully narrowed the socio-cultural gap for which the project was created.

Underlying the orders for rapid fielding of over forty teams were endorsements from the field regarding HTS success. Beginning with Colonel Schweitzer, the commander of the first brigade to receive an HTT (4^th Brigade from the 82^nd Airborne Division), HTTs were praised for enabling the brigade to reduce kinetic operations, develop more effective courses of action, improve situational awareness, improve consequence management, increase support for the host nation government, improve humanitarian assistance efforts, improve village assessments, and decrease attacks by enemy forces, among other things. Similar testimonials came from both war theaters and were extended by their subordinate battalion and company commanders in addition to their direct staff members. Moreover, where HTTs worked with FAOs, or those from CA or MISO and embedded Provincial Reconstruction Teams (e-PRTs) or even chaplains, the feedback generally was positive.

In a January 2009 email to scores of military personnel regarding HTS, Lieutenant General John Kimmons, the Army Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, expressed his tremendous support of HTS to the community. He noted:

Embedded HTS teams provide tactical units a neighborhood/village-level understanding of the local population & culture; that feeds better operational decisions. … They present “Human Terrain” considerations for analysis & planning. One commander recently stated that a patrol augmented by an HTS element was more effective than six patrols without one.²⁸Close

Such examples of kudos were collected not for the purpose of basking in glory but as part of detailed, multidimensional, internal assessments of HTS that were planned and conducted to develop and improve the program further. In addition to routinely soliciting and receiving informal feedback from HTS staff, trainees, and participants, HTS conducted formal evaluations in the field, beginning with the first HTT location in Afghanistan (AF1) in July/August 2007. The first five proof-of-concept teams in Iraq (IZ1–5) were evaluated in February 2008. These evaluations were mostly formative, but there were summative components as well. That is, the primary focus was on further developing and refining the program rather than zeroing in on outcomes and providing a simple “thumbs up/thumbs down” verdict on HTS.

Multidisciplinary assessment teams collected data from brigade commanders, brigade staff, as well as HTT members, using semi-structured interviews and observations as well as questionnaires, surveys, and checklists.²⁹Close An additional PDT assessment took place in 2009, visiting HTAT and eight (or 42 percent) of the HTTs. Assessments or evaluations did not simply solicit positive comments from the brigade. In addition to such appreciative inquiry, all feedback was welcomed, problems were documented, and follow-up actions were recommended. Among the subjects covered by the PDT were HTT roles and relationships, research conducted, HTT integration with the host unit, and the value of training. Based on assessment findings, training evolved to be more tailored to the HTT role, to include practical exercises, and to facilitate unit integration. Training could not and did not turn on a dime, but reliable and valid changes to improve training fidelity, efficiency, and effectiveness were put into the pipeline expeditiously. And not only were HTS trainees the beneficiaries, so too were unit leaders by HTS’s efforts to improve their knowledge and management of HTS assets.

Beyond the multiple internal assessments, HTS welcomed and provided access to external evaluators. In addition to being of interest to the popular press and the subject of academic theses, HTS was formally evaluated by faculty members from the US Military Academy (USMA) at West Point, by two Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs)—the Center for Naval Analysis (CNA) and the Institutes for Defense Analyses (IDA)—and most recently by the National Defense University (NDU). While these external assessments paled in comparison to the depth and detail provided by internal assessments documented in HTS Yearly Reports, the outside perspectives are important nonetheless.

At the behest of TRADOC, West Point faculty members (who were Army officers themselves) were tasked to assess the value of the HTT construct for providing cultural information and analysis for the commander.³⁰Close In 2008, they visited HTS locations in Fort Leavenworth, KS and Oyster Point, VA as well as eight FOBs in Iraq. All in all, West Point conducted over 100 interviews with brigade commanders and staff, HTT members and HTS and TRADOC representatives. They noted the challenge of integration and differential placement within the brigade and the variation in operating environments. The bottom-line finding was that HTTs did add value. Despite unfamiliarity or initial misperceptions regarding HTTs, “[a]ll commanders stated that they highly valued the HTT’s work.”³¹Close It is also notable that these Army officers from West Point relied on, valued, and urged the Army to embrace process and not just outcomes. That is, HTTs contributed to the BCT’s understanding of and relationships with the local populations, for which quantitative metrics are deficient. They urged recruiting and training improvements and some future directions, including the continuation of HTS and extension to other command levels and to earlier phases of warfare.

