Shakeup in HTS Leadership

The Human Terrain System is undergoing a leadership shakeup.

The manager and co-founder of the U.S. Army’s controversial social-science program is no longer in charge.

Retired Colonel Steve Fondacaro — a charismatic, mercurial, mile-a-minute former Special Forces operator and East Harlem native – turned the Human Terrain System from an academic experiment into a military reality, embedding social scientists into combat units.

Then he waged an internal insurgency to expand the effort Army-wide, despite the service’s dedication at the time to a purely bombs-and-bullets approach to warfare. ”We’re like a germ in the body of [the Army],” Fondacaro once told me. “All of their systems are sending white blood cells to puke me up.”

But the Army changed its ways. And Fondacaro’s expansion effort was largely successful. At last count, there were 21 Human Terrain Teams operating in Iraq and six more in Afghanistan, offering advice to commanders on the local cultural landscape.

By: Brant