Comparing Chinese And American Military Culture

Image Credit: U.S. Air Force

Ben Lowsen, The Diplomat: A Comparison of Chinese and American Military Culture

When East Meets West.

Modern China’s emergence onto the global stage brings with it both concern and hope: concern for how the world will accommodate an emerging great power and hope that a great civilization will enrich every aspect of global exchange. The world is looking to the United States as the cornerstone of the existing international system for leadership as it negotiates its relationship with an independently-minded China. Against this backdrop, it is now more important than ever that the United States and China better understand one another, particularly in the realm of security and military affairs around key regional issues.

Unless the two countries appreciate the similarities and differences in their military cultures, traditions and norms, the ongoing dialogues between them will never fully realize their potential.

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WNU Editor: This story brings back a lot of memories. As a former diplomat who was posted to China at an incredibly young age .... I can write a book comparing Chinese diplomatic culture with everyone else's .... and how it can be manipulated to enhance your status and to insure that your country's interests are respected. Unfortunately .... today's diplomatic corp (from what I understand) .... are in it for the short term .... especially in countries where life is difficult. And trust me on this one .... China was not an easy place to be in during the 1980s.

Do Soldiers Have Their Own Unique Language?

Ranks of international soldiers stand ready for their upcoming deployment to Afghanistan during a farewell ceremony held July 25 at Heidelberg headquarters. The soldiers will continue the unit’s mission of conducting mainly plans, operations and stability assignments. (Photo by U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Dwight Chaney)

Matti Friedman, The Atlantic: The Peculiar Language of Soldiers

What jargon says about armies, and the societies they serve.

JERUSALEM—“We have two flowers and one oleander. We need a thistle.” Listening to the Israeli military frequencies when I was an infantryman nearly two decades ago, it was (and still is) possible to hear sentences like these, the bewildering cousins of sentences familiar to anyone following America’s present-day wars. “Vegas is in a TIC,” says a U.S. infantryman in Afghanistan in Sebastian Junger’s book War. What does it all mean?

Anyone seeking to understand the world needs to understand soldiers, but the language of soldiers tends to be bizarre and opaque, an apt symbol for the impossibility of communicating their experiences to people safe at home. The language isn’t nonsense—it means something to the soldiers, of course, but it also has something to say about the army and society to which they belong, and about the shared experience of military service anywhere. The soldiers’ vernacular must provide words for things that civilians don’t need to describe, like grades of officers and kinds of weapons. But it has deeper purposes too.

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WNU Editor: I have been running this blog for years .... and I must confess that I am still learning the unique language that soldiers speak.

How The British, French, And Americans Overcome Their Military Cultural Differences

Defense News: UK, US and France Recognize Militaries' Cultural Differences

Trilateral Meeting Provides Examples of Areas the Allies Can Better Coordinate

PARIS — An open dialogue about cultural and technological differences among allies is key to having effective command and control, a British Royal Air Force (RAF) officer has said.

Air Vice Marshal Paul Atherton said he came to this conclusion during Griffin Strike, a large Anglo-French exercise held in Britain.

“Awareness is key and dialogue is the tool to fix it,” he said April 21 at a conference about the future of air forces, organized by France. The high-level conference, Air Forces in 2030: Trends and Possible Shocks, followed two days of meetings held by staff officers from the American, British and French air forces partnered in the trilateral strategic initiative.

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WNU Editor: This is one of the unspoken advantages that the U.S. has in forming alliances and being able to work and coordinate with the military of another country .... an understanding of culture. Sometimes it works .... sometimes it does not .... but they are better at it than most other countries.

Political Correctness In The U.S. Navy?

Photo: John Lehman (The Washington Times)

Lehman Rocks Navy With Complaints About Political Correctness -- Washington Times

Ex-secretary says aviation needs swagger.

The Navy’s former top civilian has rocked the service in a military journal article by accusing officials of sinking the storied naval air branch into a sea of political correctness.

