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April 06, 2010
UK MoD Defence Cultural Specialist Unit to deploy to Helmand
I was interested to see Wired reporting that
the DCSU deploys this month to southern Afghanistan, where it will serve as a dedicated cultural advisory team for Task Force Helmand. The news item says the unit is charged with “build[ing] a picture of Helmandi society for commanders in Task Force Helmand and battlegroups across the province to help them identify and understand issues relating to the local cultural, political, economic, social and historical environment to help commanders make better and more informed decisions.”It sounds a lot like the U.S. Army’s Human Terrain System, with a key distinction: Most of the team members are uniformed military. According to a February MOD news article, most of the advisors will be “senior military officers.” While uniformed military are members of U.S. Human Terrain Teams, the initial focus was on recruiting social scientists and anthropologists to embed with military brigades.
This does definitely read as another aspect of how the military (both US and UK) is taking social science seriously. The emphasis on the role of military officers is interesting, though: one wonders how this will affect the practice of the Unit in Helmand and, subsequently, how the officers' training will impact their future work.
Wider impacts in the MoD seem likely:
As well as deploying to Afghanistan, the units' personnel will also support cultural training in the wider military and other government departmentsAssistant Chief of the Defence Staff (Operations) Air Vice-Marshal Andy Pulford said that a focus on cultural issues is essential to success in Afghanistan. He said:
"Cultural awareness has been a weakness in the past. The unit is essential to equipping the military with a better understanding and appreciation of the region, its people and how to do business there."
There is clearly an emphasis on social sciences here: the MoD reports that
the cultural specialist level two course which is specialist training at a masters level, covering anthropology, psychology, sociology and influencing skills, lasting around ten weeks.Sharing his experience of Afghan culture with his British colleagues at this week's brigade headquarters course was Major Mohammed Safi from the Afghan National Army.
He explained why he thought the need for cultural understanding is so essential:
"The enemy and insurgents exploit the lack of cultural understanding to win over the local population and entire villages who feel they have been shamed or dishonoured by actions taken by foreign troops.
"The insurgents exploit grievances from villagers about issues such as searches, lack of respect, shaming of women, and use this as a major recruiting argument amongst people who, fundamentally, oppose them.
"This is really important for the soldiers. International forces have to know about the culture and understand which areas to respect; how to enter a house, how to search people.
"The soldiers who go to Afghanistan need to know what they can and can't do."
There are calls to embed social sciences much more widely, too:
Commander John Garratt RN, a team leader within the unit, explained how the MOD has long recognised the need for cultural training:"Every soldier, sailor and airman currently deploying to Afghanistan already undertakes a period of pre-deployment training [PDT] that includes some 'dos and don'ts' of cultural training.
"PDT helps us all to avoid doing things that are seen as 'negative' in the eyes of Afghans. There remains however a need for greater emphasis to influence the hearts and minds of everyone, from the youngest child, up to the most influential leader."
He went on to state that he sees a time in the near future when all soldiers, sailors and airmen will be given exposure to cultural training far earlier in their careers.
It will definitely be interesting to see how these uses of - and expansions of the role of - social science play out.
Posted by jon_mendel at April 6, 2010 07:11 PM
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