The U.S. Army and Cross-Cultural Training

August 27, 2008 – 5:40 pm

The U.S. Army’s attempts to discern the social dynamics of the various regions of Iraq led them to send U.S. anthropology professors to Iraq and embed them with special units.  The goal is to train special Human Terrain Team’s (HTTs) in cultural understanding.

“Tall, soft-spoken, and bespectacled, he fits the image of the bookish professor perfectly. But these days, Prof. Matsuda has traded in his professor’s tweeds for combat boots and a bullet-proof vest. In September, he brought his expertise to Iraq as part of a small group of cultural experts called the Human Terrain Team, which is attached to the 82nd Airborne Division’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team operating in Northeast Baghdad and Sadr City.

The HTT’s mission is to diagram Iraq’s cultural landscape - its “human terrain” - in the same way intelligence analysts map out Iraq’s cities, roads, and rivers. It’s a function that has become increasingly important as the U.S. military has turned its focus to counterinsurgency operations, in which cultural understanding is the key and knowing the human terrain is absolutely essential, said the team’s leader, Lt. Col. Edward Villacres.” (Source: U.S. Army News)

Wired Magazine covered this same topic of HTT’s, from a different angle.

The U.S. military is obviously realizing the importance of cross-cultural communication and observation. We would do well to understand how vital it is that we have a similar understanding of the cultural situation we enter when we present the gospel both at home and abroad.

HT: Missionary Scribbler blog