Former Navy Secretary John Lehman, himself a former carrier-based aviator, wrote that the swagger and daring of yesterday’s culture has given way to a focus on integrating women and, this year, gays.

Pilots constantly worry about anonymous complaints about salty language, while squadron commanders are awash in bureaucratic requirements for reports and statistics, he added.

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My Comment: Former Navy Secretary John Lehman makes some points that does not surprise me. The culture has changed, and political correctness is the mantra that our elected officials have been imposing on the Navy's aviation branch since the Tailhook scandal two decades ago. Former Navy Secretary John Lehman article "Is Naval Aviation Culture Dead?" can be found here.

Should Soliders Take Personal Photos And Videos Of Enemy KIA?

Cpl. Jeremy Morlock with Staff Sgt. David Bram. Yahoo Groups

Photos With Dead Afghans Stirred Pride, Soldier Testifies -- McClatchy News

Some of the first images in a set of notorious photographs showing soldiers posing with dead Afghans were taken with a sense pride that the Army was fighting and killing its enemy, a Stryker officer testified Thursday.

Capt. Roman Ligsay told an Army investigator at Joint Base Lewis-McChord that he posed for one of the pictures in November 2009 even though he knew soldiers were ordered not to take photos of casualties for personal use. He said he felt a “sense of accomplishment” when he saw an Afghan who was killed by an American helicopter.

To him, the image showed “we were fighting the enemy. We weren’t just out there on patrols every day and not seeing the success of those patrols.”

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My Comment: A few months one of my readers in Afghanistan sent me some pics and videos of combat and enemy KIA .... I ended up deleting the file. In the many years of this blog I have only posted a handful of enemy combatants killed in both Iraq and Afghanistan (about 3 or 4 photos), a video of a U.S./Afghan raid on a Taliban safe house that resulted in the death of an Afghan soldier, and a picture of a U.S. soldier who was critically injured in Afghanistan and who succumbed to his injuries a few minutes later. That was then .... today I do not see the point of publishing such photos .... and if there was ever going to be an exception .... it would only be Bin Laden's death photo.

But the fact is that every soldier in a war zone can arrange to have access to a cell phone or ipod that can easily take pictures and/or videos .... and while I am guessing .... human nature being what it is .... I am sure they are sometimes being used to document what soldiers are experiencing during combat .... or after combat .... even though it is against military regulations. And if I was to be bold to venture an even bigger guess, I would not be surprised if a good number of soldiers do have "trophy pictures/videos" in some computer file somewhere, and will only show them among themselves or a select few.

So .... should such pictures/videos be made by soldiers .... definitely not. But should the rules that prohibit soldiers from taking such pictures/videos be strictly enforced .... I wish the authorities luck in trying to stop such behavior in some distant and isolated FOB.

Must American Servicewomen Be "Encouraged" To Wear Headscarves In Afghanistan?

Photo from Mangrums.net

Don’t Forget Your Hijab, Soldier! American Servicewomen Encouraged To Wear Headscarves In Afghanistan -- The Daily Caller

In an effort to get closer to the local population, American female soldiers stationed in Afghanistan are being encouraged to wear a Muslim headscarf when interacting with civilians. But some question whether the practice constitutes cultural sensitivity or a form of appeasement that is degrading to U.S. soldiers.

Major Kyndra Rotunda, executive director of the Military Law and Policy Institute and AMVETS Legal Clinic at Chapman University, told The Daily Caller that while the women are not being ordered to wear the head scarf, encouragement is tantamount to a demand.

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My Comment: This is wrong on so many levels .... the number one being that no Afghan is going to be impressed with a U.S. service woman wearing a hijab. You either respect a culture (or not), and wearing hijab is not going to change this perception one bit. But political correctness is the rule of the land right now, and the U.S. military must comply.

On a side note, does wearing hijab mean that you cannot wear your helmet? The soldiers in the above picture are not wearing one .... is this because it will not fit?

