Revisiting Army Cultural Intelligence: Classes from Afghanistan and Iraq

Revisiting Army Cultural Intelligence: Classes from Afghanistan and Iraq

By Tomos Holmes Davies

The invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation has value 1000’s of lives, displaced tens of millions and introduced a critical problem for the worldwide neighborhood. On this more and more fraught geopolitical local weather, NATO and its allies could also be confronted with extra threats. One in every of these is the proliferation of irregular conflict, and there have been requires Western militaries to re-evaluate their approaches to irregular types of battle corresponding to insurgency to organize for the long run.[1] Accordingly, this paper revisits navy cultural intelligence, a functionality that performed a major position in coalition counterinsurgency (COIN) operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Drawing on first-hand accounts of a small group of British and American navy personnel, I replicate on three issues with the applying of navy cultural intelligence in these conflicts and talk about the way it is perhaps improved sooner or later. 

Army cultural intelligence includes gathering details about folks within the theatre of operations.[2] In Afghanistan and Iraq, information of native cultural norms, politics, societal buildings, historical past and language was harnessed by the coalition to assist common items have interaction with the communities round them and cut back the necessity for kinetic motion.[3] It was launched into coalition technique as a part of the so known as cultural ‘flip’, a theoretical shift in navy doctrine in direction of profitable ‘hearts and minds’.[4] It was codified in doctrinal manuals and utilized within the discipline by cultural specialist items, notably the American Human Terrain System (HTS), and the British Defence Cultural Specialist Unit (DCSU). These items, composed of navy reservists and civilian analysts, had been deployed to assist common battalions navigate the socio-cultural complexities of their operational environments. This paper focuses on three issues with the applying of navy cultural intelligence. Firstly, it was by no means absolutely built-in into the British or American navy buildings, which made it tough for cultural specialists to work alongside common items on the bottom and brought about issues for normal officers who had little pre-deployment cultural intelligence coaching. Secondly, a scarcity of civil-military cooperation, significantly between navy employees, authorities departments and the educational neighborhood, introduced additional obstacles for cultural specialists and officers. Thirdly, coalition navy manuals contained some careless generalizations in the way in which they approached the topic of tradition, which arguably blunted the effectiveness of the aptitude on the bottom.

For the reason that retreat from Afghanistan in 2021 navy cultural intelligence has not been broadly mentioned. Those that have revisited it counsel that it shouldn’t play a job in future preparation for irregular conflict and COIN. Tripodi, for instance, argues that it was essentially a software for manipulating native populations, and western doctrine should re-think the utility of information in conflict.[5] Others have argued towards it on a sensible degree, suggesting that no quantity of cultural intelligence might have supported the coalition as the percentages had been already stacked too extremely towards them.[6] Criticisms have additionally been levelled at cultural intelligence on moral grounds, echoing the American anthropologists who noticed it as a deadly software that betrayed their skilled code of conduct by facilitating focused killings.[7] This paper doesn’t dismiss these views. Certainly, there have been vital shortcomings, together with questions round ethics, that require consideration. Nevertheless, these shortcomings don’t imply the aptitude needs to be forged apart. NATO could find yourself woefully unprepared if this framework for participating with the native inhabitants in COIN operations has been deserted and forgotten. Cultural understanding is of paramount significance for the navy in COIN and irregular operations. This level is made eloquently by Simpson. As an infantry officer in Afghanistan, he acknowledged that his choices on the bottom is perhaps perceived in a wide range of methods by the native folks, and it was essential to have an satisfactory degree of cultural consciousness to know why they held these perceptions.[8] Moreover, because the firsthand accounts of the interview respondents show, there nonetheless appears to be a eager curiosity in discussing non-lethal strategies of COIN and avoiding extreme destruction with typical drive.

There are some last factors to deal with earlier than discussing the three issues. When it comes to the first supplies on this examine, a collection of semi-formal interviews had been held throughout analysis for a grasp’s dissertation in 2020, between March and June 2020. 5 former British Army and Territorial Army officers, one Royal Navy officer and an American cultural intelligence analyst had been interviewed. Moral clearance was obtained, and the respondents have been anonymized, with solely their ranks talked about. A desk of restricted details about the respondents has been included in determine 1. Relating to terminology, you will need to justify the selection of the time period ‘cultural intelligence’ for this examine. There’s a vary of options, corresponding to ‘human terrain’ or ‘cultural terrain’, utilized by senior coalition commanders together with David Petraeus and Ray Odierno to explain the cultural setting of Iraq and Afghanistan. Extra lately, ‘cultural quotient’ has appeared in US navy journals to explain how small common items can work together successfully with civilians.[9] I’ve elected to make use of ‘cultural intelligence’ as a result of it elegantly combines these totally different parts. On a structural word, readers may discover a scarcity of variety within the nationalities of the respondents. It was unlucky not to have the ability to interview extra US navy personnel, however, a lot of the British officers I spoke with labored with the US navy on many events throughout their careers and made insightful, balanced feedback on their approaches. The choice to check each the People and British in the identical paper may also appear complicated to readers, contemplating there have been some variations within the approaches of the 2 nations. right here had been sufficient similarities that it will not be unreasonable to method each coalition companions in a single paper. Moreover, this isn’t a comparative examine, however an try to study from the errors that each militaries made.

