MILITARY ANTHROPOLOGY MONTGOMERY McFATE Military Anthropology Soldiers, Scholars and Subjects at the Margins of Empire Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America. © Montgomery McFate, 2018 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Montgomery McFate Title: Military Anthropology: Soldiers, Scholars and Subjects at the Margins of Empire / Montgomery McFate. Description: Oxford [UK]; New York: Oxford University Press, [2018] ISBN: 9780190680176 (print) ISBN: 9780190934729 (updf) ISBN: 9780190934941 (epub) The book is dedicated to my son, Vale Danger Vaughn Carlough, without whose surprise arrival I would never have settled down enough to write anything. CONTENTS Acknowledgements List of Acronyms 1. Introduction: Gerald Hickey and the Dangers Inherent 2. Robert Sutherland Rattray and Indirect Rule 3. Ursula Graham Bower and Military Leadership 4. Gregory Bateson and Information Operations 5. Tom Harrisson and Unconventional Warfare 6. John Useem and Governance Operations 7. Jomo Kenyatta, Louis Leakey and the Counter-Insurgency System 8. Don Marshall and the Strategic Objective 9. Conclusion: David Prescott Barrows and the Military Execution of Foreign Policy Notes Index ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This book was produced with support from the Minerva Program in the U.S. Office of Secretary of Defense. Many thanks are due to Tom Mahnken and Erin Fitzgerald who dedicated time and energy to bringing social science research into the Department of Defense. I would like to thank the many people who helped along the way, including Jonathan Crist, Lynn Tesser and Kim Hardee at U.S. Institute of Peace who provided support during my tenure as a Jennings Randolph Fellow, during which some of the earliest drafts of these chapters were written. Thanks are also due to Conrad Crane of the Army Heritage and Education Center at Carlisle Barracks and Greg Wilcox for helping with access to Don Marshall’s papers. Many people at the U.S. Naval War College provided support and assistance, including Ambassador Mary Anne Peters who encouraged me to audit the Joint Maritime Operations course (and to Professor Chris Gregor, Professor Steve Forand and CAPT Alan Abramson who made the experience very productive). Many people read drafts of various chapters, including Professor Doug Hime, Professor Milan Vego, and Professor Wolff von Heinegg, for which I thank them warmly. Professor Chris Demchak provided constant encouragement and friendship. Georgette Wilson proofread each chapter and tracked down a few stubbornly elusive citations, for which she deserves much credit. I would also like to thank the wonderful librarians at the U.S. Naval War College (especially Jack Miranda) and the awesome administrative professionals (especially Sherri Whitmarsh and Dalton Alexander) who made the process smoother. My deep thanks to the Center for Naval Warfare Studies and Analysis who supported me throughout this research, including Professor Drew Winner, Dean Barney Ruble, Rachael Shaffer and Dean Tom Culora. Most special thanks and gratitude are owed to Professor Pete Dombrowski who provided endless cheap coffee and deep insights. LIST OF ACRONYMS AEF American Expeditionary Force ANA Afghan National Army AQI Al Qaeda in Iraq ARPA Advanced Research Projects Agency ARVN Army of the Republic of Vietnam BG Brigadier General C3CM Command, Control, Communications, Countermeasures CA Civil Affairs CCIR Commanders’ Critical Information Requirements CENTCOM United States Central Command CIA Central Intelligence Agency CIMA Coordinated Investigation of Micronesian Anthropology CMO Civil-Military Operations CO Cyberspace Operations COMUSMACV Commander of the United States Military Assistance Command Vietnam CPA Coalition Provisional Authority DIA Defense Intelligence Agency DIME Diplomacy, Information, Military, Economic DoD Department of Defense DOTMLPF Doctrine, Organization, Training, Materiel, Leadership, Personnel, Facilities EW Electronic Warfare FFIR Friendly Force Information Requirements FLN Front de Libération Nationale GAO Government Accountability Office GLOBE Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness GVN Government of South Vietnam HNIR Host Nation Information Requirements HTS Human Terrain System HTTs Human Terrain Teams IJC ISAF Joint Command IO Information Operations IRCs Information Related Capabilities ISAF International Security Assistance Force JAG Judge Advocate General JFC Joint Force Commander JIPOE Joint Intelligence Preparation of the Operational Environment JMO Joint Maritime Operations KAU Kenya African Union KCA Kikuyu Central Association LTG Lieutenant General MACV Military Assistance Command Vietnam METT-T Mission-Enemy-Terrain-Troops-Time MILDEC Military Deception MISO Military Information Support Operations MO Morale Operations NCA Network of Concerned Anthropologists NSC National Security Council NSPD National Security Presidential Directive NSS National Security Strategy NVA North Vietnamese Army OPMEP Joint Chiefs of Staff Officer Professional Military Education Policy