LESSONS ENCOUNTERED

Lamb with Franco
standing of local social and political relationships at all levels. The need for
cultural understanding has been cited as one of the “top 5” lessons learned
from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, 265 a view echoed by many senior leaders.
266 During his confirmation hearing before taking command of U.S. and
NATO forces in Afghanistan in June 2010, General Petraeus told Congress
that the decisive terrain in counterinsurgency was “the human terrain.” 267 General
Raymond Odierno, Chief of Staff of the Army, stated the main lesson he
learned in Iraq was that the best-equipped army in the world can still lose a
war if it does not understand the people it is fighting. 268 General Robert Cone,
Commander of the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command, argues, “The
human domain must be the centerpiece of our future efforts,” 269 and the Army
has committed to making that so. 270 In May 2013, the Chief of Staff of the
Army, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, and the USSOCOM commander
signed a white paper that underscores the importance of “human domains”
and the need for “better integrating human factors into the planning and execution
of military operations.” 271
Despite all the high-level attention this capability area has received, there
are two reasons to be concerned that U.S. forces will not have superior sociocultural
knowledge available in the future. First, sociocultural knowledge cannot
be surged. The language skills and knowledge of local social networks take
time to develop. Some experts insist no worthwhile sociocultural knowledge
can be generated quickly, while others believe there are different types and levels
of sociocultural knowledge that take different amounts of time and effort
to produce. Either way, no one recommends waiting until the conflict begins
and then trying to produce such knowledge on the fly. Figuring out how to
sustain and surge sociocultural knowledge at reasonable costs is a formidable
organizational challenge in the best of circumstances.
Second, the U.S. military’s traditional pattern of behavior on sociocultural
knowledge is reasserting itself. The military often develops sociocultural expertise
at great cost and too late to ensure success. Leaders then abandon the
hard-won capability as part of postconflict budget reductions or out of deference
to prevailing American strategic culture, which emphasizes readiness for
major force-on-force conflicts. From American colonists to American revolutionaries
to irregular operations during the Civil War to the Army’s conflicts
with Native Americans to American interventions in the Philippines and Cen-
226