Doctrine and Culture
The Commander’s business is mission accomplishment and the welfare of the troops, formerly stated as the Mission and the Men. In mission accomplishment we use the Military Decision Making Process (MDMP) which applies the factors of METT-TC (Mission, Enemy, Terrain, Troops Available, Time, and Civilian Considerations. Of these six factors, three deal with people: the enemy, troops, and civilians taken together or separately, each has culture which, for the Warrior, acts the same as doctrine in deciding what factors rank where in their cultural decision making process.
While anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists, and art critics have their definitions of culture, the Warrior needs to stick to the concept of culture as doctrine, a set of rules, best practices, historical influences, sex, love, greed, and/or children. Like the military commander, the heads of family has the same two parental responsibilities (mission and welfare) found in the family, however defined. The children, troops,, of a family bear the same relations as troops in a unit: obedience to the (parental leader) and the corresponding expectation that that authority protects and nourishes the troops/children.
Thus family, when not even a biological entity, is the basis for any human organization however formalized. There are Brotherhoods of Boiler Workers, Social Clubs like the Tongs or Triads, the Viet Cong, the Skull and Cross Bones, and Sigma Phi Epsilon. Any group tends to adopt family like structures,
To deal with analyzing family, we use existing doctrine on occasion, like applying the Civil Affairs factors known as ASCOPE from FM 3-07
AREAS
2-27. This characteristic addresses terrain analysis from a civilian perspective. Analyze how key civilian areas affect the missions of respective forces and how military operations affect these areas. Factors to consider include political boundaries, locations of government centers, by-type enclaves, special regions (for example, mining or agricultural), trade routes, and possible settlement sites.
STRUCTURES
2-28. Structures include traditional high-payoff targets, protected cultural sites, and facilities with practical applications. The analysis is a comparison how a structure's location, functions, and capabilities can support operations as compared to costs and consequences of such use.
CAPABILITIES
2-29. Assess capabilities in terms of those required to save, sustain, or enhance life, in that order. Capabilities can refer to the ability of local authorities to provide key functions and services. These can include areas needed after combat operations and contracted resources and services.
ORGANIZATIONS
2-30. Consider all nonmilitary groups or institutions in the AO. These may be indigenous, come from a third country or US agencies. They influence and interact with the populace, force, and each other. Current activities, capabilities, and limitations are some of the information necessary to build situational understanding. This becomes often a union of resources and specialized capabilities.
PEOPLE
2-31. People is a general term describing all nonmilitary personnel that military forces encounter in the AO. This includes those personnel outside the AO whose actions, opinions, or political influence can affect the mission. Identify the key communicators and the formal and informal processes used to influence people. In addition, consider how historical, cultural, and social factors that shape public perceptions beliefs, goals, and expectations.
EVENTS
2-32. Events are routine, cyclical, planned, or spontaneous activities that significantly affect organizations, people, and military operations, such as seasons, festivals, holidays, funerals, political rallies, and agricultural crop/livestock and market cycles and paydays. Other events, such as disasters and those precipitated by military forces, stress and affect the attitudes and activities of the populace and include a moral responsibility to protect displaced civilians. Template events and analyze them for their political, economic, psychological, environmental, and legal implications
Examination of ASCOPE for the Commander is largely dependent on Civil Affairs, PSYOP, and for the present, the Human Terrain Teams made up of sociologists and anthropologists. These, however, don’t tell you what will effect the decision making of the culture, be they Templar Knight, Apaches, Romans, Taliban, or the villagers of Khost.