ORHA Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance OSINT Open-source Intelligence OSS Office of Strategic Services PA Public Affairs PF Popular Forces PIR Priority Intelligence Requirement PME Professional Military Education PPDs Presidential Policy Directives PROVN Program for the Pacification and Long-Term Development of Vietnam PSB Pacific Science Board REC Radio-Electronic Combat Vietnam SIGINT Signals Intelligence SIM Scientific Investigation of Micronesia SOCOM Special Operations Command SORO Special Operations Research Office USNA United States Naval Academy VC Viet Cong 1 INTRODUCTION GERALD HICKEY AND THE DANGERS INHERENT Where is your data? Give me something I can put in the computer. Don’t give me your poetry. Robert MacNamara1 In 1964 Gerald Hickey, a military anthropologist working for the U.S. government, visited a Special Forces Camp in the highlands of Vietnam to conduct research for a RAND study. The camp at Nam Dong had been built deep inside Viet Cong territory to provide protection for the surrounding villages. A twelve-man Special Forces Team, A-726 commanded by Capt. Roger Donlon, was tasked with advising and training 311 Vietnamese Civilian Irregular Defense Group militiamen. The camp itself—heavily fortified with sandbag walls, concrete bunker pits, machine gun posts and external wire—was guarded by sixty Nung tribesmen, many of whom had previously served as mercenaries in the French Army. During the afternoon of 4 July 1964 Hickey accompanied the Special Forces soldiers to a local village where they distributed medicine. After dinner that evening, many of the soldiers had an uneasy, ominous feeling that something was about to happen. A Special Forces sergeant asked Hickey if he wanted a weapon, promptly handing him an AR-15 rifle. At 2:26AM, a white phosphorous explosion engulfed the mess hall. “Suddenly the command post was a mass of flames, which were rapidly spreading to other buildings in the heat, smoke, and dust of a firestorm. Mortar rounds landed everywhere, grenades exploded, and gunfire filled the air. In a matter of minutes, the camp had become a battlefield.”2 A huge explosion lifted Hickey off his feet and smashed him against a wall. “For an instant I experienced a strange feeling of detachment as if I were outside watching myself. My whole body ached as I lay on the ground trying to catch my breath.”3 Dusting himself off, Hickey zigzagged across a road and jumped into a trench full of “very tense” Nungs who were firing at the barbed wire perimeter. The Nung leader offered Hickey a cigarette. “You’re a professor,” the Nung leader said in Vietnamese, “what are you doing here?” Hickey replied that he had come to “relax in the mountains,” which provoked a laugh.4 The Viet Cong continued firing mortars into the camp until a U.S. air strike began to pound their positions. Captain Donlon suddenly appeared at the edge of the trench, badly wounded from gunshots and shrapnel in the leg, forearm, shoulder and stomach. “Are you OK?” Donlon asked. “God, Captain,” Hickey answered, “get in the trench, you’re wounded!” Donlon refused, telling Hickey that the inner perimeter was holding but three members of his team were dead. Donlon asked if they had enough ammo, and Hickey replied that they only had part of one clip. “I’ll get you more,” Donlon said, disappearing into the smoke and explosions.5 As dawn broke, the Viet Cong retreated into the jungle. In the morning, as Hickey recalled, the scene before me was worse than any nightmare I could remember. The whole camp was a blackened smoking ruin and ammo was still exploding. There were bodies and pieces of bodies everywhere—on the cluttered parade ground, in the grasses, and on the wires. … The smoky air was heavy with the odor of death and destruction.6 As the wounded were evacuated by helicopter, the Viet Cong continued firing small arms into the camp from their positions in the jungle. But the main battle was over, and the 372 men at Nam Dong had held the camp against a reinforced Viet Cong battalion of 900. For his heroism that night, Captain Roger Donlon was the first man in the Vietnam War to win the Medal of Honor. Hickey went back to Saigon to write his report, “The American Military Advisor and His Foreign Counterpart,”7 which describes many barriers to cross-cultural interaction between the U.S. military and indigenous military units still pertinent today. Hickey’s career tracks almost perfectly with U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Having become interested in Indochina in the early 1950s as a graduate student at the University of Chicago, Hickey first visited Vietnam in 1956, shortly after Ngo Dinh Diem became the first President of South Vietnam. Hickey was present in Ban Me Thout in January 1968 at the beginning of the North Vietnamese assaults now known as the Tet offensive. He fought at Nam Dong, which was the basis for a battle scene in the 1968 film The Green Berets. Hickey sailed away from Saigon a few years before the war officially ended in 1975. Hickey’s fundamental insight—just as applicable today as it was during the Vietnam War—was