Prior Integration

The primary downside with navy cultural intelligence is that it was not absolutely built-in all through the entire navy construction, in both the British or American militaries. This can be shocking contemplating that the British Army had a protracted historical past of counterinsurgency campaigns together with Northern Eire and Malaya.[10] Moreover, securing the help of the native folks and profitable ‘hearts and minds’ had been a central tenet of American efforts within the preliminary phases of the Vietnam Warfare.[11] Nevertheless, in Afghanistan and Iraq, common items had been deployed within the two international locations with little prior cultural intelligence coaching, and the aptitude was largely left within the fingers of the specialist items. This meant that common officers struggled to take care of complicated socio-cultural environment. Additionally, the specialist items confronted difficulties working alongside common items, which blunted their skill to function successfully on the bottom.

The consequences of little to no pre-deployment cultural intelligence coaching had been felt acutely by the officers. Respondent 1, a Lieutenant-Common with intensive peacekeeping expertise in Bosnia, was annoyed on the state of affairs in Iraq. ‘After I was in command’, he recalled, ‘I had scientific advisors, intelligence advisors and political advisors, however no cultural advisor.’[12] Respondent 3, an infantry Main who served in Afghanistan in 2010, additionally skilled issues. He recalled being invited into conferences (shuras) with native elders, and negotiating with virtually no prior coaching to interpret unfamiliar expressions and behavioural patterns of the Afghans.[13] Though he acquired surface-level intelligence, such because the identification of the attendees on the shura and directions of the tools his troops had been permitted to convey, there have been no directions for comporting himself throughout the conferences or responding successfully to the locals to establish what their priorities actually had been. As a substitute, he needed to rely purely on his instinct. Some officers additionally revealed that the navy appeared to fill gaps in pre-deployment cultural intelligence coaching with non permanent options. This was one thing respondent 2 skilled as a Royal Naval officer serving with the Joint Chiefs of Workers in Afghanistan. Whereas patrolled with a daily military unit in Kabul, distributing sweets and presents to native civilians, he had his facet arm confiscated to stop him or any senior employees officers performing impulsively, as that they had not been skilled to behave in such an unfamiliar socio-cultural setting.[14] 

            As a result of cultural intelligence was not a well-known functionality amongst common troops, the specialist items struggled to work alongside them. Once more, regardless of many officers praising the items, there was a basic feeling of suspicion and disapproval, and this was felt acutely by HTS. Established in 2006 by TRADOC at Fort Leavenworth, this American unit was deployed throughout Iraq and Afghanistan in thirty-three separate groups composed primarily of civilian social scientists.[15] These groups had been embedded with common items to supply cultural information to regimental officers, who might make choices primarily based on a greater information of the inhabitants. The unit was acquired positively in lots of corners of the navy, at the very least within the preliminary phases of the conflict. Nevertheless, the hasty introduction of this unit alongside the mainstream navy exacerbated huge cultural variations between educational social scientists and the common troopers. McFate, one of many founders of the unit, means that this broad cultural gulf affected the flexibility of the unit to operate correctly.[16] On one facet of this divide was the troopers, skilled to make fast choices in high-pressure conditions, and on the opposite had been lecturers, skilled to check a variety of interpretations over a gradual, methodical course of.[17] Many civilian personnel in HTS struggled to ‘overcome their very own individualism’, and had been handled by the common items as outsiders who didn’t perceive navy tradition.[18] Moreover, many HTS groups started altering the character of their work to adapt to the operational necessities of the common items.[19] As a substitute of detailed intelligence gathering, ethnographic evaluation and interviews, many groups resorted to human terrain mapping. This concerned merely figuring out the place sure communities resided, earlier than leaving the battalion commander to resolve learn how to have interaction with them.[20]

