.Military turning to social-science tools in battle against insurgency
PAKTIA PROVINCE, Afghanistan — Conducting a census doesn’t sound too exciting. Perhaps the only famous census story is the one that tells how Caesar Augustus’ historic count forced Mary and Joseph to the stable where the baby Jesus would be born.
But here in Paktia province in eastern Afghanistan — which often looks straight out of biblical times — soldiers have adopted surveys as the newest tool to try to stabilize the country.
It’s part of the military’s trend toward counterinsurgency tactics more akin to anthropology and the social sciences than military field manuals.
As in Caesar’s day, the questions are intended to give the government the information it needs to better control its territory. The U.S. Agency for International Development created this particular survey — which is called the "Tactical Conflict Assessment Framework," or TCAF — to help military and civilian leaders find the "sources of discontent," the root causes of instability that could drive Afghans into the arms of the insurgents. Units pass the information they collect up the chain of command, so commanders can turn it over to Afghan governors and subgovernors to help better connect them to their people.
But ground-level leaders say the survey is about more than just gathering dry statistics. At its heart, it’s really a formal methodology that forces units to process and analyze the information they collect.
"[Information] is just pieces of a puzzle," said Capt. Gary McDonald, commander of Troop B, 1st Squadron, 40th Cavalry Regiment. "Until you put the pieces together, it doesn’t mean anything.
Census-like clipboards rarely come into view when the soldiers talk with locals, said McDonald, whose unit is responsible for the area around a key Paktia pass. They impede the conversation’s natural flow and make the person being questioned nervous.
The idea is to begin by talking about development and then smoothly segue into questions about security, said 1st Lt. Kevin Harris, a Troop B platoon leader. During a conversation Saturday, Harris began by simply asking a local man about how his area was doing and what the food situation was like.
"Tell him that we don’t mean to intrude," Harris told the interpreter. "If any of our vehicles are parted on your farmland, tell us and we’ll move them. … We’re kind of curious about the history of this area. Is this a migrant area? Do people come in during the summer and leave during the winter?"
The man told soldiers that the food situation was desperate. The soldiers gave him some water and other items and, midway through their chat, he spontaneously started telling the soldiers about paths Taliban fighters used to travel through the area.
The questioning isn’t intended to take such a direct approach to combating enemy fighters, though. Instead, leaders use it to determine what local villages need in order to better deliver service.
The questions force a rigorous analysis of an area’s underlying problems that could sometimes be missed just by chatting with local elders, McDonald said. He gave an example of a fictional area that was short of teachers.
In the past, units might have addressed this problem at face value by trying to hire more teachers. However, the survey may indicate teachers aren’t working in the area because there are no roads or because the economy is poor. Attacking the disease will hopefully have more widespread and lasting effects than simply fighting the symptoms, to use an analogy.
Ensuring that all units ask the same questions also allows units to better track trends and progress across time and place. Leaders can plug in the results that ground units obtain and compare them to other areas and previous months. By contrast, information from the more-qualitative approach soldiers used before could be hard to fit into the bigger picture.
The surveys are not scientific enough for publication in an academic journal. Sample sizes are small and the soldiers adapt the questions to keep the conversation flowing smoothly. But the results aren’t meant for a Ph.D. dissertation.
Admittedly, the TCAF surveys don’t have quite the excitement of a virgin birth. But leaders have high expectations that they may someday help establish order that would make even Caesar proud.
Stars & Stripes
But here in Paktia province in eastern Afghanistan — which often looks straight out of biblical times — soldiers have adopted surveys as the newest tool to try to stabilize the country.
It’s part of the military’s trend toward counterinsurgency tactics more akin to anthropology and the social sciences than military field manuals.
As in Caesar’s day, the questions are intended to give the government the information it needs to better control its territory. The U.S. Agency for International Development created this particular survey — which is called the "Tactical Conflict Assessment Framework," or TCAF — to help military and civilian leaders find the "sources of discontent," the root causes of instability that could drive Afghans into the arms of the insurgents. Units pass the information they collect up the chain of command, so commanders can turn it over to Afghan governors and subgovernors to help better connect them to their people.
But ground-level leaders say the survey is about more than just gathering dry statistics. At its heart, it’s really a formal methodology that forces units to process and analyze the information they collect.
"[Information] is just pieces of a puzzle," said Capt. Gary McDonald, commander of Troop B, 1st Squadron, 40th Cavalry Regiment. "Until you put the pieces together, it doesn’t mean anything.
Census-like clipboards rarely come into view when the soldiers talk with locals, said McDonald, whose unit is responsible for the area around a key Paktia pass. They impede the conversation’s natural flow and make the person being questioned nervous.
The idea is to begin by talking about development and then smoothly segue into questions about security, said 1st Lt. Kevin Harris, a Troop B platoon leader. During a conversation Saturday, Harris began by simply asking a local man about how his area was doing and what the food situation was like.
"Tell him that we don’t mean to intrude," Harris told the interpreter. "If any of our vehicles are parted on your farmland, tell us and we’ll move them. … We’re kind of curious about the history of this area. Is this a migrant area? Do people come in during the summer and leave during the winter?"
The man told soldiers that the food situation was desperate. The soldiers gave him some water and other items and, midway through their chat, he spontaneously started telling the soldiers about paths Taliban fighters used to travel through the area.
The questioning isn’t intended to take such a direct approach to combating enemy fighters, though. Instead, leaders use it to determine what local villages need in order to better deliver service.
The questions force a rigorous analysis of an area’s underlying problems that could sometimes be missed just by chatting with local elders, McDonald said. He gave an example of a fictional area that was short of teachers.
In the past, units might have addressed this problem at face value by trying to hire more teachers. However, the survey may indicate teachers aren’t working in the area because there are no roads or because the economy is poor. Attacking the disease will hopefully have more widespread and lasting effects than simply fighting the symptoms, to use an analogy.
Ensuring that all units ask the same questions also allows units to better track trends and progress across time and place. Leaders can plug in the results that ground units obtain and compare them to other areas and previous months. By contrast, information from the more-qualitative approach soldiers used before could be hard to fit into the bigger picture.
The surveys are not scientific enough for publication in an academic journal. Sample sizes are small and the soldiers adapt the questions to keep the conversation flowing smoothly. But the results aren’t meant for a Ph.D. dissertation.
Admittedly, the TCAF surveys don’t have quite the excitement of a virgin birth. But leaders have high expectations that they may someday help establish order that would make even Caesar proud.
Stars & Stripes
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