The Military Utility of Understanding Adversary Culture

■ Forum Female Marine searching Iraqi woman at control point outside Fallujah U.S. Marine Corps (Ryan B. Busse) And when people are entering upon a war they do things the wrong way around. Ottoman Empire, immersing himself Action comes first, and it is only when they have already suffered that they deeply in local culture: “Geography, begin to think. tribal structure, religion, social cus- —Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War toms, language, appetites, standards were at my finger-ends. The enemy I knew almost like my own side. I risked myself among them many times, to The Military Utility learn.”1 Since then, countless soldiers have memorized Sun Tzu’s dictum: “If you know the enemy and know your- of Understanding self, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.” Although “know thy enemy” is Adversary Culture one of the first principles of warfare, our military operations and national security decisionmaking have consis- By MONTGOMERY M C FATE tently suffered due to lack of knowledge of foreign cultures. As former Sec- ultural knowledge and war- Herodotus studied his opponents’ con- retary of Defense Robert McNamara fare are inextricably bound. duct during the Persian Wars (490–479 noted, “I had never visited Indochina, Knowledge of one’s adver- BC). T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Ara- nor did I understand or appreciate its sary as a means to improve bia) embarked on a similar quest after history, language, culture, or values. Cmilitary prowess has been sought since the 1916 Arab rebellion against the When it came to Vietnam, we found ourselves setting policy for a region that Montgomery McFate is a cultural anthropologist and a defense policy fellow at the was terra incognita.”2 Our ethnocen- Office of Naval Research working on an initiative to promote social science research trism, biased assumptions, and mirror- in the national security area. imaging have had negative outcomes 42 JFQ / issue thirty-eight M c F a t e during the North Vietnamese offen- incorporate cultural and social knowl- replicating the Prophet Mohammed’s sives of 1968 and 1975, the Soviet-Af- edge of adversaries into training, ed- 7th-century process of political con- ghan war (1979–1989), India’s nuclear ucation, planning, intelligence, and solidation through jihad, including tests (1998), the Iraqi invasion of Ku- operations. Across the board, the na- opportunistic use of territories lacking wait (1990), and the Shi’ite transforma- tional security structure needs to be political rulers as a base, formation of tion of Iran (1979). infused with anthropology, a discipline a corps of believers as a precursor to Despite the fact that cultural invented to support warfighting in the mass recruiting, and an evolution in knowledge has not traditionally been tribal zone. targeting from specific, local targets a priority within the Department of (such as pagan caravans) to distant Defense (DOD), the ongoing insur- Changing Adversaries and powerful adversaries (for instance, the gency in Iraq has served as a wake- Operational Environments Byzantine Empire). To confront an up call to the military that adversary Cultural knowledge of adversar- enemy so deeply moored in history culture matters. Soldiers and Marines ies should be considered a national and theology, the U.S. Armed Forces Forum on the ground thoroughly understand security priority. An immediate trans- must adopt an ethnographer’s view of that. As a returning commander from formation in the military conceptual the world: it is not nation-states but paradigm is necessary cultures that provide the underlying the ongoing insurgency in Iraq has for two reasons: first, the structures of political life. served as a wake-up call to the military nature of the enemy has Not only our adversaries have changed since the end of changed. The 2001 Quadrennial Defense that adversary culture matters the Cold War, and second, Review predicted that smaller-scale the current operational en- contingencies—military operations 3d Infantry Division observed: “I had vironment has evolved fundamentally of smaller scale and intensity than perfect situational awareness. What I within the past 20 years as a result major theater or regional wars, such lacked was cultural awareness. I knew of globalization, failed states, and the as humanitarian, peacekeeping, peace where every enemy tank was dug in proliferation of both complex and light enforcement, noncombatant evacu- on the outskirts of Tallil. Only problem weapons. ation operations, and combating ter- was, my soldiers had to fight fanatics Although the United States armed rorism—will characterize the future charging on foot or in pickups and fir- and trained for 50 years to defeat a operational environment. The use of ing AK–47s and RPGs [rocket-propelled Cold War adversary, Soviet tanks will the military for humanitarian disaster grenades]. Great technical intelligence. never roll through the Fulda Gap. The relief, peacekeeping, and counterterror- Wrong enemy.”3 As this commander’s foe the United States faces today—and ism operations means that the military observation indicates, understanding is likely to face for years to come—is will be increasingly forward-deployed one’s enemy requires more than a sat- non-Western in orientation, transna- in hostile, non-Western environments ellite photo of an arms dump. Rather, tional in scope, non-hierarchical in “disconnected from the global econ- it requires an understanding of their structure, and clandestine in approach; omy.”6 According to Andy Hoehn, for- interests, habits, intentions, beliefs, and it operates outside of the context mer Deputy Assistant Secretary of De- social organizations, and political sym- of the nation-state. Neither al Qaeda fense for Strategy, “The unprecedented bols—in other words, their culture.4 nor insurgents in Iraq are fighting a destructive power of terrorists—and This article argues that new adver- Clausewitzian war, where armed con- the recognition that you will have to saries and operational environments flict is a rational extension of politics deal with them before they deal with necessitate a sharper focus on cultural by other means. These adversaries nei- you—means that we will have to be knowledge of the enemy. A lack of ther think nor act like nation-states. out acting in the world in places that this knowledge can have grave conse- Rather, their form of warfare, organi- are very unfamiliar to us. We will have quences. Conversely, understanding zational structure, and motivations are to make them familiar.”7 adversary culture can make a positive determined by the society and the cul- difference strategically, operationally, ture from which they come. Culture Matters Operationally and tactically. Although success in fu- Attacks on coalition troops in the and Strategically ture operations will depend on cultural Sunni triangle, for example, follow Culture has become something of a knowledge, the Department of Defense predictable patterns of tribal warfare: DOD buzzword, but does it really mat- currently lacks the programs, systems, avenging the blood of a relative (al ter? The examples below demonstrate models, personnel, and organizations tha’r); demonstrating manly courage three points: misunderstanding culture to deal with either the existing threat in battle (al-muruwwah); and uphold- at a strategic level can produce policies or the changing environment. A Fed- ing manly honor (al-sharaf).5 Similarly, that exacerbate an insurgency; a lack eral initiative is urgently needed to al Qaeda and its affiliated groups are of cultural knowledge at an operational issue thirty-eight / JFQ 43 ■ UNDERSTANDING ADVERSARY CULTURE hearts and minds. A related issue is our squelching of Iraqi freedom of speech. Many members of the Coalition Provi- sional Authority (CPA) and Combined Joint Task Force 7 felt that anticoali- tion and anti-American rhetoric was a threat to security and sought to stop its spread.10 Closing Muqtada al Sadr’s Al Hawza newspaper contributed to an Iraqi perception that Americans do not really support freedom of speech despite their claims to the contrary, reinforcing their view of Americans as Forum hypocrites. Failure to understand adversary culture can endanger both troops and civilians at a tactical level. Although it may not seem like a priority when bullets are flying, cultural ignorance Navy admiral discussing school can kill. Earlier this year, the Office of construction in Najaf, Iraq, with tribal Sheik Naval Research conducted a number of focus groups with Marines returning U.S. Marine Corps (Robert K. Blankenship) from Iraq. The Marines were quick to level can lead to negative public opin- Iraq, and the inner circle of the Ba’th acknowledge their misunderstanding ion; and ignorance of the culture at a Party itself was the purview of one of Iraqi culture, particularly pertaining tactical level endangers both civilians tribe, the Al Bu Nasir. Once the Sunni to physical culture and local symbols, and troops. There is no doubt that the Ba’thists lost their prestigious jobs, were and to point out the consequences of lack of adversary cultural knowledge humiliated in the conflict, and got fro- inadequate training. Most alarming can have grave consequences strategi- zen out through de-Ba’thification, the were the Iraqis’ use of vehement hand cally, operationally, and tactically. tribal network became the backbone of gestures, their tendency to move in At a strategic level, certain poli- the insurgency.9 The tribal insurgency one’s peripheral vision, and their toler- cymakers

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