Cross Cultural Communication
Communication in the international space. Communication between military and civilians
Second Year Cadet Scanghel Robert
The military’s relationship with the civilian world has progressed immeasurably in the last 4,000 years. The early use of military force demonstrated a violent application of one-way communication, with little concern for the civilian response. History has modified the relationship between the military and the civilian communities around them, both on and off the battlefield. Kinetic force is now just one technique to carry out a nation’s security strategy, with more subtle, complex situations warranting a new set of skills for soldiers and their leaders. Updated, positive methods of communication between the military and civilian communities have exploded in the last decade, a necessary step toward developing resilience in conflict or disaster affected regions. As Dr. David Davis from George Mason University theorized at an interagency conference, ‘We are not in the same chain of command, but is there a higher calling? Is there a moral obligation to cooperate?’ In order to facilitate future communication between civilian and military (civ-mil) communities, interacting agencies must utilize the four phases of development of civ-mil communication to continuously and widely disseminate primers of understanding, along with prioritizing the continued maintenance of the ‘network of networks’ of civ-mil relationships.
To better understand where we are today and the way ahead, we will first examine the evolution of the changing face of civ-mil relationships and communication. There exists evidence of violent warfare as early as 10,000 B.C., with the earliest documentation of a combined-arms force by Sargon the Great in 2334-2279 BC , when the military started developing the most effective weapons of war for a brute force approach to communicating their presence and mission. Other than drawing upon various classes of civilians for manpower, there was little official dialogue between an 2 invading force and the civilian communities affected. Across history, there is no shortage of stories of armies invading a region by razing city walls, capturing the people and resources, if not destroying all evidence of a civilization therein.
From Alexander the Great to Napoleon, the stories of destruction continued with only occasional anecdotes of mercy, until the tender beginnings of warfare transformation with Henry Dunant’s observations and action following the Battle of Solferino. After personally observing the aftermath of battle and volunteering to aid dying soldiers, Dunant introduced the concept of humane care of wounded soldiers, personalizing those involved in warfare. These times were the early beginnings of humanitarian action and response, along with awareness of the need for standardized laws of war. From the International Committee of the Red Cross to the Geneva Conventions and International Rule of Law, organizations and policies concerning aspects of warfare and humanitarian actions continue to develop to this day. ‘
I think that as a military ,you need to know how to interact with foreign people ,to know their culture, their religion and their customs. Before going into detail regarding communication forums, there are four necessary phases for the implementation of successful civ-mil communication that must be presented, continuous in reality, but 10 separated for ease of discussion: (1) awareness, (2) learning, (3) analysis, (4) and dissemination.
1. Awareness ‘ First of all,if you are going into a mission you need to be aware of the existence of civilian.You are going to their country to help them but you need to respect the and in that way you will gain their trust.
2. Learning ‘ When you are going to work into another country you are bound to learn even a few characteristics about their culture and in that way you can communicate easier with them.You will know what you can do when you will meet them, what gify you can give to them and most important,what you can discuss with their leaders.
3. Analysis ‘ It is the responsability of every agency that have people detached in other country to analyze all the information about the foreign country and give the information to their peoplo who are working there.Ensuring this information will provide more chance to finish the mission with succes and no victims.
4. Dissemination – This point need to answer to the following question ‘Who else need to know’.It is important to share the information with other structure because there are sharing their information with you. When you give an information , the information need to answer to the next questions ‘who, what, where, when and so what’. Many agency leaders admit that their interagency relationships are based upon ad hoc individual contacts.
I can say that culture of the new country where you are going to work is the most important thing that you can learn. When you are going to another country you can be part of Cultural Conflict. Cultural Conflict represent the situation of stress when the rules of one`s own culture are contradicted by the rules of another. As a military we need to know how to react on a situation like this. We need to stay calm even if we think that we are right. We don`t want to start a conflict with the people who give us information or protect us because it will be more difficult to finish our mission.
Military from all the world need to be able to respect the cultural differences and to know some key characteristics of culture and some basic elements of culture to know how to react in different situations.
Culture can be characterized acording to the degree of integration as individuals or collectivist. The modern world tend to be more low-context which means that we prefer all the information in the message,we tend to make short-term relationships, we are more individualistic and we can change quickly.
For example, Afghanistan being a country were the military have missions, the afgan people tend to be more high-context people. They respect traditions, building long-term relationships, require little explanation,they are more cllectivistic and everyone belongs to a certain group.
As a military,when we are going to work in a country with different culture we need to be careful with gender issue.We are not allowed to start a conversation with a women, to ask a male about his wife , we are not allowed to remain alone with a women into a room but if this is happens the door should be open.If we are speaking with a woman we need to respect her and we are not allowed to touch her in any circumstances.
Whe we are going to meet a tribe leader we should take a gift but we need to be careful when we choose the gift. The first rule is not to give them alcohol.We can give them some alcohol only when we know him and we know that he is drinking,but we need to do this covertly to avoid shame.When we are giving the gift we need to be subtle.We can but the gift near the door or where we sit and not directly give the gift to the host.
Negotiations can be a tricky,frustrating but often an enjoyable affair if approached correctly. When we negotiate we need to be sure that we negotiate with the senior of the tribe because they are the one who take the decisions. You can`t be sure that you will win but you need to give youre best. We can appeal to their sense of fairness and use the fact that we are there to help them.
We don`t need to prejudice some culture until we go there and see how it is for real. We are military, we have owr own program to respect ,we are more serious when we are working but when we are working with the civilian we need to respect them and they need to respect us because if we are working together it means that we have the same goals. The military always need to show respect because this is how we are educated but if the situation requires we can take measures to do the right thing ,to finish the mission or to save our lives.
As a conclusion ,I can say that for military is very important to know how to communicate with civilian because this help us to do our jobs and to respect the mission. It is important to know the culture of the civilian with whom we work because we don`t want to hurt or disrespect them and must important we need them to help us to complete the mission in the majority of cases. To know other cultures will help us to be better persons because we can choose what is good and what is not good from a wide range and we can help other people how to be better.
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