The Humanity of Warfare: Social Science Capabilities and the Evolution of Armed Conflict

By SJ Striker

ABSTRACT
The Humanity of Warfare: Social Science Capabilities and the Evolution of Warfare addressees the changing nature of conflict and the new focus represented in the Counter-insurgency (COIN) doctrine. Now that the population’s welfare is placed at the center, understanding the populations and social dynamics becomes critical. Military commanders and the population’s welfare are inextricably intertwined and victory now depends upon the success of this paradigm-shifting doctrine.
This book takes a penetrating look at the socio-cultural enablers, subject matter experts and social scientists who assist the military in understanding the indigenous culture and populations they hope to serve and protect. Throughout the course of the book the reader gains an understanding of how the Social Scientist can help the military understand the key socio-cultural issues, dynamics, and leaders necessary to achieve success.
Chapter two demonstrates specific examples of relevant socio-cultural products that have greatly enhanced the military’s ability to interact successfully with the population of Afghanistan. Chapter three informs the respective commanders on how to best enable their socio-cultural team with specific needs and requirements. Chapter four demonstrates the critical skills, education, and abilities socio-cultural team members must have to be successful in a conflict environment. Chapter five reveals peacetime socio-cultural capabilities designed to inform and prepare military commands by bringing the unique perspectives, analysis, and socio-cultural expertise into their processes to create the most culturally prepared deploying unit as humanly possible before deployment. In short, to fully exploit the socio-cultural capability with the goal to protect lives within vulnerable populations and the occupying soldiers, and achieve objectives.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Dec 21, 2015
• ISBN: 9781682228074

Book preview

©2015 SJ Striker, Ph.D., Hollin-Phoenix Consulting, LLC. All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

ISBN: 978-1-68222-806-7 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-68222-807-4 (eBook)

ABSTRACT

The Humanity of Warfare: Social Science Capabilities and the Evolution of Warfare addresses the changing nature of conflict and the new focus represented in the Counter-insurgency (COIN) doctrine. Now that the population’s welfare is placed at the center, understanding culture and social dynamics becomes critical. Military commanders and the population’s welfare are inextricably intertwined and victory now depends upon the success of this paradigm-shifting doctrine.

This book takes a penetrating look at the socio-cultural enablers, subject matter experts and social scientists who assist the military in understanding the indigenous culture and populations they hope to serve and protect. Throughout the course of the book, the reader gains an understanding of how the Social Scientist can help the military understand the key socio-cultural issues, dynamics, and leaders necessary to achieve success.

Chapter two demonstrates specific examples of relevant socio-cultural products that have greatly enhanced the military’s ability to interact successfully with the population of Afghanistan. Chapter three informs the respective commanders on how to best enable their socio-cultural team with specific needs and requirements. Chapter four demonstrates the critical skills, education, and abilities socio-cultural team members must have to be successful in a conflict environment. Chapter five reveals peacetime socio-cultural capabilities designed to inform and prepare military commands by bringing the unique perspectives, analysis, and socio-cultural expertise into their processes to create the most culturally prepared deploying unit as humanly possible before deployment. In short, to fully exploit the socio-cultural capability with the goal to protect lives within vulnerable populations and the occupying soldiers, and achieve objectives.

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to

Z- A True Son of Afghanistan

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

To My Team Leaders who exemplify the paragon virtues of leadership, mission, and friendship:

Kenneth Soto, Colonel, U.S. Army

Donald Amburn, Colonel, U.S. Army (ret.)

Frederick Saunders, Major, U.S. Air Force (ret.)

A special thanks to:

Anton Badri

&

Catie Dreher

For their invaluable expertise

BLOOD CANNOT BE WASHED OUT WITH BLOOD

– Afghan Proverb

TESTIMONIALS

Dr. Striker provided actionable intelligence for the most difficult domain, the human domain in Kunar, Nuristan, and Nangarhar. Tribes, insurgency, corruption. Social Scientist in the right spot at the right time. Dr. Striker and the [SC] team provided the critical link between the Afghan population and the US Army, prevented conflict, cleared up cultural misunderstandings, and created bonds that will last a lifetime.

– Frederick Saunders, President, SocialScience1.com

I had the privilege of working with Dr. Striker on his second deployment to Afghanistan, so I was able to see his tremendous ability to research the local population and interpret perceptions and translate them to valuable bits of information to make operational decisions. I’m convinced that human terrain or understanding the cultural nuances of the indigenous population is a key ingredient to winning a counterinsurgency. I can unequivocally say that in my 32 years of military experience, I have not come across anyone who is more dedicated to his mission than Dr. Striker.

– Colonel Kenneth Soto, U.S. Army.

