The Use of Anthropological Expertise for Military Purposes - with a Focus on the U.S. Military Human Terrain System

Essay from the year 2009 in the subject Communications - Intercultural Communication, grade: 1,0, LMU Munich (Institute for Intercultural Communication), course: Theorien der Interkulturellen Kommunikation, language: English, abstract: This paper analyzes the historical and contemporaneous relationship of anthropological science with military tactics and strategies. It focuses on the Anglo-American perspective of the topic as its main object of study is the U.S. military Human Terrain System, a program which integrates anthropologists into military units to improve their interaction with the local population and thereby help to stabilize the security situation.