Petraeus Quietly Disses 'Human Terrain'

Did Gen. David Petraeus just call the Human Terrain System worthless? With a few choice sentences to the Wall Street Journal, the top commander in Afghanistan highlighted the disconnect between what the Army's social science program is supposed to be doing -- and what's actually happening in the field.

"We have never had the granular understanding of local circumstances in Afghanistan that we achieved over time in Iraq," Petraeus told the Journal. "One of the key elements in our ability to be agile in our activities in Iraq during the surge was a pretty good understanding who the power brokers were in local areas, how the systems were supposed to work, how they really worked."

Under Gen. Petraeus' predecessor, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization tried to overhaul its intelligence collection, to focus more on learning about individual tribes and local Afghan leaders. Gen. Petraeus said only now the military was getting an "understanding of local circumstances, customs and tribal relationships."

Well, it’s a good thing there isn’t a four-year old program that is supposed to do exactly that. Indeed, while I’ve bitched about how ineffective the Human Terrain Teams really are, some of them do good work. Danger Room last year highlighted a hard-hitting Human Terrain System report discussing the dangers of going into an area without understanding it. The report said, in part:

‘Tribes’ in Afghanistan do not act as unified groups, as they have recently in Iraq. For the most part they are not hierarchical, meaning there is no “chief” with whom to negotiate (and from whom to expect results). They are notorious for changing the form of their social organization when they are pressured by internal dissension or external forces. Whereas in some other countries tribes are structured like trees, ‘tribes’ in Afghanistan are like jellyfish.

The problem is, no one knows about this kind of thing. Petraeus’ word choice—power broker, local systems, and so on—indicates that he has been affected by the efforts of the Human Terrain System to change, fundamentally, how we discuss local social organization in Afghanistan. But the fact that his commanders don’t feel like they’ve gotten this sort of insight from HTS indicates the program is still failing at its most fundamental task.

I’d suggest he have his aides dig through his Brigades’ SIPR portals and see what their HTTs have been cataloging the last three years or so. In a few areas, those HTTs have been identifying, interacting with, and developing relationships with local power brokers, exactly in the way Petraeus wants to be able to do. Or at least, they’ve been trying, in fits and starts, when their units would bother to let them leave the base to do their jobs and their leadership wasn’t hired for being friends with HTS’ disgraced former leaders.

But a lot of them aren’t. For one reason or another, they are not connecting with their units’ leadership, or they cannot find people within the chain of command to read their reports, or they are just plain old unable to get out and do their research. Or, in some cases, they do really poor research. The important part here is, whatever the reason, the Human Terrain System is failing to do its job, which is to support and advise the U.S. military on the social organization and environment of Afghan communities.

Petraeus already has assets in-country that are assigned the task of identifying who to talk to, and of developing the means to talk to them. But they’re un-used, misused, ignored, crushed by their own chain of command, or staffed with morons who can’t do their job. No wonder he's having trouble getting a feel for the local culture.

*The ‘Security Crank’ is a former employee of the Army’s Human Terrain System, now working in the bowels of the national security establishment. *

Photo: ISAF

See Also:

• 'Human Terrain' Chief Ousted
• Human Terrain Teams MIA in Afghanistan?
• Army Researchers: Why the Kandahar Offensive Could Backfire ...
• 'Human Terrain' Probes Iran's Influence in Afghanistan
• Army Researchers Warn Against Tribal War in Afghanistan
• Petraeus' First Big Afghanistan Gamble: Militias