Experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq have convinced the U.S. military that what's missing in its toolkit is a more culturally sensitive approach to the war against the international jihad.
Troops at all levels of seniority were returning from rotations in these battlefields with war stories that included a lot more than chasing high-value targets, blasting insurgent hideouts, and blowing up weapons caches. Young staff sergeants, lieutenants, and captains were building schools, laying water pipes, and mediating sectarian religious conflicts, while the colonels and generals were being invited for tea with sheikhs and imams.
This has been new terrain for these warriors, most of whose traditional training had been geared more to the application of overwhelming force to destroy assigned objectives than to the niceties of interpersonal relations. The tried and true technocentric fixation of the U.S. military was proving more hindrance than help within a cultural milieu. In such new and unfamiliar circumstances, they didn't know the language and weren't at all sure of the appropriate etiquette.
In response, the U.S. Army established the TRADOC Cultural Center (TCC) at Ft. Huachuca, Arizona in 2004. TCC's mission is to develop task-based, interactive culture programs to assist the war-fighter to deal effectively with myriad and unfamiliar customs and cultures encountered across the modern battle space. TCC coordinates its programs across the full spectrum of the armed forces, including the army, navy, air force, and Marine Corps, as well as partnering with West Point, Georgetown University, and Arizona State University, among others.
From March 25-27, TCC held its second culture summit, with the participation of some 250 attendees from academia, government, the media, military, and NGO and corporate communities.
Focusing on the theme of "Culture Education and Training: Building Global Competence," panelists and keynote speakers, including Lieutenant General William B. Caldwell, IV, the Commanding General, U.S. Army Combined Arms Center and Ft. Leavenworth, Major General John M. Custer, Commanding General, U.S. Army Intelligence Center and Ft. Huachuca, Major General (Ret.) Robert Scales, and General (Ret.) John P. Abizaid touted the urgency of imparting cross-cultural competence throughout the U.S. military.
With an emphasis on the methodologies of developing cultural sensitivity, promoting regional and areas studies, and enhancing linguistic capabilities, the culture summit's agenda employed working groups and lots of attendee participation to elicit best practices in the so-called "soft skills" of negotiation, cooperative stabilization operations, and team-building with unfamiliar cultures. Cultural anthropologists and social scientists were in their element.
Calling the new epoch of warfare "WW IV," Gen. Scales was not referring to Norman Podhoretz's seminal essay of 2006 or to his book by the same name of the following year. In fact, far from Podhoretz's forthright designation of the Islamic jihadi enemy, Gen. Scales' concept of WW IV doesn't actually have an enemy: instead, it features a number of emerging characteristics such as cultural awareness, building alliances, perception shaping, teaching wisdom, and developing high-performing small units.
In contrast, Lt. Colonel Todd W. Lyons, the cultural program lead for the Marine Corps Intelligence Activity, reminded the group that cultural awareness is not merely an exercise in expressing empathy but equally important for understanding the enemy in order to destroy him. Abizaid provided a fitting capstone to the summit with a final keynote speech that encapsulated the spirit of the TRADOC effort within the scope of his own impressive career accomplishments.
Painfully in evidence throughout the conference was the military's as-yet inchoate search for a winning formula to operate in today's drastically altered landscape of asymmetric warfare with a determined enemy intent on expanding a religiously-based 21st century version of totalitarianism.
Still unwilling to name the enemy as Islamism, and yet aware that the average 19-year-old American troop is woefully ignorant of either our own or the enemy's cultural heritage, the military knows it has to do something. Department of Defense leadership is acutely conscious that it did not prepare its war fighters adequately for the experiences of Afghanistan and Iraq. Sensitivity training in cross-cultural competencies is part of their response.
Whether the skills to make friends and influence people can be effectively taught to America's warrior class is a generational challenge. It seems likely, however, that Sun Tzu's ancient adage, to "Know Thy Enemy" may prove at least as critical to America's ability to prevail in the war against the Islamic jihad as the latest emphasis on cultural sensitivity.
--
Clare Lopez is the vice president of the Intelligence Summit and a professor at the CI Center. She speaks and writes widely on issues related to the Middle East.