THE UNITED STATES NAVAL WAR COLLEGE

COLLEGE OF DISTANCE EDUCATION

National Security Affairs

THEATER SECURITY DECISION MAKING (TSDM) COURSE

“Doing Things Our Way”: The Impact of Culture and Nationalism

by Nikolas K. Gvosdev

May 2009

Third Revision March 2011

Newport, RI: Naval War College

TSDM 6-1 Version 5.0

The science fiction author Frank Herbert included this maxim in his list of aphorisms: “When strangers meet, great allowance should be made for differences of custom and training.” It is also a good rule of thumb for any civilian or military officer charged with designing and implementing policies in the international arena.

David Kriebel, who taught at the Naval War College, observed:

Should a U.S. Marine male Captain shake the hand of a woman in Afghanistan? Is there a culturally acceptable way for a U.S. Naval Officer to offer medical treatment to a tsunami victim in Banda Aceh? … Questions such as these involve culture and simply reflect the tactical, operational and strategic environments in which today‟s military officers must successfully operate.1

For instance, is that group of men yelling loudly and firing weapons into the air a hostile force or a party to celebrate a birth or wedding? Being able to ascertain the difference can mean life or death—either for U.S. servicemen or for civilians.

But cultural awareness encompasses more than knowing whether to bow, kiss or shake hands when greeting one‟s counterparts; whether one should avoid using the left hand in eating; or whether one should remove one‟s shoes before entering a dwelling. These are all important matters for those engaged in tactical operations. However, national security professionals and staff officers must also be concerned with larger issues—especially being able to assess how policies and procedures may be received. This means recognizing that people—and societies—are not blank slates. They are shaped by their environment—families, schools, churches, political systems, economic actors, social organizations, and so on—which transmit language, culture, religion, ethics, and markers to determine whether people are “us” or “them.” As Alexander Motyl, a leading scholar of nationalism, has noted, "Institutions involve people in predetermined relations that, in turn, determine the overall pattern of their behavior."

This can then produce different reactions among different people to the same set of policy choices—which makes “one size fits all” approaches problematic. Anatol Lieven, the chair of International Relations and Terrorism Studies at King's College London, was asked to assess efforts to produce generic doctrines that could guide U.S. policymakers. He responded:

This attempt to draw up universal doctrines -- I was briefly and tangentially involved in discussions on creating a universal doctrine of urban warfare for the American army a few years ago, and I'm afraid my view was that this was absolutely absurd. Urban warfare, guerilla warfare in general, is inherently political. That means it's related to the specific structures, political culture, makeup, traditions of the given society. Iraq is very different from Afghanistan; Afghanistan is very different from Pakistan. That means that we need cadres of officials and solders who are well trained in the specific societies of countries which we think could pose a terrorist threat, or which we think, God forbid, we might have to invade at some stage.2

This type of situational awareness is important for shaping successful policies. Knowing as much as possible about the local history and culture enables planners and executors of policy to be prepared for all contingencies. The Soviet decision in 1979 to send mostly Central Asian

2

reserve forces into Afghanistan—on the grounds that Soviet Uzbeks, Tajiks, Turkmen and Kyrgyz would be able to forge better ties with the locals

… turned out to be a grave miscalculation. Instead of generating trust and reducing resistance among Afghans, it actually stoked millennia-old animosities between the country‟s dominant Pashtuns and its Tajiks, Uzbeks and other Central Asian ethnic groups. Hostility to the Soviets was further deepened by the personal histories of many Tajiks, Uzbeks and Turkmen who lived in northern Afghanistan. Those who had fled Communist repression in Soviet Central Asia disliked the Red Army as much as, if not more than, the Pashtuns did.3

The U.S. has made mistakes as well, as Kriebel noted:

In Vietnam, U.S. forces failed to recognize the importance of Vietnamese cultural identity and how it was shaped by centuries of foreign intervention. Nor was there an appreciation of the role of Confucian philosophy and what it had to say about “good” and “bad” rulers. Had this understanding existed the U.S “strategic hamlet” program might not have uprooted Vietnamese villagers from land where they believed the souls of their ancestors lived. This program, although well-intentioned and perhaps militarily expedient, did little to help “win the hearts and minds” of the Vietnamese people. As a result the United States failed to capitalize on a critical element that would have assisted in defeating the insurgents and winning the war.

Over twenty years later, in Somalia, another “cultural failure” occurred. U.S. forces, lacking appropriate cultural training, didn‟t understand Somali clan structure and relations among the clans, or how U.S./UN actions appeared to favor one clan over another. There was also a lack of understanding of religious beliefs and inadvertent violations of religious prohibitions, which made Somalis feel resentful and helped tarnish the U.S. image.4

And should the United States and its coalition partners have anticipated the looting and disorder which broke out in Baghdad in 2003 after the fall of Saddam Hussein—and the absence of a police force? Perhaps—based on an assessment of modern Iraqi history. The anthropologist Raphael Patai, in his studies of the Middle East, noted back in the early 1970s:

The emotionalism of the Iraqi population, which makes it easily incitable and inclined to participate in violent street demonstrations, is described by Majid Khadduri: “… the rank and file supplied the mass of manpower and the outflow of emotionalism which inundated the capital‟s streets whenever a popular uprising occurred …. [But in the July 1958 Revolution] once the police were not in evidence, the unchecked energy of the mob wrought havoc the like of which Baghdad had not witnessed before …5

