Helping Joe Understand the Locals

[Ian K]

Not too long ago, I read this post over at Bill and Bob's Excellent Afghan Adventure.

As we moved into the Ghain, the TF Fury soldiers came into direct support of my sad peschak. Mind you, we had been given very little time with these cats to prepare them for this operation, concentrating our efforts on the most dangerous aspect; house clearing. The ANP moved exactly as I have described them; like a herd of cats. Their tactical movement bore scant resemblance to the tactical movement of the more highly trained ANA and no resemblance whatsoever to the movements of the elite kids from the 82nd. The airborne troops held my peschak-ha in absolute disdain. They couldn't get enough of amusing themselves derisively at the ANP's expense. While the ANP couldn't understand a word that was said, they understood every word that was said.

Disrespect requires no translation.

It took a lot of work to help my ANP through the Psyops that were laid on them by these "highly-trained, elite" soldiers of the Airborne Pride of the Army. I wanted to butt-stroke the muscle-headed airborne bastards.

My question for the council is, how can a platoon or company commander develop more cultural awareness in his command? I've read Cavguy's posts regarding how there is literally not enough time to do all of the officially required training. In between the safety instructions, combat training, and the rest, how can junior officers give their men a better understanding of their mission and cultural context in which they are operating?

Or am I in my ignorance seeing a problem where there is none?

[Cavguy]

I would submit this is not a training problem in the 82d, but a leadership one.

From my earlier article "Sisyphus and COIN"

10. Work through the host nation. This most basic of counterinsurgency tenets is often the most disregarded. Working with allies of varying levels of integrity and competence is sometimes a challenge. It is the host nation’s war, and only they can win it for themselves. Acting unilaterally on any line of effort undermines the overall goal of building host nation capacity and responsibility. We learned to work through transition teams to develop the host nation forces. We learned it was the conventional unit’s responsibility to mentor and train local forces, and build their confidence. One of the most transformative decisions I witnessed was when my commander, LTC John Tien, mandated that every combat patrol be executed jointly with local forces. The howls of protest were audible from the commanders, including myself.

We regarded the local forces as a hassle, inept, and security risks. Looking back, LTC Tien’s bold and unpopular action did more to secure the city than any other single decision. After months of working alongside our forces, local forces achieved some stunning successes which enabled the transition of security to the lead of the host nation. We learned in many respects the host nation is often more effective than our own forces in creating lasting security

[Schmedlap]

... not a training problem... but a leadership one.

Definitely agree with that. If the chain of command looks at indigenous forces as "Haji" then so will the men. If the chain conveys respect and empathy for the indig forces, then so will the men, so long as the chain is respected. (There will always be a couple knuckleheads who won't - but just as the ANP requires no knowledge of English to sense the disdain, they will likely require no knowledge of American culture to recognize that the one or two guys acting differently are the unit meatheads).

[Ken White]

May be true, may not be. I don't think there's enough information to express a valid opinion. Always two sides to any peeing contest and the truth is generally in between. Not a good plan to rush to judgment on hearsay...

If it is true, it is indeed an unquestionable leadership fault on the part of the 82d folks, picking on the ANP shouldn't have been tolerated by anyone SGT and above. The TF Fury Bns were new at the time (last year) but that's no excuse.

I'd also really like to know what he did about it at the time...

However, I'm reminded by this that the 'Elite' bit is a two way slanging watch. There's a surprising amount of venom directed at those perceived rightly or wrongly to be higher in the pecking order by folks who presume they are looked down upon. Much of that is wrong and unnecessary IMO. In my experience, there is more hatred and discontent expressed upstream than there is derision, disdain or disrespect sent downstream.

Take it a step further, the active Army disparages the ArNG -- and the ArNG can be way beyond disparaging about the active Army -- generally among themselves, rarely to the active folks in person. SF and the conventional Army which get plenty of coverage here -- lot of mud slinging which does no one any favors. Been my observation that there's plenty of wrongdoing -- or wrong saying -- on both sides of most of those peeing contests.

On this particular topic in that theater, folks I know who deployed with the 82d to Afghanistan recount problems and conflicts with the ArNG folks on the training teams on a variety of issues and therefor a residual batch of hurt feelings on both sides.

My impression is that the Troops from the 82d have no problem and have generally good rapport with the ANA -- who themselves deride the ANP as lesser mortals and do not like to operate with them -- but do tend to treat the ANP like most everyone in Afghanistan seems to; poor relations.

That's not right and, if true needs to be fixed but it is, I believe at the Joe level understandable (and thus needs a little supervisory direction). Be nice if everyone was grown up and did a good job at everything all the time but that's unlikely.

With respect to Ian's question:

"...how can junior officers give their men a better understanding of their mission and cultural context in which they are operating?"

Some of you guys that are more current than I am can give him a better answer, but IMO, the answer is:

It is not the junior officers job to do that; it is a Command (read at least Bn) responsibility. At the junior officer level, what should occur is insuring that all the troops get to all the classes and in conjunction with the PSG, decide on a course of action to improve upon and reinforce the higher echelon stuff. That would include but not be limited to insuring all the NCOs have copies of the cultural handouts from the CoCom and theater, have a phrase book and practice the critical phrases among them selves -- it will filter down to the troops (most of them, anyway). The important thing for the junior officer is to learn what's right and what's wrong and to make sure that his NCOs enforce the rules and guidelines with common sense once you get in country.

