In this episode, Colonel Daniel W. Henk (US Army, retired), PhD, and Dr. Allison Abbe discuss cultural education in the US military. They emphasize the importance of cultural capability across the competition and conflict continuum and address how the Department of Defense can build on service culture centers’ efforts to address the LREC skills military personnel need to work effectively across cultural boundaries, whether during conflict against an adversary or in interoperability with allies and partners.
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Podcast record date: August 27, 2024
Keywords: culture, human domain, cross-cultural competence, military education
Episode transcript
Stephanie Crider (host)
You are listening to Decisive Point. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the guests and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, the US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government.
I'm talking remotely with Colonel Daniel W. Henk and Dr. Allison Abbe, authors of “Restoring Priority on Cultural Skill Sets for Modern Military Professionals,” which you can find in the Autumn 2024 issue of Parameters.
Henk, US Army retired, holds a PhD in social anthropology. His research interests include peace operations, human and environmental security, and civil-military relations. He was the founding director of the Air Force Culture and Language Center.
Abbe is a professor of organizational studies and the Matthew B. Ridgway Chair of Leadership Studies at the US Army War College. Her research focuses on [the] development of leadership and intercultural skills in national security leaders.
Welcome to Decisive Point, Dan and Allison.
COL Dan Henk (US Army, retired)
Thank you.
Dr. Allison Abbe
Thanks for hosting.
Host
Why are human relations skills important to US military operations or partnerships in today’s culturally complex environments? And, if you could, briefly cite a couple of specific examples to illustrate your answer.
Henk
A compelling argument could really be made that in conflict in the early twenty-first century, managing human relations has risen to a level of importance that we’ve never seen before. And for the military professional, doing the nation’s business really now means an ability to understand and to work very well with very diverse communities under the constant scrutiny and instant reporting of the information age and, often, unfortunately, with malign actors waiting and watching for our missteps. Poor command of human relations skills could very easily lead to mission failure at any level of responsibility and across the entire spectrum of military involvements.
If you don’t mind, let me just offer a couple of examples.
In 2004, not long after our latest intervention in Iraq, a very perceptive young Marine documented American military deficiencies in working across cultural boundaries at the tactical level in Iraq. His article appeared in Small Wars Journal and was titled “Marines Are from Mars, Iraqis Are from Venus.” He made the point, based on his observation, that it is very difficult to work with people when you are clueless about their take on reality, about their norms, about their values, about their expectations, and about their grievances and their insecurities.
But, you know, the same thing is true at a higher level, as well. In my role as an attaché and a researcher, I frequently overheard comments by host nation officials describing US military connections. Some were complimentary, to be sure. Many were not. In fact, American military personnel were really often characterized as impatient, insensitive to local dynamics, and much more inclined to operate on transmit than on receive. Now, the fact of the matter is a grounding in the more advanced skills of cross-cultural competence could have been a considerable help—both in avoiding offense and in discerning the true nature of the relationships.
We have had senior officials that have displayed really commendable cross-cultural skills at very high levels of responsibility. Particularly noteworthy were [Special Presidential Envoy] Robert Oakley and Director of Operations Marine General Anthony Zinni in Operation Restore Hope in Somalia in ’92 and ’93. These two men were true cross-cultural adepts. They were able to reconcile and work with extraordinarily diverse and difficult actors in one of the world’s most problematic conflict environments. They reached out, they communicated well, they reconciled hostile factions, and they achieved a remarkable cooperation. Sadly, their UN [United Nations] successors had no such motivation or capability, and their American peers generally lacked their cross-cultural proficiency.
The point here, again, is that the military profession in the twenty-first century will succeed or fail based on its ability to understand opponents, appeal to the uncommitted, and work effectively with partners and allies. And, cross-cultural competence is key to these capabilities.
Abbe
Looking forward, the National Defense Strategy does really rely on allies and partners in this strategy. And so, developing those relationships at all levels, from the tactical to strategic, is really important for success, especially in our relationships in the Pacific, where we might not have had the same level of experience, where military personnel serving now all have experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, and, now, we are looking to the Pacific, where they may not have as much cultural awareness or cultural knowledge. So, we need to rebuild that in personnel for another theater. And, more broadly, just for the strategy and facing all of our potential adversaries and competitors, it would be important to incorporate these cultural skills that we talk about in the article.
Host
The Department of Defense has identified language, regional expertise, and culture—the LREC rubric—as a body of related essential skills. Yet, you’ve chosen to focus on culture and, even more specifically, on cross-cultural competence. How do these skill sets relate, and why does your discussion single out culture?
Henk
Well, there has been, since the early twenty-first century, a new DoD focus on this new paradigm of LREC—language, regional expertise, and culture. Behind this formula is actually the explicit assumption that these are mutually reinforcing skills. We fully agree with that. Absolutely. But, imagine the best of all worlds—a military professional deploys to a contingency environment fluent in the local language, having a detailed knowledge of the region, [and] steeped in cross-cultural expertise. Of course, if these skills could be combined and harnessed in one person, he or she would have an unmatched ability to impact the social environment.
But, you know, that combination is an absolutely optimum scenario. It is conceivable but is very far from likely—simply because of the limitations of time and resources and human capacity. It is much more probable that real fluency in foreign languages and pockets of deep regional expertise will continue in our system to reside largely in specialized communities accessed as needed.
That being the case, here are a couple of observations.
Our need for foreign language speakers is so obvious that it hardly requires comment, and language-enabled service personnel are worth every penny we spend on them. And, we could do more—and should. But, no matter what inducements we use, we will never fully satisfy the language demand, particularly the requirements for sudden, newly needed languages. We all know that military professionals are not all able to learn languages or to learn them well, and very few of us will learn enough different languages to cover all likely contingency environments to which we may be sent.
Now, the same holds true for regional knowledge, actually. It is valuable stuff. We should produce more of it. But, when it’s held by one person, it’s simply not going to stretch far enough and deep enough to cover even the predictable, let alone the unforeseen, in the worldwide responsibilities of the general-purpose forces. The fact is we are devoting substantial resources to both language and regional expertise, but these two skill sets, despite their value, have significant limitations. That’s why, for us, the long pole in the human-relations tent has to be cross-cultural competence. Sure, that competence would be immensely enhanced if supported by language fluency and regional expertise in the right place and time—and again, if these were available. But of the three, cross-cultural competence is the only generalized set of skills that could be used anywhere. It’s the only set that could be instantly available. That’s why cross-cultural competence is an astute investment. If we can produce it, you can be absolutely assured we will use it everywhere all the time.
Abbe
I just want to emphasize that point about how difficult it is to scale language proficiency very rapidly—even getting personnel to limited proficiency for operations takes [a] substantial amount of time. And so, being able to scale that, as we found in previous conflicts, there’s just so many limitations on it. So, we’re not arguing against language skills per se but arguing for a more scalable skill set in helping personnel understand cultures and how to make sense of other cultures wherever it is that they find the
