The U.S. Military and Human Geography: Reflections on Our Conjuncture

Abstract

In recent years, the U.S. military-intelligence community has shown a growing interest in human geography. This article examines the available literature to consider this trend. I contend that the growing military-intelligence use of human geography, both as a concept and as a practice, deserves critical scrutiny. Although military involvement in geographical research is a long-standing and well-recognized fact, the growing emphasis on human geography per se marks a notable shift: not only a change in terminology—from anthropology of human terrain to human geography and geospatial intelligence—but also a shift in underlying military strategy and concepts. Because this shift has potentially profound implications for the discipline, substantive debate over the military's employment of human geography is urgently needed.

近年来, 美国军事情报社群对人文地理学的兴趣逐渐增长。本文检视可得的文献, 以考量此般趋势。我主张, 军事情报逐渐增加同时作为概念与实践的人文地理学之使用, 值得进行批判性的探问。尽管地理学研究的军事涉入是个长期且已受到认识之事实, 但逐渐强调人文地理学本身便标示出一项值得注意的转变：不仅是术语的转变——从人类地域的人类学转为人文地理学与地理空间情报——同时也是根本军事策略及概念的转变。由于此般转变对该学门具有潜在的深切意涵, 故对于人文地理学的军事运用之实质辨论刻不容缓。

Desde hace poco tiempo, la comunidad militares-inteligencia de los EE.UU. ha mostrado creciente interés en la geografía humana. Este artículo examina la literatura disponible para considerar esta tendencia. Sostengo que el creciente uso de la geografía humana en lo militar-inteligencia, como concepto y como práctica, merece un escrutinio crítico. Aunque el compromiso militar con la investigación geográfica es un hecho de vieja data y muy bien reconocido, el renovado énfasis por la geografía humana por si mismo marca un cambio notable: no se trata solo de un cambio de terminología –de la antropología del terreno humano a la geografía humana e inteligencia geoespacial– sino también de un cambio en los conceptos militares asociados. En la medida en que este cambio potencialmente tiene profundas implicaciones para la disciplina, se necesita urgentemente un debate sustantivo sobre el empleo de la geografía humana por los militares.

Key Words:

• geospatial intelligence
• human geography
• human terrain
• U.S. military

关键词：:

• 地理空间情报
• 人文地理学
• 人类地域
• 美国军事。

Palabras clave:

• inteligencia geoespacial
• geografía humana
• terreno humano
• militares de los EE.UU

Acknowledgments

I thank Salvatore Engel-Di Mauro, Jim Glassman, Will Jones, Richard Wright, and anonymous reviewers for their criticism. I thank Eric Sheppard for facilitating discussions at the AAG meetings and in the pages of the Annals.

Notes

1. See Woodward (2005), Bernazzoli and Flint (2009), and Recha et al. (2015). It is beyond the scope of this article to present a full literature review. My emphasis in this article is restricted to human geography and the U.S. military and state. This is not to deny the importance of geography for other states or militaries but only to limit my purview to a manageable, and important, subset of the literature.

2. The IDGA (2013) brochure notes, “With an annual operating budget of $18 billion, DoD Military Intelligence programs have been instrumental in the war on terror. Human Geography has been at the forefront of these intelligence programs, often embodied in the Human Terrain Systems program. … In order for the US Military to operate in theatres where conventional warfare is not effective, Human Geography must be readily understood and utilized.”

3. The meaning of the U.S. military's use of the concept of human terrain is disputed. For affirmative outlines of the concept, see McFate and Jackson (2005), Kipp et al. (2006), and Medina (2014); for critical genealogies, see González (2009) and Price (2011); on HTS's antecedents in Korea, see Lee, Barnes, and Wainwright (2015); in Vietnam, see Tyner (2009).

4. According to the U.S. Army's HTS Web site, twenty-eight HTS teams were deployed to Iraq by 2008 before going into decline. “As U.S. and Coalition Forces in Iraq began to drawdown in 2010–2011, Human Terrain Teams began to reduce in number and by June 2011 all Human Terrain Teams had departed Iraq” (http://humanterrainsystem.army.mil/). Yet the HTS program    persists. Its Web site, relaunched on 11 December 2012,    quotes the mission statement: “US Army Human    Terrain System functions as the primary and enduring    social science-based human domain research, analysis,    and training capability, focused on enabling leaders to    remain adaptive when shaping current and future    complex strategic and operational environments which    support Unified Action Partners world-wide.”

5. For instance, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has a “cultural mapping (CMAP)” program, led by a geographer: http://www.erdc.usace.army.mil/Media/FactSheets/FactSheetArticleView/tabid/9254/Article/476690/cultural-mapping.aspx

6. Recall that the initial funding for the Bowman Expeditions came from the U.S. Army FMSO (Herlihy et al. 2006; see also Wainwright 2012). In 2013, Jerry Dobson received an award for US$3 million from the U.S. military's Minerva program to study indigenous communities throughout Central America (Dobson 2013; see Wainwright 2013b).

7. Long was replaced as NGA director by Robert Cardillo, who, like Long, came to the NGA from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). On 9 October 2015, Cardillo spoke in the Department of Geography at Penn State University about their “partnership” with the NGA. According to the NGA's press release (Fouché 2015), “Penn State is NGA's largest collegiate academic partner,” with “one NGA University Research Initiative Grant with Penn State, two Cooperative Research and Development Agreements, … and 152 [Penn State] alumni currently serving in the [NGA] workforce.”

8. Compare Medina and Hepner (2013), chapter 4.

9. I also agree with his contention that opposition among geographers to the Bowman Expeditions was “smaller than experienced in Anthropological circles toward the HTS” (Medina 2014, 13), although I disagree with his explanation for this divergence.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Joel D. Wainwright

JOEL D. WAINWRIGHT is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210. E-mail: [email protected]. He is author of Decolonizing Development: Colonial Power and the Maya (Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 2007) and Geopiracy: Oaxaca, Militant Empiricism, and Geographical Thought (New York: Palgrave Macmillan).