human-terrain team

Next door to his office, a group of anthropologists and sociologists known as the “human-terrain team” provides him with valuable intelligence, not on the enemy but on the society in which they mingle. Colonel Schweitzer says what he needs is not more troops but more “non-uniformed instruments of power: diplomatic, information and economic”, especially agronomists and water engineers.

http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10286219