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Efforts focused on establishing a new warfighting domain in human aspects of military operations have never gained traction

• There is hesitation about the theoretical need for a distinct human domain, and there are concerns regarding the constraints on resources that would make developing a domain challenging.
• It is more important for each service to recognize its own need for such capabilities and develop them, even if done so in concert with each other.

Human aspects of military operations are considered to some degree in Air Force doctrine and activities, but the concept is not systematically institutionalized

• Existing capabilities related to human aspects of military operations failed to meet needed capabilities in several areas.
• There is no unifying terminology regarding human-aspects–related knowledge and skills.
• At the operational level, a lack of coordination or systematization leads to gaps in education and training for relevant career fields (e.g., intelligence, cyber, and space).

The Air Force lacks baseline understanding and integration of human aspects of military operations, as well as focused education and training efforts in certain specializations

• Developing and integrating these capabilities does not have to come at the expense of developing airpower, cyber expertise, and space expertise.
• Not all airmen need to be experts in understanding the human aspects of military operations.
• Interviewees suggested that, if the military does not take into consideration sociocultural understandings, it will have lost sight of the fact that warfare is intrinsically a human endeavor, and it will not be effective.

Countering emerging threats is not based solely on defeating a nation-state's military forces by conventional, kinetic means. Fundamentally, these threats are met by understanding and manipulating the human aspects that drive the adversary's ideological narrative within the target population. Understanding how local populations and foreign governments, and partner and adversary military forces, will read and react to different stimuli is essential to operating in the competition space. Consequently, it is important that the U.S. military understand the human aspects of military operations; or the social, cultural, physical, informational, and psychological elements that determine partner nations' and adversaries' motivations, thinking, influence, activities, and recruitment.

The special operations community has focused on leveraging human-focused capabilities, but the conventional Air Force has yet to fully embrace human aspects of military operations. In this report, the authors explore whether there is a need for a joint warfighting domain focused on human aspects of military operations, and they consider how sociocultural knowledge and skills related to human aspects of war could be better integrated into conventional Air Force multi-domain operations. The authors offer insights into how the Air Force can institutionally prioritize human aspects in its culture, improve the human-aspects–related knowledge and skills of its airmen, and develop regional expertise. The authors conclude that, instead of creating a separate human domain of operations, the services and the Joint Force should focus on better integrating human aspects of military operations.

• Chapter One

  Introduction

• Chapter Two

  Precedent and Need for a Human Domain

• Chapter Three

  Current Status of Human-Focused Capabilities in the U.S. Air Force

• Chapter Four

  Frameworks for Integrating Human-Aspects Considerations from Other U.S. Military Services and Foreign Military Partners

• Chapter Five

  Deepening Understanding of Human Aspects in Military Operations Within the Air Force

• Chapter Six

  Conclusion and Recommendations

• Appendix A

  Interview Methods and Participants

• Appendix B

  Definition and Characteristics of a Warfighting Domain