The respondents had been clear that the answer to this downside lay in enhancing ranges of cultural intelligence all through the entire navy, providing common officers and males significantly higher pre-deployment coaching. Respondent 4, an intelligence officer, argued ‘you can not brigade cultural consciousness. It have to be embedded correctly in the entire navy’.[21] Respondent 1 additionally believed there had been a elementary error in leaving cultural intelligence as the only real duty of specialist items, and acknowledged that ‘cultural intelligence items needs to be applied within the general navy construction.’[22] Respondent 3 went additional to argue that cultural intelligence shouldn’t be an ‘add-on battalion’, however wanted to be ‘engrained on the degree of decision-making leaders and senior officers.’[23] Respondent 2 believed that ‘it needs to be obligatory for the officer coaching corps to obtain an excellent cultural training’.[24] He advised ‘we completely want cultural items, however we additionally want a better-educated navy.’[25]

Civil-Army Relations

One other downside for the aptitude was poor civil navy relations. Army employees, authorities departments and the educational neighborhood didn’t collaborate to make sure that navy cultural intelligence might obtain efficient leads to the sector. That is exemplified by educational opposition to the Human Terrain System, and negligible British authorities help for DCSU and for cultural intelligence extra usually. Civil-military relations in liberal democracies are extremely complicated and the US and UK are prime examples of the place this ‘strained covenant’, as described by Sir Richard Dannatt, comes into play.[26] Nevertheless, cultural intelligence depended extremely on profitable civil-military collaboration, and issues on this respect brought about main obstacles.

In December 2009, the American Anthropological Affiliation (AAA) commissioned an evaluation of the actions of the Human Terrain System. The consequence was a 72-page doc highlighting what they seen as some main flaws within the work of the unit.[27] The AAA concluded that HTS was breaking the moral code adopted by anthropologists, which acknowledged that topics below examine must not ever be dropped at hurt.[28] Most of the key advocates within the Affiliation took subject with how members of their very own occupation had enlisted in HTS, and so they accused them of aiding deadly navy operations. Sahlins, Gusterson and Lutz denounced American cultural intelligence as an initiative involving ‘culturally-illiterate’ American troops supported by ‘second-rate mercenary lecturers.’[29] These authors didn’t acknowledge that HTS was dealing with appreciable cultural issues of its personal, struggling to work alongside common items who had side-lined them, and their criticisms had been very damaging to the credibility of the unit. The assaults of the Affiliation triggered main debates within the US, and the moral ‘controversies’ of HTS made nationwide information.[30] Respondent 7, a cultural analyst in HTS, recalled that their criticism turned significantly vehement and private.

“Once they [the AAA] checked out HTS they merely noticed a bunch of men with weapons. Their minds had been fully closed…their assaults had been broad and private and meant to hurt, which was unusual contemplating their moral code of conduct.”[31]

As for British cultural intelligence efforts, educational opposition appears to have been far lower than within the American case. Certainly, the event of the British Army Subject Guide 1-10 concerned a workforce of navy officers and lecturers, and powerful ties are maintained between the navy and the Division of Warfare Research at King’s Faculty London, and the Altering Character of Warfare Institute at Oxford. Nevertheless, a number of officers I interviewed complained of a scarcity of presidency help being significantly damaging for cultural intelligence efforts. This manifested in several methods. Firstly, there was little or no consciousness concerning the cultural intelligence skills that the UK might convey to bear at first of the battle, and the DCSU encountered nice difficulties at its inception, having to take care of a myriad of presidency groups on the bottom in Afghanistan and having to combat for consideration and help. Respondent 2 described how there have been a number of authorities departments working in Afghanistan in ‘non-public fiefdoms’ with competing goals. He mentioned candidly:

‘That is how establishments function alongside one another It’s a full phantasm that they cooperate easily.[32]

Respondent 5, a younger officer who performed a key position in growing DCSU, struggled to navigate this setting throughout his deployment in Afghanistan. He claimed that there have been ‘quite a few [coalition] organizations combating one another’, and that on events he needed to ‘beg, borrow and steal’ sources from totally different authorities departments. He even recounted that the International Workplace and Ministry of Defence challenged him when he started working to ascertain the unit.[33] After I requested why there was such hostility, he mentioned these departments believed his unit was infringing on their territory by finishing up work that they anticipated to take duty for.[34]

Some respondents additionally complained that there had been a whole lack of information concerning the poor state of cultural intelligence capabilities within the British Army on the outset of the interventions. Respondent 6, an archaeologist and Center Jap professional, who served with the Territorial Army in Iraq, recalled that there had as soon as been ‘main boards’ for discussing totally different cultures world wide, such because the Royal Central Asian Society.[35] Right here, folks from a wide range of professions, together with the federal government, academia and navy, converged to debate complicated cultural points regarding that area. Nevertheless, as he illustrated, many of those establishments had been scrapped or suffered main budgetary cuts, and the federal government and navy didn’t coordinate to deal with this subject.[36] Respondent 6 referred to this as a ‘systemic failure’.[37]

