Marc | February 15, 2012
It is now no longer an open secret that some members of the Canadian Forces (CF) are considering adopting the Human Terrain System for the CF – the information has been released by COL Sharon Hamilton, HTS program manager (see here and here). But does the CF actually need something like the HTS?
Marc | April 16, 2010
On March 24-25, 2010, the Small Wars Foundation brought together a group of current and former military, academics, think tank members and policy people for a two-day focused workshop on what is being called the Tribal Engagement Strategy in Afghanistan. The workshop was co-sponsored by the U.S. Joint Forces Command Joint Irregular Warfare Center, the [...]
Marc | April 13, 2010
For several years, now, I have been complaining that there is very little publicly available on what and how the Human Terrain System (HTS) does while in the field. As a result of this lack, all of us who are following the system have had to deal with various and sundry news reports only. The [...]
Marc | February 15, 2010
John Stanton has posted a follow-up piece noting that the kidnapped social scientist, Issa Salomi, was living off base at the time of his abduction. According to John’s sources, this is not unique, and non-approved absences from base are, in some areas, “normal”. While John’s piece gives us more details, a much more damning piece [...]
Marc | February 7, 2010
John Stanton has just released a story at Cryptome that Issa T. Salome, a 60 year old HTT member, was kidnapped in Iraq by insurgents in January. John argues that this shows that the HTS is failing to find qualified candidates, train them properly and, then, guard them. Personally, I am not so sure about [...]
Marc | February 4, 2010
It’s been a busy, but stimulating, week so far. I just got back from a presentations on Canada’s Evolving Mission in Afghanistan, and I’m preparing to head down to Quantico on Sunday for an interesting workshop next week. This week and, to a lessor degree last week, have been quite synergistic in terms of my [...]
Marc | February 1, 2010
A week ago, I posted about the medium is the message vs. massage and used a couple of YouTube Videos from the Ottawa Back Choir as example. On Saturday, I was over for dinner at an old friend’s house and he showed me one of his favourite YouTube recording artists: Pamplamoose Music. As he showed [...]
Marc | January 28, 2010
In a recently released article in prospect magazine, Edward Luttwak argues that the US should adopt a “Byzantine” strategy in dealing with the Taliban. His suggestion is simple With Afghanistan, the west faces a simple strategic calculus: too costly to stay in, too risky to leave. A Byzantine response would be, first to withdraw the [...]
Marc | January 25, 2010
My friend and fellow SWC denizen Mark Safranski (aka Zenpundit) has an excellent post today entitled The post-COIN Era is Here. It is, IMHO, an excellent post on the (supposed) “COINdinista vs. Big War” debate; a “debate” that exists more in the minds of the policy crowd that the actual debaters. Mark makes some really [...]
Marc | January 24, 2010
A new briefing on how the Human Terrain System has surfaced in a story by John Stanton over at Cryptome (thanks for sending me the note, John!). As any of my students know, I dislike large powerpoint presentations and can spend hours talking about a single slide. This presentation, at 133 slides, is, IMO, somewhat [...]
Marc on A Human Terrain System for Canada?
Pascale Siegel on A Human Terrain System for Canada?
JWC on Tribal Engagement Workshop: the Time dimension
Daniel Gallant on Some thoughts on games
MM on An important letter on the state of science