subscribe  |    email  |    print  |    continue the debate

Looming strategic disasters are good catalysts for change. Many military theorists argue that the setbacks faced by 2005 in Iraq and Afghanistan shocked the leviathan Defense Department out of its intellectual slumber and spurred it toward dramatic institutional change.

Not for the first time in U.S. history, defense analysts and troops learned that they failed to comprehend the nature of the war, their adversaries and even the allies at their peril. Legacy Cold War-era tools also provided little in the way of deep understanding of fundamental regional human problems. Region, culture, religion, ethnicity, history, sect, class, tribe, etc. — these were the words most absent in traditional reporting circles. Yet, for those who read beyond executive summaries, there were always a few works that provided raw, unvarnished ground truth. Typically, secondhand, coffee-stained copies of these gems made their way around crisis action teams and deployed task forces, contributing to core area knowledge. Robert Kaplan’s “Balkan Ghosts” is one of these works.

Thrust into the gantlet of the Joint Staff as a junior intelligence analyst in 1997, I was still trying to find the cafeteria when I was assigned to the Balkans Intelligence Task Force. I admit I had to break out the dictionary to ascertain exactly what “Balkans” meant. This provided only a whisper of the region’s sheer complexity, vast terrain, ethnic diversity and unique history; I realized that I stared across a chasm of ignorance. A brief visit to the Pentagon library confirmed my worst fear: Balkans literature was legion and arcane. In short, I would never master it.

Thankfully, a U.S. Army East European Foreign Area Officer (FAO) winnowed down the daunting list of source material to a manageable pile. “Balkan Ghosts” sat atop the stack, and not by accident. That FAO took the time to explain three things about the Balkans that also applied to every other region I provided analysis on. First, I likely would never be an expert. Second, regional ground truth was attainable only by spending considerable time in the Balkans. Finally, an insatiable pursuit of Balkans knowledge would eventually provide the next best thing: cultural awareness. He then handed me “Balkan Ghosts” and stated curtly, “Start with this.”

By Page 4, I was hooked. The author begins with careful caveats on what the book is not: a policy work. Instead, with casual honesty, he describes it as an “idiosyncratic travel book.” Yet, herein is its greatest strength. It is utterly readable, unlike many stodgy pieces on policy and political science. Kaplan immerses the reader in the essence of the Balkans with poignant descriptions of the disparate peoples and their plights. All the while, he subtly educates the reader with historical nuances of the region directly relevant to the catastrophe that occurred a decade after his travels. I needed no yellow marker to highlight key analyses in “Balkan Ghosts” — it is just not that sort of book. In essence, Kaplan exposed me vicariously to aspects of Balkan culture I simply could not experience elsewhere. In a 2001 interview with the online magazine Salon, he related: “What I try to do is to provide the experience of a backpacker, with the disciplined analysis of a good journalist or a policy specialist. Because policy specialists in Washington, D.C., often have no useful experiences of the culture they are analyzing. Whereas backpacker types often get it.”

“Balkan Ghosts” served for me to cement the critical need for what is now commonly referred to as “cultural intelligence.” The naked truth is that even with our immense defense architecture, true experts on the human side of regional issues are rare; post-Cold War conflict in Southwest Asia proved again we cannot grow these experts overnight. The Defense Department did adapt, however. Led by the Army, it is now replete with revised doctrine, training and programs stressing local experts, linguists, human intelligence and operational environmental methodologies to ascertain all aspects of the conflict and the adversary’s nature — permeated with the need for a deep appreciation for the so-called “human terrain.” Kaplan could teach a graduate course in human terrain.

Hence, the great gift of “Balkan Ghosts” is its insights into the simple, powerful lesson that it is all about the people: their history, passions (good and bad), collective guilt, rulers, gods, food, drink, festivals and, of course, their fears. Neither expansive technology nor unlimited funds (or boots on the ground) can trump the basic truism that it is about the people.

Kaplan’s life as a journalist is steeped in the dogged quest for ground truth. Indeed, he lives up the FAO’s second axiom. Trekking widely, often amidst the contemporary regional war, he wrote prolifically on the human terrain in the Horn of Africa, the Levant, the Caucasus, Iran-Iraq, the Balkans, South Asia and even the continental U.S. His works after “Balkan Ghosts” are equally readable and even more compelling in their astute observations of human-created crises — current and emerging.

“Balkan Ghosts” shows us that we must tell the human story, even when it is neither popular nor pretty. I am convinced that works such as “Balkan Ghosts” quietly fed the flame of knowledge within the Defense Department when budget cuts threatened the likes of the Army FAO program. Among the services, only the Army had the wisdom to nurture and sustain this special group of warrior-scholars to penetrate the complex nuances of human terrain.

Perhaps Kaplan’s greatest lesson is that we must look beyond the gilded halls of academia for ground truth. We must read widely and wisely and we must make the effort to see and document ground truth ourselves. Described as unorthodox, controversial, sentimental and even reactionary, Kaplan’s legacy is his authenticity: He writes what he sees. “Balkan Ghosts” remains a pinnacle work that informed a generation and opened the eyes of a budding intelligence analyst to the value of ground truth.

Thanks, Mr. Kaplan; my journey continues.