Hat Tip: Mangrums.net

The Military Outranks Microsoft And Disney As A Happy Place To Work"

Military Outranks Disney, Microsoft As Happy Place To Work -- Business News

Disney owns the “Happiest Place on Earth,” but it doesn’t employ the happiest workers in the U.S., according to a new survey that identified the most "blissful places to work." The list reveals all four major branches of the military and the National Guard rank higher than Disney and other well-known companies such as Microsoft and Johnson & Johnson.

Despite lengthy deployments and lower salaries, for example, the Army and National Guard ranked Nos. 1 and 2 in the career advancement category, beating out Google for the top spots. The military also ranked high in growth opportunity, benefits and job security.

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My Comment: My friends who are either serving .... or who have retired .... have always express the same thing. The military ..... even with all of its problems .... is a great place to work.

Colonel Fired For Criticizing The US Military's "PowerPoint Culture" Is Not Going Away Quietly

Colonel Fired For His Sniping Will Not Go Quietly -- The Independent

A senior officer in General David Petraeus's support staff, who was fired for publicly criticising the US military's "PowerPoint culture", has issued a fresh broadside against what he says is a bloated, ineffective bureaucracy at America's headquarters in Afghanistan.

Colonel Lawrence Sellin was fired from his role after he wrote a column attacking the system for using relentless slide-show presentations to "cognitively challenged" generals instead of formulating coherent policy.

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My Comment: Unfortunately .... nothing is going to change. The US Military's "PowerPoint Culture" is here to stay.

Air Force Troops Laugh as Comrades Get Zapped by Taser

From Live Science:

The Air Force recently released a video of airmen shocking each other with Tasers during a training exercise. Air Force leaders want the airmen to feel the effects of the nonlethal weapon firsthand so they can better judge its appropriate use, said a man identified as Staff Sgt. Brandon Phelps in the video.

On base, the airmen take a course on Taser safety and proper use of these weapons. For a final exam of sorts, they use the weapons on each other.

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Ban On Tobacco Urged In Military

From USA Today:

WASHINGTON — Pentagon health experts are urging Defense Secretary Robert Gates to ban the use of tobacco by troops and end its sale on military property, a change that could dramatically alter a culture intertwined with smoking.

Jack Smith, head of the Pentagon's office of clinical and program policy, says he will recommend that Gates adopt proposals by a federal study that cites rising tobacco use and higher costs for the Pentagon and Department of Veterans Affairs as reasons for the ban.

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My Comment: This has zero possibility of passing.

Military Culture And The Nature Of War

The Nature Of War In The Early 21st Century Part Two -- Space Wars

In his important new book, "The Culture of War," Israeli military historian Martin van Creveld warns that Germany's politicians have demanded that their army, the Bundeswehr, be stripped of all German military traditions, not just those of the Nazi period.

Creveld notes: "At first, only the years 1933-1945 were exorcised. From 1968 on, however, there was a growing tendency to extend the shadows until they covered previous periods. Not only the Panzer leader Heinz Guderian, not only the desert fox Erwin Rommel, but Hans von Seeckt, Paul von Hindenburg, Erich Ludendorff, Alfred von Schieffen, and Helmut von Moltke disappeared. From heroes who had served their country, they were turned into 'militarist,' 'reactionary' and 'imperialist' villains; in today's classrooms, it is in vain that one looks for their names or their portraits.

"In comparison with similar institutions in other countries, German military academies, staff colleges and other educational institutions have an empty, bare, functional and soulless appearance. The relics of the 'wars of liberation' apart, almost the only items on display pertain to the Bundeswehr's own history. However, since the Bundeswehr has never gone to war, the ability of those items to excite and inspire is limited.

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My Comment: I remember reading how German youths in the 1930s were taught how to fight, live in the woods on camping trips, exercise constantly .... and harshly, and to respect the military history of Germany. On the other hand French youths were more academically and culturally trained .... minus the military and hard exercise tradition.

When World War II broke out, the British were the first to realize very quickly that the French military were "not up to the job".

There is something to say about tradition and culture in a modern army. To find that balance between a culture and how technology is changing the battlefield .... that is where the proper political and military leadership must step in and to find that balance.