Expanding Human Terrain Systems

A Key Element In Obama's Smart Power Campaign

By JOHN STANTON
Weekend Edition
August 7 - 9, 2009
Courtesy Of CounterPunch

On 5 August 2009 the US Government’s General Services Administration and HQ Training & Doctrine Command (TRADOC) sponsored a Bidder’s Conference for defense contractors looking to work in the US Army and Marine Corps Irregular Warfare program. The subject of that conference was new opportunities for recruiting, training, and managing the US Army’s Human Terrain System (HTS). HTS is set to become a pivotal element, according to documentation, in other US combatant commands besides CENTCOM; namely, SOCOM, AFRICOM, STRATCOM, and PACOM. Can NORTHCOM and EUCOM be far behind? HTS is currently funded by US Army TRADOC’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence (G2) and CENTCOM. Long term requirements have been validated for funding in the Common Operating Picture funding line of the US Army budget in Presidential Review Briefing 11-15.

Citing specifications, the US Army Training & Doctrine Command (TRADOC) has broadened its efforts to include supporting the Army in combat operations with enhanced, up-to-date training oriented on a current assessment of enemy capabilities as well as predictions for enemy reactions to a dynamic battlefield. TRADOC responsibilities regarding combat and transformation have multiplied, expanded and increased in complexity. As a result, Deputy Chief of Staff, G-2 (Intelligence) has been assigned a wide range of missions and projects that require expert analysis, planning, assessments, and execution from an increasing array of capabilities offered by defense contractors through a flexible tool which brings these capabilities to bear on the challenges G-2 and TRADOC face today, and will face in an ever evolving and dynamic future.

Reach-back and HQ functions will be performed at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas and Hampton, Virginia. A Top Secret/SCI clearance is required for non-deploying HTS employees. HTT members require a Secret clearance. Incumbent contractors are DYNETICS and BAE Systems. On 30 August 2009 the current HTS contract expires. Bids are due on or about 21 August 2009.

The Green Layer is People!

According to the Bidder’s Conference briefing, critical to the success of HTTs is individual replacement of team members during unit rotations in lieu of mass replacement thus mitigating loss of institutional knowledge and expertise while providing for mission continuity. Individual Replacement of existing team members and the addition of whole teams in response to increasing demand for support requires an average of 40-50 personnel per month to fill requirements. As a result of the existing Status of Forces Agreement with Afghanistan and Iraq Status of Forces Agreement, dated January 2009, contractor personnel filling HTT requirements must convert to government employment prior to deployment. Average period of performance for HTT member contractor positions prior to deployment as a government Term Hire is equal to approximately six months.

Citing TRADOC documentation, the Human Terrain Teams (HTT’s) operate in the Effects Cell of the Brigade Combat Team/Regimental Combat Team and support decision making (battle command) for current and future operations. HTT’s collaborate with patrols, civil affairs, psychological operations, information operations, special operations forces, law enforcement and provincial reconstruction teams. HTT’s share information through the Distributed Ground System—Army (DCGS-A)—with other intelligence and battle command nodes in the network. They advise commanders, staffs and supporting subordinate units and support an immediate operational need which will be long term capability for peace time engagement (that’d be Peace Enforcement). Their operational research provides current, accurate and reliable data on specific social groups in the areas where supported units are operating. Human terrain knowledge sharpens the commander’s military decision making process and enables a more effective rotation of forces through the creation and maintenance of a living, human terrain knowledge base.

Social Scientists: New Crop of Intelligent Mercenaries

According to TRADOC specifications, one of the six issues addressed in Irregular Warfare and considered a critical variable in defining the Operational environment is social/cultural dynamics. HTS supports the Irregular Warfare Focus Area by training and educating analysts, social scientists and supporting personnel. HTS personnel and systems provide a new Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) capability in support of US Army BCT’s and USMC RCT’s.

