cioran123 – at – yahoo.com

If we want to cut to the point, here it is: “Need to Map the Human Terrain across the kill chain” said James Wilcox in a PPT briefing. He also said that “Target detection may be difficult and require non-traditional means.” NTM is HTS. Yippeee! Remove the gloss on HTS and its ignore its personalities and you’ve got another intel program that makes use of academia for kill/dominate chain purposes. I have no problem with that, just don’t argue that HTS is some dramatic new idea. And if you are an academic, understand what you’re getting into.

Now, as for Petraeus, he is a politican in uniform, a PG. Sort of the Colin Powell mode. He really thinks he is Casear. Here inside the DC Beltway, seat of government of the marvelous, benevolent empire, Petraeus and his seconds leak away information–like everyone else does here–to get his/their own way. That happened recently over Obama’s 16 month draw-down from Iraq. Ye olde Petraeus worked some information wizardry to make it seem that 23 months was what Obama wanted. A fine case of MILDEC!

It was a brilliant decision by Petraeus to bribe, I mean pay the Sunni’s in Iraq for not killing US troops. And as for the Surge, it was a small part of a very complicated set of events that has, thus far, produced a reduction in violence. I’m betting Al Haig at 85 could take out Petraeus with one punch.

In the end, it’s all going to be about littoral/urban warfare as the world’s populations continue to move to the city-scapes near big water.. That means the USN and USMC will be really busy as their scope/mission/capabilities are better suited for primary activity. The USAF and US Army will end up supporting them. Perhaps, Petraeus knows this and is trying to find a role for the Army in the future besides cleaning up, performing community policing after the USN-USMC have done the dirty work.

Yep, there it is. The members of the “we just haven’t killed them enough” mafia, who have persistently, and rather underhandedly set up a myriad of roadblocks to HTS and its implementation (assisted, of course, with the difficulty of actually fielding a prototype in time of war) get the Leonard Wood award for throwing wrenches in the gears and “getting” Petraeus/Nagl.

An unlikely cabal of conventional warriors, who helped screw up the initial Iraqi invasion and the “we’re too special to let anyone else play” Forces mafia, whose main problem with Petraeus and Nagl is that they aren’t members of their precious little “club,” has, consistently and persistently drug their feet on items as small as approving the hiring of a new IT guy to manage the website and IT systems, to holding up the applications of HTS employees since last September due to various “contracting approval issues”.

To be sure, the system grew too quickly for orderly development, without serious problems, As usual, John Stanton chooses to assume the worst and ascribes evil intent on the parts of the program leaders. A serious journalist shouldn’t do that, but that is John’s style, and you can make your own decisions on his “journalism”.

So, regardless of problems, the SF Nazis get to keep their death grip on this aspect of COIN, academics will get to continue demonizing the miliitary, and BCT commanders can continue kicking in doors and killing people, which is what everyone wants, right?

God forbid we try to challenge status quo thinking and try something new.

Those supposed experienced warriors who know BS when they see it ARE the problem, if you ask me. But at least they get patted on top of their collective heads for protecting their own precious rice bowl, by sycophants like John Stanton.

Thanks for the heads up, I appreciate it. Yes, I’ve seen the piece (sigh). Scary…

Here is the latest on HTS.. http://www.theseoultimes.com/ST/index.html

All 14 of ‘em are at cryptome.org and throughout pravda,ru.

By now you’ve probably seen the Loyd piece in the Washington Post. I thought I was reading a People Magazine (Time Warner) piece.

I suspect you are right about the groupthink phenomenon. They have certainly isolated the FAOs, and those on advising duty were also under a career track shadow as well. As Max noted, we have something similar – the situational awareness team, and I can see something like that operating in, maybe 10-15 years in the US Army (Max’s post on it is at http://openanthropology.wordpress.com/2008/11/24/canadas-own-human-terrain-system-white-situational-awareness-team-in-afghanistan/).

As to who would be best at it, personally, I think it would be a combination of “greybeards” and kids using some form of matrix organization, at least inside for a team dynamic. Ideally, they should also have a really good reachback system, something that doesn’t seem to exist yet.

Maybe not independent of the pay rate, but who will do the job for less than HTS was originally paying.

The idea of the Army having an “HTS” MOS, kind of scares me. I doubt this will be all that effective, mostly having to do with Army groupthink that pervades the organization.

“So what do you think: was this really meant to be an announcement of the termination of HTS?”

I suspect, given the timing, that it has more to do with a budgetary “restraint” move given the new administration. I had heard of some signals that, in retrospect, seem to indicate that this was being thought of as early as last October. I doubt it will be a program killer, though.

“Also: do you think they are emulating Canada here, which has its own kind of HTS (white situational awareness team), all government and military staffed?”

Well, if they are going to have such a program, then that is probably a better model than the outsourcing one. Then again, they have their own models to draw on – the Foreign Area Officer (FAO) program is one.

“And finally, if the program was so expensive, and it is cheaper as a government-run program, then why was it contracted out to a private firm to begin with?”

My gut guess has to do with bureaucratic inertia and organizational lag time. A similar rationale appears to have been at work with DoS hiring Blackwater mercenaries rather than training their own security people.

Otherwise, even with the pay cuts, and the changed job label, given the economic crisis and the already limited opportunities for social scientists (especially anthropologists) one would think that there should still be some potential recruits. HTS might have to formally give up on seeking people with a PhD, but even then I am not sure.

So what do you think: was this really meant to be an announcement of the termination of HTS?

Also: do you think they are emulating Canada here, which has its own kind of HTS (white situational awareness team), all government and military staffed?

And finally, if the program was so expensive, and it is cheaper as a government-run program, then why was it contracted out to a private firm to begin with?

P.S. I follow TRADOC in Twitter and apparently they do not deem this news to be worthy enough to broadcast.