And a more detailed “cultural audit” of Iraqi society might have prepared U.S. policymakers for the reality of post-Saddam Iraq:

3

Now, as we found out, even in what seemed to be a totalitarian society like Iraq, there were immensely powerful autonomous structures under the surface, above all, of course, the Shia religious structures, but also tribal structures. Many of the problems that the U.S. has faced is that it went in blind, completely unaware of the structures with which it would have to deal. Often linked to that is this moralization, the belief that the Ba'ath is simply wicked, that you can sweep it away, and then having done that, once again you have a blank slate. One needs to understand that these are not modern structures. They're not positive structures, they may be extremely negative, but they are there. They have to be dealt with. If you do try either simply to bypass them or to flatten them, you will face immense resistance ….6

National security professionals need to be aware of how culture—a set of learned and shared beliefs and behavior; ideology—an intellectual “blueprint” as to how society should best be ordered; and nationalism—the belief that a people or nation have the right to self-determination—are all powerful drivers for human action. They are also important tools people use to determine whether what they are being asked to do is right or wrong, legitimate or illegitimate. After all, “[t]he legitimacy of a particular demand, that is, its congruence with basic values in the society, is a major factor in political response.”7 In recent years, both the U.S. military and civilian agencies have found that, despite having the best of intentions, it is possible for others to mobilize tremendous resistance against “outsiders” who threaten “our way of life.”

Different Languages, Different Ways of Thinking

Perhaps you‟ve been in a situation where, in dealing with another person, you‟ve commented, “I recognize the words you are using, but I don‟t understand what you are saying.” We often see language as a passive tool to convey our thoughts to another person. However, as linguist Benjamin L. Whorf observed,

the linguistic system of each language is not merely a reproducing instrument for voicing ideas but rather is itself the shaper of ideas, the program and guide of the individual‟s mental activity, for his analysis of impressions …8

The rules of the language which we speak, in other words, shapes our view of the world—a conclusion based, in part, on Whorf‟s research into the indigenous languages of the Americas, beginning with Hopi. Whorf, along with his mentor, Edward Sapir, formulated the “Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis”—that the shape of a particular language influences how its speakers assess the world around them. Some languages, for instance, notably the “standard average European” ones, have very precise delineations of past, present and future; others might put less importance on assigning a precise place in time as to when an event happened. They might, instead, stress whether the speaker personally witnessed something or whether it was related to him. Some languages prefer use of the active voice (“I recommend we do this”); others promote passive voice constructions (“It seemed good to me”)—which, in turn, may determine the extent to which the culture expects specific individuals to take responsibility for outcomes. Different languages can be more ambiguous or more precise when it comes to describing time, place,

4

movement, and events. All of this can lead to friction. This is why, as Whorf concluded, “All observers are not led by the same physical evidence to the same picture of the universe, unless their linguistic backgrounds are similar, or can in some way be calibrated.”9

The influence of language can go beyond the spoken forms and also shape thinking based on the writing system that is adopted. Richard Lewis, a leading specialist in cross-cultural communication, points out:

The hieroglyphic character and grammatical presuppositions of the Chinese and Japanese languages produce a mindset more oriented toward images and sympathetic understanding than toward definition and distinction. Americans try to solve problems by giving direct answers to questions. Asians avoid direct answers and wait for solutions to emerge in due course.10

Some societies, traditionally, have been able to “calibrate” their elites by encouraging multilingualism. For instance, the elite of the Roman Empire were expected to be fluent both in Latin—the language of law, government and administration—and Greek—seen as a better medium for dealing with questions of philosophy and metaphysics. The Holy Roman Emperor Charles V once quipped, “I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men and German to my horse”—but behind this flip statement is an assessment that, in his eyes, Spanish was his preferred language for theology, Italian was the language of romance, French that of administration, and German for warfare. To the extent that a person who can master another language can also understand that language‟s worldview is a critical skill. Indeed, in Iraq, the Coalitional Provisional Authority staffer who was in charge in re-opening the country‟s stock exchange screened for candidates fluent in English who demonstrated an “American style of thinking.”11 At the same time, the introduction of “foreign” words into another language may be part of a process of shifting culture and worldview; the Russian language, for instance, at various points in its history, took words from Greek, Mongolian, Polish, German, French and now English as Russia borrowed institutions, legal codes, taxation systems, and so on.

Translations can help bridge the gap, but may still not be entirely accurate.12 Moreover, language is more than the dictionary definition of words—there are also matters such as nuance and tone—so even technically-accurate translations may still reflect the mindset of the original language. Consider this example: on May 22, 2003, the United Nations passed a resolution granting Britain and the United States formal authority as the occupying powers of Iraq, inaugurating the “occupation” of Iraq. In Arabic, this was termed al-ihtilal. But, as Anthony Shadid, the Washington Post correspondent, noted, the English term “occupation” and the Arabic word ihtilal had very different connotations: “For many Americans, even Europeans, the term „occupation‟ probably evokes the aftermath of World War II, and an American-led vision of cooperation with like-minded peoples forging a common destiny. But for Iraqis, and for most Arabs, the term, seared into the collective memory, brings to mind Israel‟s record in the Middle East … And in an ihtilal, ambitions of a common destiny, promises of collaboration, pledges of shared aims and goals are rendered impossible.”13

