Applying Culture to Military Operations: A Review of Foreign Militaries

Abstract

After 9/11, the U.S. Department of Defense rushed to create cultural training programs within the Services to address a perceived lack of cultural expertise, but a lack of consensus remains regarding the effectiveness of their methodologies and overall programs. For this reason, a review of cultural programs within foreign militaries offers useful feedback from countries experienced in conducting foreign military operations. This research compares the cultural learning programs of ten countries. The commonalities discerned among the foreign militaries indicate a consensus between countries regarding the advantages of using cultural advisors in the field to inform complex decisions. Likewise, most countries agree on the requirement for cultural awareness training in a flexible, easily-digested package that can be broadly available to general purpose forces. However, the review uncovered that formal assessment is absent across the board to validate the usefulness of these types of cultural learning programs.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Apr 04, 2012
Accession Number
ADA601127

Entities

People

  • Kathi D. Gates

Organizations

  • Marine Corps University

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Department Of Defense
  • Doctrine
  • Education
  • Employment
  • Geography
  • Governments
  • Lessons Learned
  • Military Education
  • Military Operations
  • Military Personnel
  • Military Science
  • Military Training
  • National Security
  • Personnel Management
  • Students
  • Training
  • Warfare

Fields of Study

  • Political science

Readers

  • East Asian Political and Security Studies within the Soviet Union
  • Instructional Design and Training Evaluation.
  • Systems Analysis and Design