Human Terrain and its application in civil and military areas

Counterinsurgency writings implore armed forces to understand the Human Terrain (the population) in an insurgency. Key to this is an understanding how armed forces must operate, giving them the capability to promote their messages and values over to their adversaries in a global information environment that is connected, congested and contested. This method supports the entire spectrum of military operations – from early warning, rapid crisis response and effective 'upstream prevention' to post-conflict stabilisation, security and capacity-building.

With the world conflicts steadily moving from kinetics to cultural dimensions, this masterclass hosted by the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine will provide an overview of main trends in this area, including memetics, psychological warfare, social and cultural engineering, and ultimately, human terrain, which is even being embedded into official doctrines for solving international problems.