Global Cultural Engagement

I enjoyed Maj. Nathan Springer's piece about the importance of building close personal relationships in a counterinsurgency environment. I agree.

I also believe that the tenets of this article are not limited to population-centric COIN environments; they're true globally. If we want to combat anti-Americanism, build international trust and cooperation, and articulate our policies and our beliefs and our way of life, strong personal relationships are vital. They are far more effective at influencing people than the satellite channels we beam into foreign countries. I have seen many Arab colleagues dramatically reevaluate their opinion of the United States because of personal friendships with Americans.

Unfortunately, all the trend lines for this kind of global engagement are moving in the wrong direction.

The best way to facilitate these relationships is through international travel and study, but the difficulty of obtaining a US visa is legendary. Yesterday I was hanging out with some Arab classmates, and they were joking with me, suggesting I slip my teacher some US dollars to guarantee a good grade. "No," one classmate said. "A US visa!" They all roared with laughter, because they all got the joke; they know that a US visa is more precious than gold.

My Arab colleagues consistently plead for my help with visa issues because they dream about continuing their studies in the US. After a professor delivered the most misogynistic and anti-Semitic lecture I've ever heard, one of my fellow students was furious and embarrassed on my behalf; he begged me do what I could to ensure more of his professors have the chance to study in the US, to help improve the abysmal state of education in the Arab world. He's right. Long-term development in this part of the world will come with international engagement; US isolation and separation will only freeze the status quo or make things worse.

There are other obstacles to building cross-cultural personal relationships. It's almost impossible for anyone employed by the US government to visit most countries in the Middle East (unless it's official business). I've written before about how frustrating it is trying to become a so-called "Middle East expert", when I'm not allowed to travel to the most important countries in the region (while all my civilian friends can).

Our embassies are fortresses; one cab driver I had was so terrified of the embassy security that he whipped past the building, hands shaking, and dropped me off a couple blocks away. Our most recent embassy designs seem to be getting even worse.

Force protection considerations make it extraordinary difficult to engage with local populations sometimes. I am helping one of my professors put together a class on American foreign policy and am trying to line up some guest speakers from the embassy who can build relationships and speak from personal experience about how US policy is made. I would think that US government officials would leap at the chance for this kind of engagement, but these visits require written proposals and permission from a reluctant force protection bureaucracy.

And of course, I've written before about my frustration at the requirement to live in a Beverly Hills-equivalent neighborhood populated largely by Westerners. My wife and I are having such a hard time meeting local Jordanians and making friends that we were seriously considering appealing to my chain of command for permission to move out of the embassy housing pool. That plan hit a dead end when I learned that, even if I got out of the housing pool, I would be required to live within a tight "security radius" that only includes Amman's wealthiest (and most Westernized) neighborhoods. Living in a "popular" area where we can live in daily community with a more conservative, Muslim, exclusively-Arabic-speaking population is impossible so long as I'm in the military. My wife and I both feel sick with disappointment when we talk to our American NGO friends; they all live in these areas and spend almost every day visiting with neighbors. Meanwhile, we peer down from our lofty castle walls and spend hours discussing ways we can find inroads into the culture without breaking the rules.

I guess I have a radically different idea of security than the establishment. I don't find my personal security in the reinforced bulletproof doors or armed guards in my neighborhood; I find it in close personal relationships with local friends who I know will take care of me. Is there some risk? Of course; there always is. But it's a risk I'm willing to take because I believe so strongly in the importance of cultural engagement.

It took visionary Army leadership to implement a culture change in Iraq and Afghanistan, and insist on the importance of living among the population and building trust. We need similar leadership and a similar culture change at the very top if we ever want to get global cross-cultural engagement right. The siege mentality is slowly eroding our ability to build open, trusting relationships and consequently our ability to favorably influence others.