In turn, the terms that others use may be problematic when translated back into English. A continuing point of contention between the U.S. government and the Arab satellite networks such as Al-Jazeera has been the use of the term shahid (martyr) to refer to Palestinians that are

5

killed in clashes with Israel. The implication of that term is that of sacrificing oneself for a worthy cause. In contrast, the U.S.-supported Al-Hurra station would characterize Palestinian fighters as “guerillas” or “suicide bombers.” The choice of term was directly related to questions about the legitimacy of action and the methods employed.14 Shadid himself noted that there was no uniform, accepted convention to describe those “who opposed U.S. forces” in Iraq. Was “militant” the right term? Freedom fighters? Resistance? Terrorists? What precisely, he asks was “an insurgent?”15 Al-Jazeera‟s editorial choice to refer to those fighting the coalition as “resistance”, for instance, angered both the U.S. government and the Iraqi administration which felt it legitimized their actions; on the other hand, the attempts to designate insurgents as “terrorists” also never quite caught on. Coverage of more recent civil conflicts in Libya and the Ivory Coast also illustrates this problem. Terms like “rebels”, “the opposition”, “pro-government forces”, and so on imply different understandings of legitimacy. All of this complicates Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan‟s well-known aphorism that everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion, but not his or her own facts—because it shows that two different media networks can cover the exact same event, yet, by the choice of language they use to describe it, can convey very different meanings.

Beyond rules of grammar, there is also the context in which a language is spoken. Patai, for instance, contrasts the rhetorical flourishes utilized by Arabs with the famed “tact and understatement” of the British. As a result, as he observed:

The literal meaning of a word or a phrase in every language is one thing, while its true significance can be another. … a simple assent from an Arab can be, for him, nothing more than a polite form of evasion, while the same word may mean for his English interlocutor a definitive, positive commitment.16

The rapid spread of American English as a result of globalization means that more people around the world can share a common vocabulary—but it doesn‟t mean that people who have learned English as a second language will accept the “worldview” encapsulated in American English. One anecdote from the days of Cold War Soviet diplomacy is quite telling. In trying to set up a meeting with Soviet leaders for the Secretary General of the United Nations, the intermediary was instructed to inform him that “a meeting … is not excluded.” The message was delivered in English, yet the use of the passive voice (no one takes responsibility for the decision) and the negative formulation (indicating a likely refusal but leaving the door open for a reversal) reflect Russian bureaucratic linguistic patterns.17 Similarly, Iranian-American journalist Azadeh Moaveni discovered that, although a native speaker of Farsi, her language was liberally sprinkled with English terms and phrases. She notes, “I resolved to immediately banish all English terms from my Farsi, and in the process realized that without English, I, as I knew myself, ceased to exist.”18

If your future assignments, therefore, take place in the international arena, you should be aware of not what is being said in terms of dictionary definitions of words, but what the underlying messages are, and what is being communicated. (A separate, but related issue, is the reliability and accuracy of translators, particularly whether they are omitting things or making ad hoc additions to your statements.)

6

For instance, a better understanding of how Arabic is used by political figures throughout the region might have caused U.S. analysts to question the commitment of Iraqi politicians to genuine reconciliation and to move forward on difficult issues. In his analysis of “political Arabic”, for instance, Patai had noted

The mere statement that an agreement has been reached … suffices to impart a feeling of accomplishment … Once this is done, that is, once the verbal statement has been made, the pressure to do something … eases, and there follows a period of quiescence during which little or nothing is done to translate the words into deeds …19

This analysis might then have led U.S. policymakers not to vest as much importance in the statements coming from Iraqi politicians promising that vexing issues would be solved.

Similarly, in Latin America, there can be a significant gap between political statements and actual intent. Those who analyze the results of the annual Latinobarómetro survey of public opinion in the countries of the Western Hemisphere feel that it is important to note that “antagonism as expressed in political rhetoric does not necessarily translate to hostility in all other spheres.”20

The Role of Culture

Language, of course, is only one part of the overall matrix that defines culture. Lewis sees culture as a group‟s “blueprint for survival, and, hopefully, success. It is an all embracing pattern of a group‟s entire way of life, including a shared system of values, social meanings and agendas passed on from generation to generation.” Culture can be manifested in a number of material and non-material ways, from language, music, religion and art to etiquette and behavior.21

There are some cultural attributes that are universal to all humans—love of family, gratitude for assistance, the desire for acceptance and belonging, and anger at perceived injustices. “Such commonalities, however, are vastly outnumbered by hundreds of visible and invisible differences” between human beings who belong to different ethnic groups and nationalities.22 The proposition that human beings—whether Chinese, Nigerian, Peruvian, Iranian, Italian or Canadian—are rational utility-maximizing individuals still has a good deal of merit in explaining day-to-day economic behavior and sometimes even more drastic decisions, such as the Saudi request for and approval of U.S. forces to be deployed within the territorial boundaries of the Kingdom, following the Iraqi conquest of Kuwait in 1990. Yet, as the noted political philosopher Francis Fukuyama cautions us, people can also be motivated by their sense of right and wrong, or by their desire for honor, satisfaction, and prestige—values that are culturally determined.23

Culture matters. The Peace Corps handbook tells its volunteers:

The central focus here is on the relationship between culture in the abstract—the underlying values and assumptions of a society—and culture in the flesh—the

7

specific behaviors that derive from those values. It is important to understand that what people do and say in a particular culture, whether it be yours or that of your host country, are not arbitrary and spontaneous, but are consistent with what people in that culture value and believe in. By knowing people‟s values and beliefs, you can come to expect and predict their behavior. Once host country people are no longer catching you off guard with their actions and once you are no longer simply reacting to their actions, you are well on your way to successful cultural adjustment.