Dr. Striker contributed greatly to the mission of the ISAF Joint Command, Security Partnering through his expertise and diligence…exhibited tenacity, motivation, excellent work ethic, and mission focus by working closely with the Afghan national Army soldiers by bringing us their unique perspectives and solutions. He is a valuable asset with a unique and varied skill set. His contribution was exemplified in his winning Best Product Award with his study on the root causes of ANA Attrition.

– Brigadier General William O’Neill, U.S. Army

In military operations, understanding the local situation is vital. Without understanding local grievances, leadership, tribal dynamics, economic activity, and the needs and desires of the local people, military commanders are severely handicapped when choosing the best course of action. Social science can make all the difference because field research provides the answers that commanders need to make the right decisions. Sam Striker is an accomplished master practitioner in the field and presents a lively and authoritative guide in this work that is required reading for anyone interested in US overseas operations.

– Douglas Grindle, field researcher, reporter and program

manager in Afghanistan for the US Army, USAID,

and multiple media outlets.

War has changed. The way we wage it should have changed as well. Very often that is not the case. In a world where you only win a war if CNN says you did and where, in the words of Dr. Striker, ‘the population has been placed as the absolute center of all significant conflicts’, the need to truly know thy enemy and, even more importantly, know thy friend are the most important resources available to military commanders and their civilian leadership. In this very compelling book Dr. Striker describes the discipline of social science applied to war. Sam Striker is both a great narrator and a very knowledgeable social scientist - a powerful combination when authoring a book about conflict management.

– Gennaro Buonocore, public affairs officer and historian for U.S. Naval Special Warfare and author of The Afghan Paradox and Failure of the European Multiculturalism - The Islamist Crusade

What crystallized out of the various multi-disciplinary viewpoints Social Science brought to the table, was that our goal was to find out the ‘why’ rather than ‘how’ or the more obvious ‘what’. Once we knew why the insurgency existed (whether for economic, political, religious, historic, etc. reasons), we could cure the disease rather than continuously battling the symptoms. I think what the U.S. Government tried to do was to bring highly educated and intelligent people to their areas of interest and asked them to uncover the social and human currents the insurgency already knew about and utilized thus knowledge to their advantage. Using Social Science, we were able to uncover the population-centric mechanisms the opposition used and disrupt them.

– Anton Badri, former research manager and author

Successful stabilization operations begin with a good cultural understanding of the environment

– Tony Cruz, Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army and

former Human Terrain Team Leader

In today’s brave new world of ‘deviant globalization’ and ‘hybrid warfare’, military commanders have never had a greater need for socio-cultural information about the rapidly changing area of operations. Social scientists can help provide a deeper understanding of how to keep civilian populations safe in conflict zones, while minimizing the risk to our troops.

– Dr. Michele Devlin, Professor of Global Health, University of

Northern Iowa and former social scientist in Afghanistan.

FORWARD

There has been much written about the successes and failures of the US Army’s Human Terrain System over the last five years. Some have taken a negatively biased approach by focusing on obvious miscues and mismanagement dealing primarily from 2008-2010 in Afghanistan. Others within the U.S. Army’s Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) have struggled to justify how/where a Human Terrain Team (HTT) should be employed and financed. The Army, while acknowledging the value of what the successful HTTs can accomplish in theatre, seems to be likewise confused as to not only how to employ the teams but also whether to keep them aligned with TRADOC. The questions are even more fundamental. Those who have been members of the HTS have varying opinions based on their own personal team experiences. These experiences have varied depending on the cycle, the composition of the teams and the timing of their deployment with the NATO unit they supported. As a team leader of both conventional and non-conventional U.S. forces during my tour (2013/2014) I was exposed to both the internal dynamics within the teams and their relationships with theatre command as well as with TRADOC in the Continental United States (CONUS).

Problems readily apparent within the teams included: Social Scientist (SS) competency who were recruited by the program to include analysis and writing; unfamiliarity with the technical writing requirements needed within a military culture; and outright fear of operating in a combat zone. It was into this environment that Afghanistan team three (AF03) deployed to the eastern region of Afghanistan, and where both Dr. Striker and myself first worked together in support of a brigade from the 101st Airborne Air Assault (AASLT) Division. Dr. Striker’s past military experience in the US Air Force and in previous HTT and HTAT missions gave him an advantage as a Senior SS that others throughout the country did not have. His past deployments within HTS have ranged from the Brigade to the Theatre level. As a retired senior Army officer I was impressed with Dr. Striker’s approach to the team’s studies which were designed and implemented based upon the needs of the supported U.S. Army Brigade commander to which we were assigned.

My limited experience during the train-up prior to deploying to Afghanistan and in talking to other teams in-theatre had taught me that the Social Scientists were successful only if they learned from