Next the CNA evaluation was directed by Congress in 2010. This independent assessment focused on the organization, management, and human resource related aspects of HTS. As CNA was constrained by a ninety-day time period to conduct the assessment, they relied primarily on the review of existing records and interviews with HTS and TRADOC personnel in the US. A serendipitous, convenience sample of eighteen commanders in Afghanistan were interviewed by two CNA analysts who were supporting the Marine Corps but agreed to lend a hand for this requirement.

Following a cogent description of HTS, CNA independently documented the criticisms and problems that HTS faced. Their biggest concern was the friction between TRADOC and HTS and the concomitant human resource repercussions. Recommendations included proper resourcing of HTS, putting HTS in control of recruiting, and continuation of training improvements. In contrast to the West Point assessment, CNA lamented the lack of independent outcomes measures to document the success of the program in meeting objectives. The report captured the quandary regarding the appropriateness of quantitative metrics, such as the number of products produced, the number of meetings with local people, or the frequency of off-FOB excursions for such a subjective mission. There is an adage in organizational behavior that what gets measured gets done. The reification of “counts” can misrepresent effectiveness and inadvertently lead to rewarding a “check the box” mentality, even for tasks like drinking tea with villagers or attending shuras. Despite the deficient personnel, equipment, and training metrics, military readiness remains an elusive and subjective construct.³²Close Regardless of the obstacles and subjective nature of success, the CNA final report concluded that HTS was unique, dynamic, innovative and “in many ways, a success.”³³Close

Yet another observation of HTS was sponsored by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and conducted by IDA in 2012.³⁴Close The Joint Staff were looking at innovations developed during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that were worth sustaining. So the purpose of the IDA study was to distinguish effective from less effective HTTs. IDA identified pairs of former HTT members and the military commanders whom they served, and administered a structured interview to elicit effectiveness ratings on a scale of 0 (failure) to 3 (success) and relevant HTT/BCT/AOR factors. From among thirty-eight paired observations, teams were coded as effective if both the HTT member and supported commander indicated that the team was at least partially successful (score of 2 or 3). Less successful teams were so designated if the HTT member or the commander said that the HTT had no impact or was a complete failure (score of 0 or 1).

Among the factors that statistical analysis suggested detracted from HTT performance were poor integration/relationship with the supported unit; lack of frequent communication with the brigade; conflicts within the HTT; and limitations to getting access to the local population. HTT composition, in terms of size or academic discipline, was not a significant factor. Commanders reported that it was the non-military perspective—the on-site assessment of the current situation—that was important to team success. Although the point of the IDA report was not to determine the success rate of HTTs as a whole, outside reporting of their data shows that the overwhelming rating provided by commanders was a 3 (successful). Approximately 72 percent of commanders said that the BCT could not have been successful without the HTT. Another 25 percent indicated that the HTT was a partial success, that it did more good than harm. Only one reported that the HTT was not effective. None reported it as a failure.³⁵Close

The latest evaluation was conducted by NDU in 2011 and published in 2013. In addition to providing a critical review of the HTS program and previous assessments, NDU conducted approximately 100 interviews with prior HTT members and HTS staff. The evaluators also interviewed thirteen commanders and again found that most rated HTT contributions as effective. Only one commander provided a “not effective” rating.³⁶Close The NDU study noted commanders’ appreciation of HTS and recognized its importance as well as its challenges. This study, along with the others, also provides some useful recommendations regarding HTS organization and development. For example, housing HTS within the US Special Operations Command rather than TRADOC seems worthy of consideration. There is certainly no argument that program improvements should include human capital investments in recruiting, selection, training, and team development.

