I am sure Nichols will be here momentarily - and likely to disagree with me. The idea of awareness for the Corporal described my Mr. Owen (I served with a CPL F-nuts - I wonder if it was the same guy.) is critical towards doing less harm than good when interacting with the populace, and especially critical during latter phases of the operation. As we move from "Kill em all" to "make love, not war" we have to know how to approach the targets of our love.

However, ensuring that our troops are "aware" of the culture of a foreign nation is almost an impossibility today. Sure, in Iraq and Afghanistan, we are in a position to train prior to deployment in theater. However, what about that Marine unit aboard ship on way to Iraq and diverted to the next hot spot, where cultures differ from their initial target. The Army's current training systems fail to address this need.

Conversely, this lower awareness is great until you need true understanding. As rank nears senior enlisted or junior officer, tact and social graces become more important. Further up the ranks, they become mandatory. This is the strongest reason for the Foreign Affairs Officer position on many staffs. This expertise becomes the commanders Culture Expert. Unfortunately, in Iraq and Afghanistan we either didn't have enough theater specific FAOs or we didn't trust them apparently, so we developed the Human Terrain team. At the end of the day, the short fix is the FAO expertise, until we can train more to be knowledgable of the area of operation. It seems to be the only approach short of hiring 20 guys to be smart on each country, and then neven letting them go. (Although, i might suggest that Defense take better advantage of the other agencies who have experts and that they share across the board better)

It is almost as though you need a digital system which you could pull out and train your soldiers on the run to the fight. Hmm, if only such a system existed. . . Nichols?