There are represented in the Warrior’s Guide to the Other Guys Culture as F4F (Fate, Face, Fame, and Fortune) like the Navy Fighter of WW 2, and the interface with temporal issues like time, place, and geography. ASCOPE is the where to look, F4F is what to look for in ASCPE/
The First F in F4F is family with the basics of who is in the family and who is not. It includes where this family sits with others. Is there a hierarchy like Spartans and Helots, or the Crips and Bloods, or the Normans and the Saxons? What are the normal parental roles represented by the Paternal which is concerned with external factors and the preparation of the family to face the outside world? What is the Maternal role which is internally oriented to nurture the children, like the First Sergeant concerned with the welfare of the troops? The parental roles can be cast in multiple generations, in multiple spin-offs of the basic structure like public schools are to the parents.
Family - Face, Fate, Fame, and Fortune
The Warrior is concerned with the structure of the family in terms of paternal (exterior), maternal (interior), and progeny (obey and grow). Under this framework the four value systems of Face, Fate, Fame and Fortune shape the behaviors of the family and of its parts.
FACE is honor, shame, duty, as seen by the holder of the expected view of self from the outside. Face is often a mask, sometime deeply felt, sometimes tossed at the first sound of trouble. Face issues in war, where the commander makes a foolish decision solely to maintain the illusion of control. Issues of motherhood, and the sanctity of their women as well as sex issues fall under Face.
The Taliban destroys girl’s schools, to protect the virtue of women. Gays get executed. The portrayal of rape, pillage, and/or plunder on the part of an invading enemy is a Face issue and is timeless. Likewise the use of rape to humiliate an enemy culture is found in current conflicts in Africa and the Balkans.
Face slapping is a military objective. Japan intended to destroy the Pacific Fleet on Dec 7 , 1941. The damage wasn’t as great as planned but the effect was that of an Asian slapping the face of a Caucasian, utterly sneaky, and the outrage thereafter lingers on today. FDR authorized the Doolittle Raid which was intended as a slap in the face which worked to the point in brining the Japanese Fleet out to it’s destruction at Midway.
FATE is consequence, Fate is authority, Fate is what is really in charge. Americans place a great deal of trust in self and the law. In other cultures fate is controlled by the family, the party, the Fuhrer, the Law of Gravity, or a responsive Will of God.
While Americans see their fate tied to hard work, diligence, and confidence in facing what comes, other cultures place their faith in family, tribe, Communist Party, or feudal lord. Those who come from a culture where family determines fate more than the actions of the self, don’t react to working hard for a wage. Many call this laziness, but it is due to a lack of connection of self and salary and a dependence on the family to care. Workers in the former Communist states have no faith in work for wages, as in the Communist system the state pretended to pay them, so they pretended to work. There is still a sentiment in those states where working hard is irrelevant to survival.
FORTUNE is in many cultures Godlike in status, and in others not. The Rich are routinely lambasted in political and religious treatise. And the poor elevated in status. That of course is Inverse Attribution, only the rich have the means to be charitable. And Charity is just another form of domination, or one ups man ship.
Most important in cultural analysis is the relation of people to the product and process. Farmers are different from miners, and cattlemen different from truckers. The relation of the work process and the values systems of people is a way to see how they tick. Sometimes, civilian skills have a military application, like cattle herdsmen turned to cavalry.
FAME is the expected external view of self, which if denied is a serious Face problem. Fame is reward, recognition. It’s awards and decorations and the adulation expected thereto. Fame is expected due to the shapely and the sharp. Yet Fame, like Fortune, resented.
Taken together, the array of Face, Fame, Fate, and Fortune of a given culture is the “terrain” that war is fought on no less than Critical Terrain, Observation, Obstacles, Cover and Concealment, and Avenues of Approach.
The Paraguayans in the War of the Triple Alliance in 1864 to 1870 fought Argentina, Brazil, and Chile resulting in the loss of three quarters of their population due to their savage but outnumbered resistance. No capture the flag or cutting off the snakes head here. The Bolivians in the 1930’s tried to cut their way across Paraguay to gain access to a port. They lost despite having a better trained and equipped. Paraguayans are inordinately proud of their country, yet will wait until your back is turned to strike back. The detest condescension and welcome compliments about their women.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Triple_Alliance
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