Imperial Anthropology? America in Afghanistan
Imperial Anthropology? America in Afghanistan Counter-insurgency, scholar-soldiers and the failure of the Human Terrain System (2005-2014) STONE AGE HERBALIST The kinetic phase of the war ended. Soldiers and Marines found themselves immersed in an alien culture unable to differentiate friend from foe. Today, the enemy's motives often remain a mystery, and the constant casualties due to the inability to understand the enemy and to predict his actions have been tragically too great… In the late 19th century, the British army developed a habit of sending bright young officers to different regions of the world to study the cultures and live with the local leaders and learn their habits. Names like China Gordon, T.E. Lawrence, I think all testified to the wisdom of that custom, a custom that the British Army continues today. Think about a culture-centric approach to future warfare that creates a cadre of what commonly now has been called global scouts, officers and non-commissioned of
