General Petraeus’ Favorite Mushroom: The US Army’s Human Terrain System

By John Stanton

“The HTS program is a ridiculous waste of tax payer money, and in the midst of a recession. Millions have been wasted. And the moronic management of the HTS program seems to have absolutely no problem placing poorly trained individuals in harm’s way, going so far as to falsifying training documents.”

“The amount of cash flying around the HTS program with very little oversight or accountability is disgusting. I continue to work for the HTS program out of obligation because I finish what I start, but trust me, I am counting down the days .”

“I feel for the people whose careers are being ground up in this HTS program mess.”

“ It never ceases to amaze me how many egotistical individuals are involved with this HTS program.”

Thus far there are 24 sources (four quoted above) for this series on the US Army’s Human Terrain System (HTS). Of those 24, only a few have been adversarial in their correspondences. Adversarial though some were, they provided information that was useful for vetting and cross-checking. The number of sources behind this effort is significant because it puts paid the notion that the articles are based on the rumblings of just a few individuals. Sources are located in the USA, Iraq and Afghanistan. All are intimately familiar with the HTS program which is, in the Pentagon’s world—a comparatively miniscule project.

There are severe structural problems with the US Army’s HTS program that appear to be beyond repair. Since most of the planet is familiar with Wall Street’s troubles these days, an appropriate analogy is that the US Army’s HTS program is bankrupt and it either needs to fail or be drastically reorganized. Some feel, including many of the sources, that the HTS program is worth salvaging and that the concept underscoring it is sound.

Others side with this view: “I am really distressed to hear about all these problems. I am sure that HTS started out with somebody's good intentions, but it was never properly thought through. One thing I learned about 25 years ago when working on an intelligence problem surrounding a presidential assassination attempt is that human psychology is the same for all peoples, everywhere. And, you can pick up a lot of it by studying history and military tactics.

It isn't really necessary to bring in academics to try to understand psychology, except perhaps for rare pathologies that are not likely to be encountered in everyday life [evolutionary psychology can speak to that]. Where HTS could have helped a lot is in understanding cultural norms and they did try to do that. But it seems to me that HTS over-promised when they claimed that they could help front-line tactical troops with specific situational awareness problems. The key thing to remember is that the differences between any two humans' behaviors will be greater than the differences in behaviors between cultures.”

US Law Enforcement Community/Intelligence Policing & Where’s State Department

There is another approach that the military could arguably have adopted to explore the human terrain and it has been tested and used in every major city in the USA. Community Policing and, post-911, Homeland Intelligence Policing practices have been successful in helping US law enforcement adapt to changing economic and cultural dynamics (for example working in dual language communities with Muslim, Albanian, Russian, Latino sectors) and combat gang warfare, drug trade, white collar crime, and theft. US law enforcement’s procedures, lessons-learned, information collection techniques, cultural awareness practices, and standardized interaction methodologies for diverse urban populations are far more nuanced and robust than anything that anything that HTS program entrepreneurs—and one has to assume CENTCOM CG General David Petraeus and SECDEF Robert Gates-- could hope to design.

Up north in Canada, for example, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) authored a nice briefing titled National Security Community Outreach Program. The Canadians have been years ahead of the USA in formalizing diversity/cultural practices into their national security practices. The Outreach Program brief is chock full of statistics showing everything from national immigrant trends in large cities to a discussion of sources and the need for enhanced Cultural Awareness Training. Down south, the New Jersey State Police have an exceptionally detailed manual on Intelligence-Led Policing that includes a description of a database not unlike the one envisioned by HTS program management (MAPHT). Even the US National Crime Prevention Council promotes the need for law enforcement to gain the trust of local leaders, groups/individuals to minimize violence (these documents are available via any Net search engine). In short, the formula for success, maybe, was not to be found in the recycled hearts & minds literature of the 1960’s produced by the HTS program’s founders, but was right here in the USA in the form of Community/Intelligence Policing as developed and practiced by US law enforcement.