Civil Affairs, Military Interventions and Cultural Considerations

Civil Affairs. What does that mean? I will be blogging about what civil affairs operators do, how they do it and importantly, the impact of their work. To put it in the most vague and general terms, civil affairs units work with a foreign nation to build their civil structures. The idea is that in order to create a more stable world, other governments must be able to govern their territories. Many governments are 'failed states' and cannot manage this. Civil affairs operators concern themselves with local cultures, and strive to understand who is important in those cultures, what makes those important people tick, and how how we can assist them. The U.S. military has recently hired anthropologists to further help with these considerations.

I am a member of an online group of anthropologists who study military affairs. The following post struck me as important:

On 20 Nov 09, the Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities,
Jim Leach, gave a speech entitled “Bridging Cultures” to the National Press Club
in Washington, D.C. One excerpt from the transcript jumped out at me and seemed
particularly relevant to the members of Mil_Ant_Net: "Military strategy in the
last generation has become increasingly sophisticated with considerations of
questions ranging from overwhelming force doctrine to end-game strategies to
concern for the sustainability of American public support for policy
initiatives. But left out of in-depth consideration have been cultural
ramifications: Cultural Factors that go far beyond protection of heritage sites
and respect for 'mannerly' traditions. The lesson of our times is that military
strategy must include consideration of unintended consequences, particularly the
after-affects of intervention from the perspective of the society most affected
and those in the world that share similar cultural traditions. At issue is not
simply whether democracy is better than other methodologies of social
organization and whether it can be readily imposed from the outside, or whether
it is justifiable to seek to advance an individual rights ethic that increases
opportunity for women and minority groups. At issue also is the sobering
question of whether good intentions can be counter-productive and lead to
greater internal conflict, social disruption, and potentially increased
radicalization, and whether progressive transformation of any society is more
likely to be achieved through other means than military intervention. Culture is
more powerful than politics and surprisingly capable of withstanding change
wrought disproportionately by force of arms. So there is no misunderstanding,
what I’m suggesting is that strategic thinking that lacks a cultural component
is inadequate for the times. "You can read the rest of the transcript on-line at http://neh.gov/whoweare/speeches/11202009.html.