None of that takes a great deal of time -- or effort -- and it can all be done while other things are happening and at scheduled training lulls when all are sitting around waiting for the next relay or event. The real effort is just making sure people do what they're supposed (and generally know that they are) to do

[jmm99]

The author's focus (starting with the title) is on "culture" - specifically military culture.

As I understand his argument, the prevelence of elitism (pecking orders), in too many cases, leads to a trained indifference (and distain ?) to those who are not of "our" elite.

(e.g., from article)
In the American Army, there is a hierarchy, as most are well aware. This hierarchy is based on the "Hooah Factor" or the degree of eliteness of one soldier as compared to another. In the Infantry, the Airborne is higher than the Leg, for instance. In any initial sizing-up, an American soldier is weighed by his or her rank, apparent physical prowess, qualifications, what unit they belong to, and what badges they wear; and their ability to project a stream of urine for any distance is immediately assessed. It is the unspoken pissing contest. It is bred into our beings as younglings while still sopping wet behind the ears and is actively encouraged and trained. It becomes second nature. In fact, it is in our natures even before we reach the reception stations. Soldiers want to be elite.

But, he finds the Marines to be a different kind of "elite":

Oddly enough, the Marines seem to be getting the "working with indidge" thing a lot better than the Army is, too. I did not witness the same tendency to look down their noses at Afghans among Marines that I noticed among soldiers. I think this odd because the Marines assume that they are elite, as opposed to the Army, where most of the Army finds itself resentful of the few "elite."

This quote is out of context, and yet it applies perfectly:

"Because cultural preferences tend to value certain roles and to devalue other roles, military culture can impede innovation in ways of warfare that lie outside that military’s preferred core roles. ~ LTC Robert Cassidy"

The link to LTC Cassidy's 2008 article, Counterinsurgency and Military Culture, is here.

And, he also uses SF as an example of the non-elite elite.

One thing that surprised me in action was the disconnect between the conventional forces and the Special Forces. Counterinsurgency has typically been the realm of the Special Forces, but this is too large for just the SF. The job that my team did, that Bouhammer did before us and Vampire 06 has done after us, is traditionally a Special Forces mission. Just to clarify for anyone who might care, I am not a Special Forces soldier. In fact, there's nothing for me to feel especially elite about; but I know what I know. What I know is that the thing that makes the Special Forces so special is their attitude, the same one that gave them their nickname; Quiet Professionals. The SF have found a way to be elite without having to act elite. Just as we have had to borrow lessons from them on how to train indigenous forces, we need to learn from them how to have the humility to work with others and to respect other cultures. We need to learn how to be elite without having to be better than anyone else.

And, as a counterpoint to the Marines and SF, the author presents "SSG Smokey Jackalacker", whose photo says it all.

Having lived through 40 years in a profession that has more than a level dose of elitism , I found both of these articles interesting (and informative) from a cultural standpoint.

[Ian K]

To whoever fixed the thread title:
Thank you so much.

To the rest:
Thanks for the responses. The story I linked to was intended as an example of the sorts of things Cavguy mentioned in his quote, not an insult to the men of the 82nd. There's obviously no way to verify the veracity of that particular anecdote, but I've heard of similar things happening elsewhere.

Ken White:
Your response was basically what I was looking for.

Jimm99:
I'm glad I was able to contribute something of interest.

Thanks again.

[Old Blue]

JMM99 was right. That particular article was about culture in the Army and how in the counterinsurgency fight the elitism that is bred in as a result of the Reagan Revolution in the Army (an overwhelming improvement over the post-Viet Nam problems of lack of discipline, drug abuse, and conditioning) has caused unintended consequences.

True, the TF Fury Soldiers expressed more willingness to work with the ANA and compared the ANP very unafavorably (rightly) to the ANA. The TF Fury Soldiers did not interact with the ANA Soldiers other than in operations and I'm not sure if the contrast between the two Afghan forces caused them to be more openly disdainful of the ANP and diverted their attention from any comments towards the ANA or not. The Soldiers did show a general lack of regard for Afghans in general.

I think that it is a leadership and a training issue; but I believe that the training issue is a deeper problem than just that. Counterinsurgency is a very distributed form of warfare; even more so than light infantry warfare in restrictive terrain. Yet we do not train counterinsurgency in the NCOES or at the Soldier level.

Sometimes what we train what we call COIN, but it's really just counter-guerrilla. Basically we produce conventionally-oriented young warriors and then when they are operating in the shooting war they are in a COIN environment. We build in the elitism, provide inadequate cultural training, do not address the working with indigenous forces issue in training (very difficult, but needs to be considered) and do not train the basics of COIN theory and practice. The young Soldiers hear, "COIN" all the time, but they don't really understand it.

These are just ground level observations from Afghanistan. Perhaps it is theater-specific as far as not having a Phoenix Academy or anything similar upon RSOI.

In COIN, every positive interaction is very important, and every negative action is amplified or even confirms the enemy's IO. We fail on the training, and there are quite often failures on the leadership side. This is also cultural. A recent article noted the difference between the stateside and the deployed Army. We are not fighting in our preferred venue of AirLand and it shows. There is a great reluctance to embrace COIN, and when it is claimed, it is often counter-guerrilla incorrectly labeled as COIN.

Between that and incredibly centralized command and control in many cases, the Army is not effectively applying a very distributed methodology. These are key causative issues whose proof is in the worsening situation in Afghanistan.