Moreover, once you accept that people behave the way they do for a reason, whatever you may think of that reason, you can go beyond simply reacting to that behavior and figure out how to work with it.24

What does this mean, in plain English? Despite our common humanity, humans raised in different cultures—with a different set of assumptions—will react differently to the same situation. As sociologist Aaron Wildavsky notes, different cultures “confer different meanings on situations, events, objects, and especially relationships.”25 In turn, this makes it far easier for situations to develop out of misunderstandings and misread cues.

For instance, does a culture put a greater emphasis on “straight talk” or on preserving harmony by avoiding or downplaying potentially divisive topics of conversation? Moaveni had this to say about the gap between Iranians and Americans:

I think this is the biggest difference between the US and Iran -- how honesty is interpreted. American culture is incredibly forthright. There‟s this premium on telling it like it is and being frank. Iranian culture, and Farsi, the language, is really evasive; it has all these rituals and cues and formalities in how people deal with one another.26

Japanese-American psychologist Lydia Minatoya noted the “culture clash” when an American friend and a Japanese relative were engaging in conversation and the subject turned to some controversial aspects of U.S.-Japan relations:

Yoshi [the translator] reeled in horror. How could he translate, with delicacy, such an openly confrontational question? … Tadao-san looked questioningly at Yoshi. What was the meaning of all this clamor? Yoshi rushed to translate. “This is a most difficult question,” said Tadao-san after hearing an edited translation. I cringed. When a Japanese says a question is difficult, he is requesting release from an uncomfortable situation.27

The American walked away thinking his Japanese interlocutor was being evasive and or unwilling to own up to facts; the Japanese in the room saw the American as particularly rude and discourteous, especially since all of them had just been introduced. For the American, openness is the prelude to building trust; for his hosts, one first focuses on cultivating the relationship, and then, when a certain comfort level has emerged, perhaps only then can controversial subjects can be discussed.

8

The president of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni, has himself talked about the differences that can occur when different cultures have different approaches to “straight talk”, noting that in East African cultures, there is a tendency not to openly contradict or clash with others. He noted, “This is called obufura in the Runyankore language, or mwolo in Luo -- handling, especially strangers, with care and respect. It seems some of the non-African cultures do not have obufura.”28

Or take, as an example, the act of smiling. Smiling to show pleasure or happiness is a universal human reaction, but for many Americans, that is the only reason or explanation for why a person smiles. However, in other parts of the world, the person smiling back at you may not be doing so for the reasons you suspect. In many parts of Asia, a smile is also a defense mechanism when a person feels they are undergoing public shame or humiliation—a version of the British “stiff upper lip”—especially if that person otherwise feels powerless. (Homer calls attention to how a smile might signal menace rather than acceptance; in the Iliad, Book VII, Ajax advances on Hector “smiling with grim countenance.”)

The way in which culture works to shape a person‟s worldview and outlook occurs at a variety of levels. Is time viewed as linear (there is a starting point in the past leading to an ending point in the future), or cyclical (all this has happened before and will happen again)? How much control can human beings exert over their environment? Is there such a thing as truth—and are truths the same for all people? What is the optimal way to determine best practices? Rely on past precedent or have individuals assess for themselves? Who holds rights—each individual person or the collective?

These are not abstract questions. Wildavsky and others have noted that cultural beliefs and the institutions they create can have a major impact on a society‟s peace and prosperity. For instance,

Observe that the characteristics of what is called the culture of poverty-short time horizons, unwillingness to invest, lack of personal responsibility - are products of fatalism. Why look to the future, as the saying, goes, if "you can't outguess Mother Nature"? Why invest if you cannot trust other people? Why take responsibility if the future is unknowable and if other people are likely to try to do you in no matter what you do? Obviously, fatalism is compatible with neither development nor democracy.29

One must not also neglect other influences—climate, geography, the abundance or scarcity of natural resources, demographic trends, and so on—in shaping culture. The fatalism and acceptance of suffering that characterizes Russian culture, for instance, finds its roots in the harsh winters, the (comparatively) poor soil which did not produce abundant harvests (increasing the chances of famine), and the historical record of foreign invasions which would periodically devastate the land. The styles of traditional Japanese architecture—and the home life they engendered—defined by use of wood and paper and promoting a minimalist lifestyle—were the end result of living in an area beset by earthquakes and typhoons with high population density.

9

The literature about culture is so vast that even an entire course, much less a single class session, cannot encompass every detail. From the perspective of the national security professional, however, there are two areas that can directly impact his or her job.

