Cultural Terrain - Mapping Out the Future

摘要

As the Marine Corps increasingly finds itself conducting small wars in populated urban centers in support of US interests, it will more and more find itself engaged in a battle of ideas, with a neutral, foreign population being the prize required for victory. Consideration of any population as key terrain needs to be an additive planning measure to any concept of employing the future MAGTF. Through education, Marines will be able to employ cultural mapping and rapid ethnography to win the population as key terrain and achieve better understanding of the operating environment and the enemy in future MAGTF operations .