Measuring the Role of Cultural Awareness in Tracing the Human Terrain

摘要

In recent years both military theorists and practitioners have been urging that U.S. military forces develop and make use of more cultural awareness, said to be needed everywhere from the streets of Fallujah to the halls of the War Colleges. Historically, however, military involvement with anthropologists, the social scientists most focused on developing profound insights into foreign cultures, has ended in recriminations, especially after the war in Vietnam. The Department of Defense has launched a new attempt to harness the perspectives and analytical tools of anthropology (and other social sciences) by fielding Human Terrain System teams in Iraq and Afghanistan, but some anthropologists are strongly opposed to any collaboration. Even if the basic issues are resolved, military commanders may need to learn to see the world through the anthropological prism, and may need to modify missions or procedures in order to prevent a resounding clash of two distinctly different professional codes of conduct.