Military Intelligence and the Human Terrain System
The latest issue of the Army’s Military Intelligence Professional Bulletin is devoted to the Human Terrain System (HTS), which is a U.S. Army program to conduct social and cultural studies in support of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Bulletin provides theoretical and practical accounts from HTS personnel in the field.
Thus, HTS analyst John Thorne writes that U.S. counterinsurgency operations can themselves generate a violent reaction “by causing shifts in perceptions of relative power or well-being, or through perceived threats to identity.”
The Army released the latest Bulletin in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.
The Human Terrain System program has been controversial among some social scientists who believe it wrongly subordinates scientific research to U.S. military imperatives.
Congress must enact a Digital Public Infrastructure Act, a recognition that the government’s most fundamental responsibility in the digital era is to provide a solid, trustworthy foundation upon which people, businesses, and communities can build.
To increase the real and perceived benefit of research funding, funding agencies should develop challenge goals for their extramural research programs focused on the impact portion of their mission.
Without trusted mechanisms to ensure privacy while enabling secure data access, essential R&D stalls, educational innovation stalls, and U.S. global competitiveness suffers.
Satellite imagery has long served as a tool for observing on-the-ground activity worldwide, and offers especially valuable insights into the operation, development, and physical features related to nuclear technology.