Joint Hearing of the Subcommittee on Terrorism and Unconventional Threats and Capabilities and the Subcommittee on Research and Science Education - The Role of Social and Behavioral Sciences in National Security

Statement

Joint Hearing of the Subcommittee on Terrorism and Unconventional Threats and Capabilities and the Subcommittee on Research and Science Education - The Role of Social and Behavioral Sciences in National Security

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REP. KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND (D-NY): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all for your testimony and your work and your service. It really sounds like you have developed a program that is extraordinarily value added.

I want to ask Col. Schweitzer, in your prepared remarks you -- and through your stated remarks, you went through all -- (inaudible) -- that you have seen both on the ground with our own troops, with reducing violence, with working better with the local governments. I -- we just want a little more context about how are our men and women on the ground who are doing this work perceived.

COL. SCHWEITZER: You mean, the human terrain teams, how are they perceived? I guess the best way to judge that is the access that they are and are not granted. Do I think that every engagement that the human terrain teams have had has been one of success? I'm sure that's not the case.

I'm sure that there has been times that either it has stumbled or that a community has just not been willing to accept it because at the end of the day it still is a foreigner on the other end of the discussion.

And so there are going to be those challenges that are out there. But what I have found is that through time if we don't use a western watch that I alluded to earlier and if we allow the Afghan condition said to be achieved, that that access has never not been achieved.

And that's just due to constant engagement, constant -- consistent performance, constant behavior on both sides of the equation so they can develop enough of a trust where they are willing to open up and discuss. But simply stated, we have never -- I do not -- I cannot recall a single instance where they did not gain access eventually.

But I can tell you numerous times where we didn't gain it immediately. And again, that's because, you know, we did default to our western watch that we quickly threw away so we could focus on getting the right conditions set to establish the necessary trust that allowed the communication flow.

REP. GILLIBRAND: Have you considered or is there already coordination with USAID, with CIA, with the State Department, because it seems to me that if you look at other areas where we are not combat focused, but more population focused and intelligence gathering focused, that this kind of information will be extremely valuable in other application to the U.S. government's role.

And I'm thinking of different applications. But looking at Pakistan, for example, when I was there last summer, you know, we have some missions there, intelligence missions, USAID missions. You know, there's enormous amounts of efforts that go on there, and I'm wondering is this something that you would like to see expanded, that it could be used in coordination with the other agencies so that everyone has the benefit of this very valuable cultural and ethnic information that could inform their operations and their missions to be more successful?

COL. SCHWEITZER: You know, madam, that's probably a bit outside of my personal scope, but I'm pretty confident that this not mutually exclusive to what we did in the last 15 months. I clearly could see the benefits as it could apply to different organizations and agencies to enable them to properly engage with communities.

So I -- that's probably about as far as I can go within that because I don't want to go more. I'm just -- I'm not privy enough to the other agency's missions. But I do not believe that it's mutually exclusive to just what we were doing?

REP. GILLIBRAND: Do any of the other panelists have any view on that? Do you have any knowledge of the subject? Okay.

Let me ask Dr. Van Tilborg something. This training obviously is much more than just the do's and don'ts of a given society. And I'm that we have sensitivity training that we give our troops before they go into combat. Often they are deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan and some other location. Is this something that we can expand so that all of the men and women that we trained for missions, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan, will have the benefit of this kind of in-depth cultural knowledge?

MR. VAN TILBORG: Thank you for the question. You know, I think it's up to our actual men and women in uniform to decide precisely what they need at each echelon level in the operating forces. But I think that probably every man and woman who goes over does need to have some sort of basic understanding of these kinds of cultural, social, religious, economic, political et cetera kinds of issues.

I think that that level of training is quickly dawning on the military, the need for doing that. I think the Marine Corps probably has picked up on this the quickest. My understanding is their facility down at Quantico called the CAOCL. I don't remember what it stands for, but it's cultural -- the "C" in it is for cultural learning.

It is running lots of young marines through so that they have an understanding that it is meaningful. We are not talking here about a traveler's -- tourist's guidebook. This is information that needs to be of a different nature.

Not everyone needs the same level of training. There are people who have special jobs that require very deep understanding including language training and others who can do a good job in what they are assigned with a lesser degree of training.

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