This downside strongly means that much better civil-military coordination is required for the aptitude to work successfully. The respondents all agreed. Respondent 6 advised the navy ought to set up a parliamentary foyer for the overview of cultural intelligence, and to type a complete working plan for government-military collaboration.[38] Respondent 3 advised an answer to bridge the gulf between the navy and educational neighborhood was to foster larger collaboration in peacetime:

‘Holding symposiums, wargames, simulations, and demographics research is essential. We should work in peacetime to construct up information of various cultural areas.’[39]

Doctrine

The final downside is how cultural intelligence was included in navy doctrine. Doctrine is outlined because the ideas via which the navy guides its actions in help of nationwide goals.[40] In Iraq and Afghanistan, there was a powerful emphasis on cultural intelligence within the American Counterinsurgency Subject Guide FM 3-24, and the British Army Subject Guide, AFM 1-10. These manuals had been defining options of the cultural ‘flip’, the place coalition forces acknowledged the significance of profitable ‘hearts and minds’ in COIN operations. Nevertheless, there have been vital generalizations within the manuals, which discredited this new theoretical shift and arguably led to common officers resorting to simplistic, surface-level options on the bottom.

The American Counterinsurgency Subject Guide 3-24, authored by David Petraeus and James Amos, was printed in December 2006. In October 2009 the British AFM 1-10 adopted, printed by a workforce of navy officers and lecturers together with Strachan, Farrell, and Betz. Writing MCI into navy doctrine was undoubtedly a herculean endeavor. In FM 3-24, Amos and Petraeus set up how tradition is essential for ‘gaining help and help’ from the native inhabitants, and that counterinsurgents ought to concentrate on ‘beliefs, values and norms’ that unite a neighborhood. They illustrate the significance of utilizing HTS or ‘inexperienced cell’ operatives (an admixture of native civilians or authorities advisors) to furnish common items with native information.[41] In AFM 1-10, there’s a sturdy deal with ‘the psychological dimension’ of COIN, discussing the significance of cultural information for ‘gaining and sustaining well-liked help’.[42] Regardless of many these logical and detailed ideas, each manuals contained some problematic generalisations that didn’t sufficiently deal with the complicated nature of tradition. The American doctrine additionally contained hyperlinks to controversial materials that solely attracted damaging criticism. Porter explains how there was a reliance on many colonial or culturally ‘essentialist’ works, corresponding to Orientalist Raphael Patai’s 1973 work, the Arab Thoughts, within the US navy curriculum.[43] Based on Porter, Patai ‘…casts Arabs all the way in which from Algeria to Saudi Arabia as a monolithic folks.’ Patai was additionally challenged by Edward Mentioned, who claimed that he had ‘eradicate[d] the plurality of variations amongst Arabs.’[44] One other flaw Porter identifies in US doctrine is full oversight of cultural hybridity, the notion that Iraqis and Afghans had been remoted in their very own bubble, inherently separate from the West. Porter challenges this with examples corresponding to Ubayd al-Qurashi, an Islamist strategist who took inspiration from Robert Taber’s work, The Warfare of the Flea.[45]

As for AFM 1-10, there are a number of references to Seven Pillars of Knowledge by T.E. Lawrence, the British intelligence officer and archaeologist who performed a pivotal position within the Arab revolt towards the Ottoman Empire within the First World Warfare.[46] A superb strategist, Lawrence however characterised Arabs as ‘a restricted, narrow-minded folks, whose intellects lay fallow in incongruous resignation.’[47] The officers views of this had been combined, with some viewing the historic British legacy of cultural intelligence gathering as a constructive affect. Nevertheless, they did imagine that there have been essentialist strains in doctrine that inspired British troops to view the operational setting via a slender, western-centric lens. Based on respondent 3, this created a state of affairs the place the Iraqi and Afghan folks ‘consciously noticed what [our] biases had been and used them towards us.’[48]

There are additionally indications that simplistic approaches in doctrine translated into easy options on the bottom. Based on respondent 2, there was a bent to revert to effectivity and brevity in conditions that required a cautious interpretation of cultural variations. The naval officer recounted:

‘The People discovered it tough to take care of different cultures as a result of they operated in keeping with a PowerPoint tradition…the concept that they might encapsulate complicated cultural points in three bullet factors…’.[49]

