Navigating the 'human terrain'
THE U.S. ARMED forces have a problem. They have the technical capability to hit any target on the planet. But which targets should they hit? Unfortunately, our enemies in the war on terrorism don't operate tanks or warships that we could blow up. They lurk in the shadows and emerge only briefly to set off bombs. Rooting them out requires getting inside their minds. But there's no machine that can pull off such a feat, at least not yet.
We need smart people, not smart bombs -- Americans who are familiar with foreign languages and cultures and proficient in such disciplines as intelligence collection and interrogation. Yet these are precisely the areas in which the U.S. government is the weakest.
The Iraq war has brutally exposed the cost of these shortcomings and led to a belated recognition by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that his "transformation" agenda needs to incorporate the skills needed for peacekeeping, nation building and related tasks -- what the Pentagon calls stability operations.
A directive issued last week by the Defense Department represents an important step forward by acknowledging that "stability operations are a core U.S. military mission" deserving of "priority comparable to combat missions." To meet this challenge, the directive calls for development of "stability operations skills, such as foreign language capabilities [and] regional area expertise."
But it's one thing to issue edicts from the top; implementing them is much harder, and many parts of the armed forces are sure to resist such a redefinition of their duties. To see how one service is trying to reorient itself for "culture-centric" warfare, I recently visited Quantico, Va., home to the Marine Corps' major training institutions for officers and noncommissioned officers. They are run by Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis, who as a combat commander in Iraq saw firsthand the need to enhance the cultural awareness of his own forces. Without waiting for a Pentagon directive, Mattis has already made this a priority since leaving Iraq last year.
He began by creating a Center for Advanced Operational Culture Learning. So new that it's located in a rickety trailer parked next to some railroad tracks, the center is responsible for briefing Marine units about Afghan or Iraqi culture before they deploy. It also works to integrate cultural learning throughout the educational curriculum.