The Importance of Trust

The first is whether a culture promotes or retards the development of trust—which in turn affects how a U.S. presence might be perceived and how U.S. promises could be received. Fukuyama defines trust (in a social context) as “the expectation that arises within a community of regular, honest and cooperative behavior based on commonly-shared norms on the part of other members of that community.”30

In some societies, trust is only possible within extended kinship groups. Unless somehow “adopted” into the group, outsiders are outside the pale. As a result, as Fukuyama points out, “unrelated people have no basis for trusting one another.”31 In the absence of trust, people then have to rely on force or the threat of force, or on complicated arrangements to guarantee compliance with agreements—think of the old Roman practice of taking hostages from the ruling families of neighboring states to ensure that they would comply with their treaty obligations to Rome. The problem, of course, is that modern institutions of government—based on concepts of equality before the law and equal treatment for all citizens (due process) cannot function well if the power of government is seen as a way to advance the interests of the members of one‟s own group at the expense of other groups.

What Fukuyama calls a “familistic society” resembles the Arabic expression asabiyya, sometimes translated as “family spirit”, based on the motto, “be loyal to your tribe.” (Interestingly, the prophet Muhammad condemned this sentiment as divisive; there should only be one community, that of all Muslim believers.)32

In contrast to familistic societies, other cultures foster “spontaneous sociability”—where strangers can come together to form communities and associations. What this ends up doing is helping to widen the “radius of trust.”33 It also means that people are encouraged to transfer their loyalties from “blood kin” to institutions.

Take two high profile criminal cases in the United States. The “Unabomber”—Ted Kaczynski—was identified and ultimately taken into custody because of information supplied by his brother David. In a “familistic society”, David would be a traitor for informing on his brother; in one which fosters “spontaneous sociability”, David‟s act demonstrates trust in the institutions that serve the entire population and therefore are deserving of greater loyalty than loyalty to one‟s blood kin. On the other hand, the former president of the University of Massachusetts, William "Bill" Bulger, a long-time politician, was forced to resign after revelations that he had maintained contact with his brother, the organized crime boss James “Whitey” Bulger, after the latter was a fugitive from the FBI (at the time of this writing, he remains at large). But William Bulger‟s actions would be understood and appreciated in many societies around the world—putting loyalty to family ahead of loyalty to an impersonal entity like the state.

10

The tensions that can result when a society attempts to transition from a “familistic” society to one based on “spontaneous sociability”—or when institutions are created which presuppose the existence of a “spontaneous sociable” society (for instance, democratic elections based on one person, one vote)—can sometimes spill over into violence and civil conflict. Kenya‟s disputed presidential elections in 2007 are a case in point. The incumbent president, Mwai Kibaki, a member of the dominant Kikuyu ethnicity, engaged in some “creative counting” of the ballots in order to win a second term in office against the challenge posed by Raila Odinga, a Luo (the second-largest ethnic group in the country) who had forged a political alliance with other non-Kikuyu groups in the country. The election contest, therefore, was not simply between Kibaki‟s Party of National Unity and Odinga‟s Orange Democratic Movement, but between two coalitions of ethnic and regional groups seeking power. After Kibaki‟s re-election was certified, unrest broke out throughout the country, with Kikuyus, Luos, and others targeting each other; in particular, ethnic Kikuyus who lived outside their traditional areas of settlement found themselves under attack. The violence, which claimed more than 1500 victims, was halted when a power-sharing agreement was reached in April 2008, leaving Kibaki as president, creating a more powerful position of prime minister, a portfolio given to Odinga, and cabinet ministries divided between the PNU and the ODM. But the perception of national politics as a zero-sum game: that for one politician of a particular ethnicity or region to win, another ethnicity or region stands to lose, continues to affect political life, and there are concerns that the violence which broke out in 2007 could reoccur during the 2012 elections, particularly as weapons flowing over the border from Somalia are finding their way to ethnically-based militias.34

In 2011, in Afghanistan, in a modification on the Afghan Public Protection Program—the effort to recruit and deploy Afghan police to take over as the primary security providers—Major General Mustafa, who heads the police in Logar province, decreed that “the militia trainees would all be local men nominated by their own elders and deployed only in their hometowns, rather than across a district or province like other militias have been.”35 The hope here is that having police theoretically accountable to local elders and operating in their own home areas will cut down on corruption. It is an effort to try and bridge the gap between an institution which in theory is based on “spontaneous sociability” but must operate within the parameters of a much more “familistic” society.

Conflict Resolution

The second area of focus is how different cultures settle problems and resolve disputes. Different cultures can produce different ways of reasoning. As Lewis notes:

People who use different structures of reasoning seem illogical to each other. It has been said that Western logic tends to be monocular, which is another way of saying it supports one side of a proposition and pursues its conclusion in a linear fashion. … Chinese logic can be called binocular, meaning opposites are not necessarily seen as contradictions. …

11

The Chinese, with their binocular reasoning, are much more comfortable with ambiguity than most other cultural groups. Reactive people love ambiguity because different interpretations of a situation facilitate avoidance of conflict and leave more options open for future cooperation. Linear-active people, on the contrary, find ambiguous statements irritating and often seek clarification or an unambiguous answer to a question.36

A cultural audit of post-Saddam Iraq would have concluded that Iraq was a “low trust” society, where most people looked to familial, tribal and local associations rather than to the institutions of a central government for help and protection. In terms of “problem solving”, Iraqi society would be a mix of cultural types—defined in part by the search for compromise and consensus, but also one in which there would be little tolerance for challenging the credibility of Islam or its suitability to be a guide for society (even if Iraqis themselves violently disagreed over which version of Islam should serve this purpose).