Overall, however, NDU’s conclusions sometimes seem contradictory, contra-indicated, internally inconsistent, and incompatible with the military’s evolving irregular warfare missions. Perhaps the most unsettling feature was the myopic focus on a model of cross-functional team performance as informed by academic literature on organizations. The NDU report faulted HTS because it “did not adopt a theory of small cross-functional group performance from management and organizational literature.”³⁷Close Certainly this literature is relevant to HTS, but it seemed as if the researchers had a pet theory in search of a problem; an answer in search of a question. The literature on teams is just now burgeoning, with valid studies pertinent to the complexities and in extremis situations found in the military still evolving.³⁸Close Much of the literature that shows promise for the military’s highly stressful and complex operations has been published only recently, that is within the last five years.³⁹Close The military could not push the pause button and wait for this nascent literature to advance its understanding of team competencies, team performance, team characteristics, team emergent states and team leadership.⁴⁰Close

Just as CNA had done, NDU criticized the lack of objective measures that the evaluators believed would explain the HTT performance variation. They highlighted measures such as the number of times a patrol was invited for tea, the number of conversations patrols initiated, and the like. As pointed out above, these measures are deficient and only give the illusion of actual accomplishment. The critical acknowledgment that one should not rely exclusively on quantitative measures was relegated to a footnote. The affinity for quantitative data is curious, given that NDU relied upon qualitative assessments primarily from HTT members whom they interviewed by telephone or by email. Furthermore, NDU was disappointed that HTTs were not evaluated based on their impact on local population attitudes, yet they hesitated to accept commanders’ attitudes regarding HTTs.

Related to this apparent discomfort with inductive methods, NDU found the lack of HTT standardization troubling. They denigrated HTS for its ambiguous mission and not having a “single, coherent, well-understood team purpose.” They frowned upon HTTs not having a standard, well-recognized staff role, and for brigade integration difficulties owing to commander unfamiliarity and/or skepticism. They claimed that HTTs should have been larger to cover the entire battlespace; they should have had longer deployments; they should have deployed as a whole team with considerable time overlap with the HTTs they replaced; they should have had more specific training and with the brigade to which they would be attached; they should have used soldiers as the primary ethnographers for collecting human terrain data in the field; and so on. Also, NDU seemed to be scapegoating HTS for failures in Afghanistan as they concluded: “Ultimately, the HTTs failed to ameliorate growing cross-cultural tensions between U.S. forces and Afghans and were unable to make a major contribution to the counter-insurgency effort.”⁴¹Close

All in all, NDU seemed to be saying that HTS should have existed before it existed and it should have been ideal—with no challenges or obstacles. It should have had more resources; it should have defined the mission clearly; and it should have been standardized across the board. However, counterinsurgency was the military’s mission and they were in charge; the situation varied by location and across time; socio-cultural understanding was lacking; civilian social scientists were hard to come by and unfamiliar with team research or the military; soldiers are not social scientists; nothing like this had been done before and learning how to do it took time, energy, and attention. Furthermore, HTS faced obstacles galore.

In many ways, the NDU report mirrored the same mechanistic, deductive, engineering perspective that commanders downrange were transcending with the help of social science. The overly negative tone and haphazard suggestions detract from the gold nuggets scattered in the wide but shallow pan of the evaluation. While calling attention to weaknesses can lead to corrective action, it must be balanced with appreciative inquiry and the perspectives of key stakeholders. If you only ask “what’s wrong” and only ask those who may not fully comprehend the irregular warfare mission, you may fail to maintain or strengthen what’s right.

Although US forces have withdrawn from Iraq and the footprint in Afghanistan is getting smaller, the demand for understanding the human terrain remains. With seemingly intractable conflict in the Middle East and potential and actual hot spots elsewhere around the globe, US participation in irregular warfare is likely to continue. Social science has operational relevance for military missions⁴²Close involving not only sustained combat (so-called phases 1 to 4), but especially for the purposes of conflict deterrence and stability operations (phase 0), or as the pre-conflict period has ethnocentrically⁴³Close been called, “left of boom.”⁴⁴Close