A sign of this ‘PowerPoint tradition’ coming into play is the place Common Petraeus tried to cut back sectarian violence in key cities and cities in Iraq throughout the troop surge in 2007. As Rosen illustrates, the coalition forces provided brief time period options to extra complicated issues that higher cultural intelligence would have helped to keep away from.  Respondent 1 additionally drew a hyperlink between simplistic approaches in doctrine and the coalition technique within the Anbar Awakening, the place Petraeus tried to safe the help of highly effective Sunni tribal leaders in central Iraq. He claimed, ‘understanding the actual distinction between the Sunni and Shia may need made Petraeus hesitate earlier than he rushed into an alliance with them.’[50] Once more, Rosen helps this view, explaining how lots of the younger males within the province that the People tried to recruit into neighbourhood safety roles had complicated allegiances. These typically included Al-Qaeda associates that had been busy focusing on coalition troops.[51]

Discovering an answer to those doctrinal challenges wouldn’t be a simple job, as a shift in mental beliefs is required, not simply structural reorganization. However, the respondents provided some numerous cures. Respondent 4, the officer within the intelligence corps, additionally had a background in anthropology. He provided a radical resolution: adopting the educational strategies like poststructuralism in navy doctrine. This French mental motion, which gained traction with anthropologists and social scientists within the Sixties, emphasised the plurality and open-endedness of which means.[52] As McFate defined, the conventional routine of the navy includes pragmatism and effectivity, and so this seemed like a slightly radical doctrinal framework to suggest. Nevertheless, respondent 4 believed that it would simply maintain the reply for the way cultural intelligence is written into navy doctrine.

‘It will be significant that commanders have the suitable lexicon, who know concerning the significance of cultural symbols and markers – all of the tropes which might be utilized in cultural anthropology. I don’t bear in mind having conversations with anybody who thought of these analysis strategies, however these might assist cultural specialists collect proof that individuals place confidence in.’[53] 

Conclusion

            This paper studied three shortcomings with the applying of navy cultural intelligence in Afghanistan and Iraq and mentioned potential cures for the long run. Because the interviews with a small group of senior navy personnel revealed, a greater working mannequin for navy cultural intelligence ought to embrace pre-deployment cultural coaching for officers and different ranks, in order that the aptitude is built-in all through all the navy construction. It also needs to be honed and developed via efficient communication between the navy, lecturers, and authorities departments. Lastly, a revision of how cultural intelligence is written into British and American counterinsurgency doctrine is required, with a deal with how controversial historic information is perhaps included in a extra vital trend, exploring various analysis strategies that enable for a deeper engagement with cultural understanding, in addition to environment friendly navy options. As issues stand in the present day, there’s nonetheless work to be finished in these instructions. Within the US, curiosity in cultural intelligence has largely trailed off in educational literature, other than a number of thorough perception items on learn how to protect the ‘cultural quotient’ of a unit working on unfamiliar soil. A model of HTS additionally lingers on however with considerably much less funding or consideration than it acquired in Afghanistan and Iraq.[54] Within the UK, it’s but to be seen whether or not the DCSU even has a future because the proposals of the 2021 Built-in Overview proceed to take form. There have additionally been few civil-military discussions concerning the functionality in each nations, and the parliamentary foyer that respondent 6 envisaged has but to be arrange. That is regrettable, however hopefully additional discussions will act as a primary step for future modifications.

There are a number of the reason why you will need to replicate on capabilities like cultural intelligence, and why we must always view Afghanistan and Iraq as alternatives for studying beneficial classes, slightly than arguments for invalidating a doubtlessly helpful functionality. Firstly, we can not say with certainty that the West won’t ever grow to be embroiled in main abroad COIN operations sooner or later. Certainly, respondent 3, the Main who had served in Afghanistan, warned:

‘I’d wager cash that we go into related conflicts like Iraq and Afghanistan sooner or later…Governments don’t get elected primarily based on desirous to combat a conflict. They will occur unexpectedly… Junior officers have been advised numerous instances that conflict will finish, and that governments don’t have the abdomen for it. However it’ll come alongside once more.’[55]

 On this new environment of heightened geopolitical rigidity, we could witness a rise in navy exercise in components of the world the place the strategic pursuits of NATO and its rivals collide. Moreover, discussing navy cultural intelligence means we don’t lose sight of learn how to conduct counterinsurgency in much less deadly methods. It will be significant that western militaries proceed to debate learn how to have interaction with the native folks within the theatre of operations, slightly than dismissing the aptitude on the grounds of operational difficulties and resorting to the more serious various of utilizing larger aggressive and deadly drive to eradicate insurgents, and wreaking collateral havoc within the course of.