Given these realities, therefore, some of the ambitious plans for reconstruction unveiled by the Coalition Provisional Authority might not have been suitable, while many of the steps taken by General David Petraeus in Mosul in 2003 seemed to take these factors into account.37

But it is also important not to fall into the trap of cultural determinism. Cultures can adapt and change. As Kriebel pointed out:

Culture does change, sometimes slowly, sometimes rapidly, in response to pressures from the natural and social environments. Population increase, changes in climate, trade, technological innovation, religion, and warfare have all been shown to drive culture change. When a culture change is rapid, it is generally because the society itself is facing a crisis.38

Some assumed that the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 would produce cultural conditions that would allow for rapid change in political and social institutions, with comparisons drawn especially to postwar Japan. Others, however, questioned whether Iraq had experienced a crisis of the type that usually facilitates this type of change.39

The Nation—the Imagined Community

Article I of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states: “All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.”

The sense of distinctiveness that a cultural identity can give a group of people is one of the building blocks upon which the claim for self-determination is constructed. As two leading scholars of nationalism, Ronald Suny and Geoff Eley, have noted: “If politics is the ground upon which the category of the nation was first proposed, culture was the terrain where it was elaborated and in this sense nationality is best conceived as a complex, uneven and unpredictable process, forged from an interaction of cultural coalescence and specific political intervention ...”40 John O‟Sullivan argues that “people come to share a national identity, mutual loyalty, and

12

sense of common destiny as the result of sharing the same language and culture and of living under the same institutions over a long period of time.”41 In turn, the modern international political system calls for nations to enjoy self-determination, with a nation having the possibility of its own state, or at least a high degree of autonomy within a state.

Benedict Anderson defines a nation as “an imagined political community.” Calling it imagined does not mean that it is not real or that it is illusory. Rather, it “is imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow members, meet them or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion.”42 As a result, a person assumes obligations towards people never met and never encountered—payment of taxes for services, the possibility of sacrificing one‟s life in combat—on the basis of a shared belief in the existence of the nation and the notion of the nation as “ours.” As Anderson explained, “You follow the laws because they are your laws - not always, because you perhaps cheat on your tax forms, but normally you do. Nationalism encourages good behaviour.”43 [Good behavior—to those within. Nationalism, however, also allows a person to classify who the outsiders are. Consider the words used for “foreigner” in many languages. The “outlander” (auslander) in German, the “not from our country” (inostranets) in Russian, the “outside person” (gaijin) in Japanese, someone “external to us” (extranjero) in Spanish, the “guest” or “stranger” (mgeni) in Swahili, etc.]

In turn, governments gain legitimacy by demonstrating their ability to protect the nation and enhance the economic well-being of its citizens—a strategy that has been embraced by the government of China as it has moved away from Communist ideology.44 Nationalism, therefore, can reinforce political legitimacy by creating the belief that decisions taken by the government are, in some fashion, reflecting the will, values or mores of the people. This flows from Jean-Jacques Rousseau‟s observation in Book II, Chapter 10 of The Social Contract that a viable political community is comprised of people already “bound by some union of origin, interest or convention.”

As a result, as Olli Lagerspetz has argued, “In such a situation, political decisions made by the collective are articulations of concerns shared by the individual citizen, and her sense of political obligation is an expression of this sense of community - rather than simply the acceptance of decisions imposed on her from the outside.” This means that as “a nationalist, I believe that my membership in a nation (in whatever way defined) is essential to my personal identity. I believe that I cannot fully express this identity unless I have access to political institutions that reflect the particularity of the nation to which I belong.”45

A key point to take away is that “national political structures that are not rooted in a shared culture and language are likely to prove fragile and while they last, disruptive.”46 Lagerspetz‟s assertion that nationalist feeling is what convinces a person to accept a decision as the will of the community rather than as an imposition from outsiders is an important factor in to be considered.

States do not always create conditions for the emergence of nationalism. In some parts of the world, kinship groups and tribes remain much more important, being the primary providers of welfare to their members rather than the state.47 Therefore, nationalism can compete with other forms of communal identity (tribalism, regionalism and sectarianism) for the loyalty of

13

individuals, and the national identity may not be the principal one motivating an individual to act. In countries like Iraq and Lebanon, where multiple identities exist, political movements such as Hezbollah or the Madhi Army have shifted back and forth from promoting sectarian (in these cases, Shi‟a) interests and national (Lebanese or Iraqi) ones. But what this demonstrates is that the language of nationalism (especially that of “self-determination”) is a powerful tool for rallying political support. The ability of both Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon and Moqtada al-Sadr in Iraq to portray themselves both as leaders of the Shi‟a and as national (Lebanese or Iraqi) leaders are cases in point.48

Nationalism can also spill over into violent action, depending on how politicians choose to mobilize their populations. In seeking to tap into the legitimacy conveyed by the sense of “protecting the nation”, both authoritarian and democratic regimes run the risk of generating conflict with other nations. In the case of authoritarian states, this may be to deflect attention away from failures at home (the “victorious little war” scenario). But democracies—particularly fragile ones, where political leaders are still unsure of their mandates—can also be prone to conflict. Indeed, the main argument put forward by political scientists Jack Snyder and Edward Mansfield is that the transition to democracy is often characterized by a belligerent nationalism that substantially increases the risk of war.

