Quote Originally Posted by Dominique R. Poirier View Post
I understand your point Mr. Metz. We have some difficulty to adapt our communication to non-occidental cultures, and I acknowledge that I tend to focus my attention on those who live outside the Arabic area.

My concern is that Americans, because of our history as a cultural "melting pot" and because we do not have an imperial history, are particularly bad at understanding and operating within other cultures, yet we have been cast into an imperial role. I think we can see this in American grand strategy which is based on the assumption that the terrorism threat will end when other cultures become more like us. I also believe that we do not realize the extent to which our counterinsurgency doctrine and the Foreign Internal Defense approach are culture specific. They may work in Western cultures (El Salvador) but are unlikely to in others.

In my 20 years with the U.S. military, I have come to recognize that there are people who, for psychological reasons, are able to quickly understand, adjust to, and operate within other cultures, but they are rare. The military does not select for people with this talent, instead working on the belief that with training and education, it can make anyone able to understand, adjust to, and operate within other cultures.

To tell you the truth, I'm becoming more and more sympathetic to Andy Bacevich's argument that Americans are never going to be successful imperialists, so the best strategy is stop trying to play the role.