Long ago and far away in the Land of Ahs (the marketing campaign used by the Kansas department of tourism when I lived there in the mid 80s), the Army taught me during CGSC about a thing called the "country team." I guess that hummer is passé now
CTs were my life and sometimes life was rather like the Hatfields and the McCoys as Stan and I encountered in our tour together in Zaire. Stan Reber was instrumental in identifying cousins and those who only claimed kinship.
Rwanda was a much closer CT. The team leader, Ambassador David Rawson, set the tone and that was cooperate, coordinate, and watch each other's back.

But I will also say the same kind of play occurred inside the Beltway; during Desert Storm it was much like Rwanda. Later when I visited from Rwanda, the inter-agency feud was in play like Zaire.

In another post on here by Menning, he put up George Packer's New Yorker article on Dave Kilcullen and Montgomery McFate. The article is an extract of Assassins Gate. Anyway Packer relates how Kilcullen came to the attention of Paul Wolfowitz because of Kilcullen's writings on irregular war.

I am glad that happened; I wish that in 2002 when Wolfowitz in speaking to Congress dimissed ethnic schisms in Iraq as trivial concerns when compared to the Balkans, he had stumbled across someone besides Ahmed Chalabi.

McFate is anthropologist whom Packer descibes as a missionary for the importance of cultural knowledge. An anthropologist, she had become a consultant for the Navy.

The Army and the Marines have long had a FAO program. The Navy and the Air Force started theirs in the 1990s when the JCS saw how important FAOs were to understanding the "New World Order" based on operations in the Middle East and Africa. I offer a quote on that very subject from 1994 I used to close my memoirs :

...I had two very important encounters with FAO’s during my recent trip to Africa and Europe:
...First, in Africa, I saw how important LTC Marley and LTC Odom are to their respective Ambassadors and to the CINC. They are both out in harm’s way using their unique skills to be invaluable eyes and ears in this crisis...
...As I go around the Army today, I find that the Marley’s and the Odom’s are as important as ever—maybe even more important when consider the role they could play in many of the crises we are facing almost daily.
Gordon R. Sullivan General, United States Army
Chief of Staff

The Army has long had Special Forces, Civil Affairs, and PSYOPs. Kilcullen's experiences have resurfaced what many of those forces along with FAOs have understood for decades.


In a round about way I am making three points:

a. Our decisions are often made without counsel when there are many Solomons at hand.

b. Sometimes it takes an outsider--because they are an outsider--to be heard.

c. And any reaction depends on who is doing the listening.

Tom