Snyder and Mansfield point to the ways in which nationalism is used to mobilize populations for political action—and their observations can help to guide an officer‟s situational awareness:

Nationalism is attractive to rising groups, who use it as a populist club that can be wielded against elites who are insufficiently zealous in promoting the interests of “the nation” … At the same time, nationalism can be co-opted as a countertactic by elites, old and new, who want to evade new democratic constraints on their rule. By claiming to act on behalf of “the people” but not submitting to direct accountability to them, these elites can tar their opponents as “enemies of the nation” …49

Someone adept at both of these techniques was Iran‟s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Many of us think of him as a religious figure and the founder of the theocratic Islamic Republic, but Khomeini also put himself forward as a representative of the Iranian nation. When the Shah of Iran signed a “Status of Forces Agreement” with the United States, Khomeini declared:

Does the Iranian nation know what has happened in recent days in the Assembly? … Does it know that the Assembly, at the initiative of the government, has signed a document for the enslavement of Iran? It has acknowledged Iran is a colony, it has given America a document attesting that a nation of Muslims is barbarous, it has struck out all our Islamic and national glories with a black line.50

Over time, Khomeini successfully de-legitimized the rule of the Shah and his government in the eyes of many Iranians on such nationalist grounds. A similar tactic was used by Ayatollah al-Sistani in 2003 in Iraq. Despite the American hope that they could draft a constitution via a committee that would encompass many U.S. preferences (separation of religion from state, enhanced rights for women, etc.), Sistani issued a decree in which he called for elected

14

representatives of the Iraqi people to draft the constitution. Otherwise, there would be “no guarantee that such a committee will draft a constitution upholding the Iraqi people‟s interests and expressing their national identity and lofty social values.”51

American outsiders with the best intentions in the world were in no position to gainsay a leading figure of Iraqi society—and the U.S. plans were shelved. Once again, a principle enshrined in the Russian saying, “Better worse, but ours” won out—that even if what outsiders offer is better, more logical, etc.—many people still prefer something “homegrown.”

Searching for Legitimacy

What makes something legitimate? Why is someone willing to obey an order? How can an outside entity get people to accept and follow decisions? Culture can help to explain, beginning with how a document is presented.

In China, as well as in some other Asian countries, what matters is whether a paper has been “chopped” (a chop is a little round seal, rubbed on red inkpads, which make a document official once stamped). Moreover,

… under Chinese law, a red chop can authorize a document regardless of whether or not the person who actually chops the document has an authority to do so. This had made no sense to us as Westerners used to seeing signatures as approval.52

In Iraq, in Mosul in 2003, General David Petraeus issued an order for the release of Iraqi currency to pay local officials. He drafted and signed the order. Then:

The banker read over the order, then looked up, a mite skeptical. “What, no seal?” he asked. The Americans hadn‟t known that Iraqi officials always applied official seals to documents.53

Petraeus then had an Iraqi-style seal made up for himself which he used on subsequent orders.

These two examples may seem minor, but they point to a larger issue: the way in which human beings differentiate between legitimate and illegitimate orders and policies. Often, something not done “our way” will not be accepted.

The concept of “legitimacy” is fundamental to any political system, but how it is interpreted varies from culture to culture. In Arabic, “legitimacy”—sharaiyya—carries religious connotations; the notion that something is right because it is in accordance with divine precepts. In Chinese, he f axing carries with it the sense of legality, something is right because it is in accordance with proper procedures. In English, Spanish and other languages where the word is derived from Latin, legitimacy carries a similar original meeting, of something being in accordance with the law; but in recent years legitimacy is strongly linked to democracy, to something being done by government having to reflect the will of the people as expressed through elections.

15

Max Weber identified several sources of legitimacy: traditional (something is done in accordance with long-standing traditions or customs; “this is the way it has always been done”), the main underpinning of monarchical systems; charismatic (people accept something because of the charisma of the leader proposing it, a belief, say, in divine favor or guidance); or rationality—an order or system is legitimate because it makes sense and brings benefits (most legal systems in use in the West today appeal to this form of legitimacy).54 Possession of proper symbols may also be critical—having the chops, seals or other tools of office. In many East African towns in the pre-colonial period, the sovereignty of the community was symbolized by the siwa, a great horn, so that “he who held the siwa held the town”; and in one instance, when a failed claimant to power in the town of Kilwa realized he would be unable to secure the kingship, he threw the siwa into the Indian Ocean in an effort “to destroy kingship itself.”55

Sometimes legitimacy does not run in concert with formal state institutions. Tribal or religious leaders may enjoy greater authority than those with governmental titles. In some cases, traditional leaders may be “dual-hatted”, holding a formal, constitutional position, but exercising power because of a traditional form of leadership. In other cases, the government may seek to co-opt or cooperate with traditional leaders. In Africa, for instance, “Mention could also be made of various paramount chiefs in West Africa, notably the Asantehene who has still enormous influence in the traditional political arena. His charisma is highly routinised, and includes rituals of such overwhelming national significance - 'enstoolments', funerals, yam festivals, etcetera, that no government in Accra can afford to be visibly unrepresented. Similar figures include the Khalifa-General of the Muslim Muride order in Senegal, the Moro Naba of Upper Volta, as well as the Oni of Ife or the Emir of Kano in Nigeria.”56 In Iraq, Saddam Hussein attempted to co-opt Sunni Arab tribal federations in order to sustain his rule. In analyzing the tribal politics of the country at the time of the 2003 operation—and in trying to provide advice to the future coalition authority, Amatzia Baram made the following conclusions:

Under Saddam's dictatorship, many of Iraq's Sunni tribes enjoyed considerable perquisites and privileges that ensured at least some degree of loyalty to the regime. Many tribal shaykhs received payments, access to weaponry, and a blind eye from Baghdad to smuggling and other illegal activities. To man his various internal security forces, such as the Presidential Guard and Special Republican Guard, Saddam imported large numbers of young, uneducated tribal men from Tikrit and his childhood village, al-Ujah, and secondarily from other parts of the Iraqi Sunni Arab countryside and even some Shiite areas. Young men from tribes considered friendly to the regime were encouraged to join the armed forces and the security organs and enjoyed speedy promotion. Overall, these tribes benefited in multifarious ways from Saddam's rule.