TRADOC G-2, citing documentation, envisions long term system integrator services for the program will occur in multiple geographical locations around the globe. This will include in-theater locations in support of the US COCOMS. HTS will provide the critical human terrain or green layer in strategic and tactical defense plans, analysis of adversaries and potential threats and in the analysis of threats to ground, air, sea and space in support of information operations capabilities for STRATCOM and other major Commands. The contractor shall provide support to analyze concepts, architectures, plans, doctrines, and requirements studies. The contractor shall analyze missions and mission areas as they are promulgated and provide support to the drafting and review of requirements documents (e.g., Concepts of Operations (CONOPS), Mission Needs Statements (MNS), Operational Requirements Documents (ORDs), etc.). The contractor must consider intelligence threats and coordinate with integrated strategic and tactical defense plans, and other related studies, plans and programs. The contractor must consider all battlefield operating systems issues in coordination with integrated strategic and tactical defense plans as well as other related studies, plans and programs.

Further, data collection and dissemination of the HTS products is essential in building a Common Operating Picture for the warfighter. The HTS effort includes coordinating data collection efforts with Battle Command (BC) ; oversight of deployed team collection efforts to ensure a process is established to support staffing and implementation of future spirals and requirements; ensuring the HTS fills the Combatant Commanders requirements; development and implementation of doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel and facilities (DOTMLPF) solutions; implementation of DOTMLPF to leverage the strengths of the capabilities while improving theater operations; capability development; and Force integration of a “System of Systems” which provides intelligence and information to small unit leaders to increase Force effectiveness and influence operations.

What doesn’t HTS do?

Going Geospatial like the Bowman Expeditions

Citing US Army documentation, HTS provides comprehensive descriptions and analyses of the population in a given area of operations and enables Soldiers to operate effectively in accordance with US Army doctrine that defines social and cultural factors necessary to understand the operational environment. Factors include: Social Structure, Roles and Statuses, Social Norms, Culture, Identity, Beliefs, Language, Power and Authority Structure/Hierarchy, etc. Understanding a population’s support for insurgency is rooted in knowing how the population is socio-culturally constructed and understanding how the various structural elements interact with each other. HTS provides understanding and insight on the populations necessary for effective US Army operations. HTS integrates information about what people think, do, and say in patterned ways to achieve knowledge, respect and understanding in the operational environment. The contractor shall use the Tactical Ground Reporting System (TIGR) as the primary means of Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPR) data collection and storage. It will serve as the primary tool for the collection and storage of HTT field notes, field reports, or summaries of daily activity.

Further, the HTS contractor shall conduct multidisciplinary research and analysis in support of military commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan. The HTS contractor provides rapid analysis of qualitative and quantitative data and in the production of timely reports that meet the operational requirements of the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps units in building a common operating picture of the human terrain. The contractor shall provide all of the personnel, equipment, supplies, etc., to conduct field research in combat and provide immediate onsite qualitative insights on the drivers of human behavior and group dynamics in specific geospatially referenced locations that cannot be secured from other sources. The HTS team personnel increase force capability through continual real-time refinement of knowledge and understanding of the local population shared in the Human Terrain System Knowledge Center and an integrated common operating picture of the battlespace.

Finally, HTS is to assist in battle management. The HTS contractor is to analyze and recommend battle management strategies and Tactics, Technique, Procedures/Planning. The HTS contractor will propose optimal sighting and deployment schemes for mission accomplishment and analyze the impacts of both peacetime and wartime operations and requirements on system design and concepts of operations. HTS personnel will provide inputs to a functional, top-level, military requirements plan that leads to concepts of operation and analyze and integrate requirements and concepts to achieve militarily useful defense capabilities. The HTS contractor will also assess man-in-the-loop and autonomy control issues on system performance and requirements for maintaining positive control.

Say sources, “This was a done deal.” If so, that would make theater out of the current solicitation effort by TRADOC and GSA.

John Stanton is a Virginia based writer specializing in national security and political matters. Reach him at cioran123@yahoo.com.

Suicide Squad

The POTUS They Wanted

By STEPHEN FLEISCHMAN
Weekend Edition
August 7 - 9, 2009
Courtesy Of CounterPunch

It’s out in the open now. They can’t work us over anymore. We know who they are.

