I'd say the HTS concept isn't
too far off the mark. It's the execution that fails miserably. And that
organization is emphatically not going to improve, because it is in a quality
death spiral: the best people leave, the worst people stay -- and the worst people
are mostly recruited at the top, with no promotion chances for those at the
bottom because of a nod-to-my-retiree-friends requirement that Team Leaders be
of a certain retired rank (I've never met a battle-space owner who cared about
the Team Leader's former rank except in a negative way, because so many are
arrogant/defensive about it). So, once again, forget about HTS. Others and I
believed we could change the organization from the inside. It won't happen. Nor
will a decent alternative spring up anytime soon (unless you're willing to
throw your hat in with civilian intelligence agencies -- not a bad job choice
at all, if they ever do decide to move away from drone strikes and more towards
people skills again).
In terms of better use of social scientists, then, I'd say stick with
academia, but focus your research away from the esoteric and more towards the
relevant. There are a lot of little "human terrain" organizations out
there now, staffed by contractors, usually overpaid and under qualified. I
can't think of a single useful article I've read on Afghanistan written by
these people. What I do see endlessly cited are books and articles by serious
academics and analysts such as Afghan Analysts Network. These independent guys
have a far, far deeper and useful understanding of Afghanistan, and their
products are far more useful to commanders (kind of ironic, right?).
I should also add that a lot of the need for "understanding
cultures" in the military is actually based on the inability to understand
people, period, or rather our (the military's) unwillingness to obey the Golden
Rule. So much of what we do in Afghanistan to anger the local population would
just as much anger any American, European or Japanese person. Yet, because we
don't want to change our behavior too much, we look for social scientists to
validate what we do by finding justifications/"loopholes" in the
local culture that somehow allow us to continue raiding houses at night without
pissing people off. So, do keep that in mind if you truly want to influence
what the military does.
If you're looking to become a Subject Matter Expert on the conflict
zones of tomorrow, good luck. Pick one country or region, but remember that
there's a roll of the dice involved -- on September 10, 2001, we didn't know
we'd be invading Afghanistan. Also remember that a lot of the countries at the
top of our list, e.g. Yemen, are now practically inaccessible to academics. And
without years of on-the-ground experience, you'll be a hollow
"expert". That's why I'd recommend some of the smaller West African
countries and other places that are more permissible, but still are at risk of
instability without attracting too much scholarship from lots of academics.
But, to be frank, do you really want to study a country just in case you can
get rich and famous off of it going to hell?
Social scientists (people with MAs and PhDs) are largely second tier in
terms of quality. They've gotten better - there are far fewer crazy social
scientists - but that's somehow also meant fewer and fewer people with relevant
backgrounds. You get a bunch of young thrusters who are trying to make a
career, but these often don't know what they're doing in terms of Afghanistan.
Some adapt, despite HTS. But I've never heard of anyone getting into a decently-ranked
PhD program afterwards. Then the social scientist cohort seems to jump 20-30
years to people close to retirement, who really don't know what they're doing
either, and often bring with them physical frailty and an arrogance that comes
from age rather than experience. It's highly demoralizing, and you can't expect
much of positive mentoring relationship.
But your biggest problem will be the Team Leaders. It's extraordinary
how few have relevant experience, how many are low quality, and how little is
done about the many bad apples. They are required to be military, but very few
have served in the past ten years. Those that have usually did so in an
unrelated role, with limited contact with the Afghan/Iraqi population. Most are
there for one reason: they couldn't get promoted in the military and now want
to cash in on the war before the money goes away. The amount of ego at that
level is skull crushing, and these guys are the primary reason why teams often
(usually?) fail to offer anything useful, and why so many people leave. Have a
look at published articles by HTS people. Most of them are about HTS itself,
not Afghans. That's a reflection of the sad thing about HTS - the internal
workings of the organization ultimately overshadow and outmuscle any attempts
to do serious scholarship focused on target populations. Try to find HTS
articles that are about Afghans.
If you want to have some patriotic adventures before your PhD, I
suggest you consider any of the civil affairs fields of each military branch.
The Army has the largest Civil Affairs contingent, and the opportunities to do
cool stuff all over the world in the reserves are very, very abundant. Many
assignments across all civil affairs are very unusual and not what you'd expect
from uniformed service. You could do that and still either do a
research-intensive day job and/or start on your PhD. Plus, you'd get leadership
opportunities that you'd never get in HTS. Civil Affairs is a very human
-centric, empathy-heavy career field, and I think it would be very rewarding to
almost any burgeoning psychologist. And it would look great on your resume.
John Stanton is a Virginia based
writer specializing in national security matters. Reach him at
Email address removed
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