Some thoughts on FM 3-07-1
Posted By Marc on May 7, 2009
FM 3-07-1 Security Force Assistance was released on May 5th month by TRADOC (announcement here, PDF here). I have been waiting for this one since I saw an early draft of it several months ago. As I feared, I was underwhelmed by the chapters dealing with culture.
One of the problems that I have seen over the past several years of looking at how the US military uses the “culture concept” is that they just don’t understand it. Even more problematic is the fact that that lack of understanding is filtered through a bureaucratic doctrine writing process that consistently replicates misunderstandings and outright errors.
I am not going to comment on the specifically military portions of the manual. What I do want to talk about is one of these outright errors that some anonymous person keeps replicating. It is a simple error that, once made, is very appealing: the error of a monocultural society.
People who have a common culture, share a group identity, occupy a common territory, and are
subject to the same political authority can be identified as a society.
FM 3-07-1, 8-1.1
Does this mean that the Quebecois are not Canadian or that the Kurds are not Iraqi?
The allure of mono-cultural societies
The assumption that all societies are mono-cultural is as addictive as crack cocaine. If societies are mono-cultural, then all “We” have to do to understand “Them” is to get a nice collection of stereotypes, crack their cultural programming and, presto-chango, we can manipulate them to our hearts content. As my grandmother would say, “Get real”!
This fits in nicely with the technophilic orientation of many military bureaucrats, but it does have the minor problem of casting as official doctrine a simplistic worldview that is more dangerous than useful. No one who has been over to the “Sandbox” is going to think that Iraq is a mono-cultural society – this type of statement is only defensible from armchairs.
What truly makes me mad, is that this assumption will be seen by anyone with two neurons to rub together as BS. More than that, it is dangerous BS that can lead well meaining individuals to act in the idiotic manner of a bull in a china shop. As far as I am concerned, “I was just following doctrine” is right up there with “I was just following orders” as a defense for stupidity. Luckily, for the US and most of the rest of the world, many commanders seem to be able to recognize BS when they see / hear / read it.
One of the more interesting findings of the Mosul Case Study, IMO, was that many of the officers interviewed were quite able to separate the BS assumptions and work with reality to achieve what they believed was the actual goal – stability. Unfortunately, at least in the chapter on Culture and Communications, the lessons have not been shown in FM 3-07-1.
Some more thoughts
FM 3-07-1 is a truly post-modern document; a bricolage of both brilliance and idiocy. Some of what is in there is, quite frankly, very sophisticated (sections 8-21 to 8-23 come to mind). I was also very pleased to see the section on Culture Shock (8-38 to 8-49).
If I was advising the author(s) of the document, I would say that it is a fairly good first draft that still needs a lot of work. Will it get it? I don’t know. The romantic part of me hopes so, but the cynic keeps whispering that the bureaucrats will define reality to suite themselves.
JWC on 
Daniel Gallant on 
MM on 
Mr. Xyz on 
Marc on
Well, the good news, is that the Army doesn’t actually read those manuals.
Doctrine development has always been a sore subject with me; after all, I’ve written doctrine, and know how it gets made. Very seldom does a lot of thought go into FMs. Generally, the actual writing is done by a low level functionary, often without experience or special knowledge. And as the doctrinal work is passed around for peer review, it gets added on to primarily to show that the various offices get their “chop” in, not with an eye toward improving the product.
I think sometimes that the FMs are just a form of Maskirovka, designed to throw off potential enemies as to how the Army really works.