Our own oligarchy is out to get us. Global capitalism, feeling the pulse of socialism, is fighting to make the world safe for corporate hegemony—and corporate America is leading the pack.

It began with the destruction of our manufacturing base; off-shoring plants, outsourcing jobs to the lowest wage areas—a race to the bottom.

Will we let them continue the process? Who do we have to stop?

* the military-industrial complex that President Ike Eisenhower warned us about way back in the 20th Century. You can add the mainstream media complex to that…

* and the mighty corporate insurance and pharmaceutical industry that’s been keeping proper health care from the American people for over sixty years. When they hear the words “single payer”, they reach for their guns.

* and there is the rest of corporate America and its rabble of sycophants, the military contractors and their mercenaries to keep the wars going, the hordes of lobbyists, the propagandists that pervade our institutions, all of academia from grade schools to universities, radio, television, internet, print and new media.

Leading this parade is the custom made front man—POTUS—the President of the United States. It was originally conceived to be a front woman, Hillary Clinton. But along came a Chicagoan, Barack Obama, with a liberal and wishful thinker following, promising to end the wars and give the people single payer health care. He didn’t mean any of it but the oligarchy saw a capable con-artist.

So the power structure dumped Hillary and gave the prize to Obama. (Oh, you thought the election had something to do with it?)

Obama fit the image of the POTUS they wanted, from his charm to the color of his skin —the Pied Piper of the South Side—his subservience guaranteed by the two major pillars of the oligarchy. He was quick to assume the “white man’s burden”.

Hillary, of course, was pissed but she wasn’t going to break ranks. She gracefully accepted the position of Secretary of State.

The oligarchy’s strategy, the Ayn Rand sagacity of the 20th Century—attack “big” government, return to laissez-faire capitalism.

It goes with monopoly and war. One or two or more wars must be kept going for the economy’s sake. Empire building is part of this game. Our empire is extensive.

“Obama is commander-in-chief of an unprecedented network of military bases that is still expanding,” says Catherine Lutz in “The New Statesman” (7/30/09). She has made the count. “The global reach of the US military today is unprecedented and unparalleled. Officially, more than 190,000 troops and 115,000 civilian employees are massed in approximately 900 military facilities in 46 countries and territories. The US military owns or rents 795,000 acres of land, with 26,000 buildings and structures, valued at $146bn (£89bn). The bases bristle with an inventory of weapons whose worth is measured in the trillions and whose killing power could wipe out all life on earth several times over.”

Obama continues the surge of US troops into Afghanistan. Apparently, he hasn’t heard yet that Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires. Hasn’t he read Rudyard Kipling?

“When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle an' blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.

I guess Barack has never Kippled.

Obama continues to spread the beneficence of America into what is now called Af-Pak, killing civilians indiscriminately in Pakistan with his new toy, the remote controlled drone.

While all this is going on, we are also leading this country and the world into an economic mess. Employment is flopping, businesses are flipping and home mortgages failing.

Wall Street is being led by the same people who brought it to the ragged edge of disaster—Gaithner and Summers, rewarded by Obama, the former, made Secretary of the Treasury, the latter, top economic advisor to the President.

Legislation for the people is languishing in Congress.

"We have a system today that works well for the insurance industry, but it doesn't always work well for you," President Obama admitted in a speech to a town hall meeting in Raleigh, NC, last week, “what we will have when we pass these reforms, are health insurance consumer protections to make sure that those who have insurance are treated fairly and insurance companies are held accountable."

What he hasn’t insisted on is the “public option” in the legislative package. Is he worried he won’t have the insurance industry’s bundle when he runs for re-election in a few years?

Corporate power stands in the way--antithesis of democracy. Corporate groups are joined together into a single governing body in which the different groups are mandated to negotiate with each other to establish policies in the interest of the multiple groups. This is defined by Wikipedia, the internet encyclopedia, as Corporatism.

Now that we know what is happening and who the scoundrels are, what are we going to do about it?

Stephen Fleischman, writer-producer-director of documentaries, spent thirty years in Network News at CBS and ABC. His memoir is now in print. See www.amahchewahwah.com, e-mail stevefl@ca.rr.com.