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 archaeology, anthropology, sociology, political science, historians, 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 were deployed. The concept of HTS was first developed in a paper by Montgomery McFate and Andrea Jackson in 2005, which proposed a pilot version of the project as a response to "identified gaps in [US military] commanders' and staffs' understanding of the local population and culture", such as became particularly visible during the US invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. HTS was subsequently launched as a proof-of-concept program, run by the United States Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), in February 2007, with five HTS teams deployed between Iraq and Afghanistan. Since 2007, HTS has grown from a program with five deployed teams and a $20 million two-year budget to one with 31 deployed teams and a $150 million annual budget. HTS became a permanent US Army program in 2010. Ever since its launch, HTS has been surrounded by controversy. While the program initially received positive coverage in the US media, it quickly became the subject of heavy criticism – particularly from anthropologists, but also from journalists, military officials and HTS personnel and former personnel. Most notably, on 31 October 2007, the executive board of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) published a statement opposing HTS as an "unacceptable application of anthropological expertise" that conflicted with the AAA's Code of Ethics. Following the publication of a report on HTS by the Commission on Engagement of Anthropology with the US Security and Intelligence Services (CEAUSSIC) in 2009, the AAA released a further statement of disapproval, which they re-iterated in 2012 after rumours that the controversy had died down. The program evolved into a mechanism for supporting security force assistance. The program ended operations on 30 September 2014.
Background In the most immediate sense, HTS was developed as a response to concerns about mismanagement of US military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and, in particular, to the negative effects of recognized "deficiencies" in US military "cultural understanding" of these countries. In 2006 the Human Terrain System was launched by the Pentagon, the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense. However, military analysts and academics have also suggested earlier historical contexts for the program's development.
CORDS: a US military precedent A number of military officials have invoked Civil Operations and Rural Development Support (CORDS) – a counterinsurgency program developed by the US military during the Vietnam War – as a precedent for HTS. In a foundational article on HTS, a group of military analysts, Kipp et al, described the program as "a CORDS for the 21st Century". Their article appraised CORDS as a successful and effective program that was "premised on a belief that the war would ultimately be won or lost not on the battlefield, but in the struggle for the loyalty of the people". Kipp et al contended that the only major problems with the CORDS program were that it lacked adequate reachback facilities and that it "was started too late and ended too soon". As such, they argued that it provided "many important lessons" to "guide" the development of HTS as an "effective cultural intelligence program" that could "support tactical and operational-level commanders today". By contrast, critics of HTS have drawn attention to the fact that, in Vietnam, CORDS was run in conjunction with the Phoenix Program, which used information gathered through CORDS in its effort to "neutralize" (by means of assassination, infiltration and capture) supporters of the Viet Cong.
History of the concept of "human terrain" The concept of "human terrain" has been defined in military documents pertaining to HTS as "the human population in the operational environment ... as defined and characterized by sociocultural, anthropologic and ethnographic data and other non-geographical information". According to Roberto J. Gonzalez (Associate Professor of Anthropology at San Jose State University, and one of the most vocal critics of HTS), this concept can be traced back to a 1968 report by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) about "the perceived threat of the Black Panthers and other militant groups". He argues that the concept gradually gained in popularity and usage, in the military and elsewhere, through the writing of military officials, such as Ralph Peters, and pundits, such as Max Boot.
History of anthropological engagement with the military Commentators on HTS have also drawn attention to the long history of anthropological involvement in military operations in the US and Europe, though for different reasons. In a 2005 article, Montgomery McFate (HTS's Senior Social Scientist from 2007 to 2010, and an anthropologist by training) argued that anthropology was born as a "warfighting discipline", having served in its early history as "the handmaiden of colonialism". She suggested that anthropology had retreated "into the Ivory Tower" following the Vietnam War, and contended that anthropologists should become involved in developing "military applications of cultural knowledge". Neil L. Whitehead (Professor of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison) likewise argued that the "collaboration" between anthropological theory and colonial practice was "nothing new", but went on to suggest that this history – and particularly recent developments such as HTS and the Minerva Initiative – should prompt a critical re-assessment and transformation of anthropological methodology.
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