The capability should not be allowed to languish,⁴⁵Close but what concatenation of HTS should emerge for the future? Arguments for a wholly organic program devoid of civilian social scientists are shortsighted. Even relegating them to non-deployable training and education roles is troubling.⁴⁶Close Beefing up special operations, military intelligence, civil affairs as well as other support operations may be in order. And so too may be cultural training programs for the entire force. But consider the possibility that warfighters and social scientists may have orthogonal personality characteristics and dispositions. That is, if you select and train for perspective-taking and tolerance for ambiguity, you might select out or stifle engineering-like precision and the warrior ethos. Soldiers may not like doing social science and they may not be good at being social scientists. Those in military intelligence or civil affairs or even a new HTS occupational specialty may have more in common with academics, but they do not bring the unique non-military perspective that proved so valuable to commanders. It would be unwise to let the chasm grow between academic social scientists and the military. Civilian partners are in keeping with the Pentagon’s endorsement of developing a total defense workforce to include not just the Active and Reserve components but civilians as well.⁴⁷Close Such civilian partners will be needed if the deep cuts to the Army come to fruition. Even if “tooth and tail” are cut proportionately, it seems unlikely that the Army would compromise its lethal enterprise.

Inclusion of civilian social scientists does not preclude smoothing the uneasy relationship between academics and soldiers. The DOD should consider providing graduate education in military-relevant applied social science to military officers and civilians together. For example, the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS) might wish to expand and add another H to its acronym to become the Uniformed Services University of the Health and Human Sciences (USUHHS). USUHS already houses a Center for Deployment Psychology, a Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress, and a Center for Disaster and Humanitarian Assistance Medicine.⁴⁸Close Adding a program geared towards social science for military operations would help to build a further bridge across the academic/military divide. Civilians would come to understand military missions, military people, and might be required to serve as a condition of their graduate education. This would foster team development and effectiveness. Civilians would be better prepared for the pace, nature, and requirements for practical, operationally relevant research. The military would better understand social science offerings. Together this would work towards the synergy of a proactive team and an open-minded unit.

A new USUHHS or other such military–civilian educational entity should not preclude HTS preparation by means of other military education establishments. Nor should it preclude the entry of civilians from non-military related institutions. Multiple pathways would not only enhance recruiting but engender discourse about alternative approaches and from different disciplinary and theoretical vantage points. Of course, proper indoctrination and preparation of civilians for military missions is critical. And, on the military’s side, building awareness and appreciation of social science and cultural competence is invaluable as well.

HTS was ahead of its time, but it was assembled to meet an urgent timeline. Lest dire conditions strike again, now is the time to begin tackling the challenges and to build HTS better, stronger, but more slowly. Besides the HTS pipeline and academic preparation, there are additional issues surrounding HTS integration and organization. Where HTS should be housed is among the critical questions that still remain to be answered. Evaluators have noted its poor fit with TRADOC and suggested that an operational command such as Army Special Operations would be a good home. In addition to the inclusion of civilian academics, points about the military side of HTS should be raised as well. How should Reservists come to be part of HTS? Should active duty members be available for HTS assignment? And, beyond organization and resourcing matters, there are issues surrounding training, teams, and leadership to be discussed.

Discussion and debate are in order. It is time to bring HTS evaluators, originators, proponents, practitioners, and other forward thinkers and stakeholders to the HTS table. Military psychologists are one contingent that should participate in the dialogue. Representing several specialties and subfields but united by the military context, military psychologists have grappled with the exigencies of the military environment.⁴⁹Close They bring expertise in clinical practice, military training, in extremis leadership, and military team situations, to name a few. One relatively new sub-discipline, operational psychology, has even navigated complex and challenging ethical considerations in the course of their research and practice in support of national security.⁵⁰Close

Mission variation can be expected to continue or increase, and so flexibility and adaptability must be key considerations. The operational military is at center stage, so the ecological validity of recommendations for the military is crucial. There must be honest discussion that is centered on operational concerns and not on egos, fiefdoms, or turf wars. The HTS experiment in Iraq and Afghanistan has shown the value of bringing social science to war. Warfighters cannot afford a cold start or even a phoenix rising from the ashes. Let the next chapter of HTS or its successor begin.