Col. Daniel S. Roper, director, U.S. Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Center, discusses lessons learned in counterinsurgency with Brigadier Farhat Abbas Sani, Pakistan Military Air Defense brigade commander, during the Third Army/U.S. Army Central's Counterinsurgency Information Exchange in Atlanta
Today, I had an opportunity to talk with Col. Daniel S. Roper, the director of the U.S. Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Center at Ft. Leavenworth, as part of the series of Blogger Round Tables that DOD Public Affairs hosts.
I asked him about the role of “human terrain” — and the Human Terrain System, which I covered earlier this year for C4ISR Journal — in counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan, as well as the challenges of getting good intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance information.
Here’s part of that interview, with his response on HTS:
B+B: Could you talk about the role of human terrain data in couterinsurgency operations, in terms of the impact of the kind of data you’re getting from HTT’s in Afghanistan?
Col. Roper: THe Human Terrain System and the Human Terrain Teams , for everybody’s point of reference — they’re small teams of anthropologists and sociologists, people that have historical understanding of the human dynamics of a particular area. As a matter of fact, this week we were conducting counterinsurgency training and education as part of the pre-deployment course for the human terrain teams as they prepare for their particular area of operations.
Sean M. Gallagher 