Which tribes enjoyed this kind of preferential treatment? In the Sunni Arab areas practically all of the tribes did, but some were more privileged than others. These tribes included principally those neighboring Tikrit (mostly in the Salah al-Din Governorate): the Jubbur in Sharqat, the 'Ubayd in al-'Alam and Tarmiya, the Mushahadah in Tarmiya, the Luhayb in Sharqat, and the al-'Azza in Balad. A bit farther afield, there were the Harb in ad-Dur, the Tayy in Mosul (the minister of defense, General Sultan Hashim, hails from that tribe), the Khazraj from south of Mosul, and the Maghamis from Khalis. Finally, while the large Sunni Arab tribal federation of the Dulaym west of Baghdad collaborated with the regime rather closely, the Shammar Jarba northwest of Baghdad in the Jazira collaborated somewhat less enthusiastically.

16

… Under Saddam Hussein as president, and to a lesser extent even under his predecessor, President Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr (1968-1979), tribal chiefs were given weapons, lands, money, and great authority over their tribes. This has applied to Sunni, Shiite, and even some Kurdish tribes. In exchange, Shiite and Kurdish tribes (as well as Arab tribes close to the Kurdish zones) assisted the regime by monitoring the borders with Iran and preventing their own tribesmen from joining anti-Baath insurgents. Tribal autonomy meant that tribal law and practices ('urf, 'adah) prevailed in the tribal countryside, even over the law of the land. For instance, tribal rules governed practices such as blood feud and peacemaking (sulha), including blood money (diyyeh), official government prohibitions against murder notwithstanding. Beginning in the 1990s, the regime also accepted tribal practices when it came to "honor" crimes, including the murder of women to protect family honor ('ird). Indeed, men murdering their female relatives for reasons of "protecting the family honor" were routinely acquitted in the state courts, and sometimes were not even brought to justice.

All of this means that the tribes are accustomed to acting in semi-independence, have followed a different rule of law than the rest of the country, and have precedent and tradition on their side. Managing them and bringing them in line with the policies of the central authority will be an important challenge for a new interim authority and a new, democratic Iraqi government. The guiding principle for coalition forces in the post-Saddam era ought to be, at least during the first year or two, to interfere as little as possible in intra- and inter-tribal affairs. At the same time, it is imperative to make very clear that the tribes are not autonomous from the state and that state control applies wherever the central authority decides to implement it. Thus, for example, "honor killing" of women, presently largely unpunished, must be stopped, if necessary by force. Indeed, any new Iraqi government—and the interim authority that precedes it—should probably handle the tribes with a combination of benefits, diplomacy, and force, just as the old regime did.

With regard to benefits, tribal shaykhs may be regarded as a useful conduit, receiving resources from a new central government in Baghdad and disseminating them to their tribesmen. Thus, providing resources to the shaykhs can be justified not as outright bribery but as simply a form of distribution network, because most shaykhs will make sure that their followers do receive equitable (if not quite equal) shares of the largesse. However, the central authority must keep tabs on these practices and be satisfied that the allocations by the shaykhs are equitable. If there are complaints by one section of the tribe that the shaykh is discriminating against them, the central authority has a very effective whip: it can, and should, allow this section to become independent and nominate its own shaykh, who then will be entitled to receive the resources directly. This would be a significant blow to the old shaykh and serve as an example for others.

Another way for coalition forces to handle an unjust or disloyal shaykh—at least before a full-fledged Iraqi democracy emerges—would be to allow a village under the control of such a shaykh to elect its own local authority or mayor. Often such local authorities are more important than the grand shaykhs. By giving them government support, their loyalty to the central authority in Baghdad will be secured at the expense of the authority of the old shaykh. There are other options, like replacing the old shaykh with one of his relatives, but picking the right such shaykh (i.e., one with greater popularity than the old shaykh) might require a subtlety and understanding of tribal sentiment beyond American and British forces.57

17

Ideology can also play a role in this process of determining why people view something as legitimate. Many political ideologies draw their inspiration from the values and beliefs of society—and translate a worldview into a blueprint for political action. For much of the 20th century, Marxism-Leninism, with its claim to understand the laws of history, and providing a blueprint for the rapid industrialization of a state, was attractive to many elites in the developing world. Since the late 1980s, “democratic capitalism” as defined in the so-called “Washington Consensus”, and now the Chinese model of state-directed reform, have found their partisans. Ideology can help to explain why governments may choose different courses of action when confronted with the same problem.

Inspired by the ideology of “Manifest Destiny”—the belief that the United States should become a continental nation extending from “sea to sea”—and also reflecting a Western-Enlightenment faith in the value of technology, Congress, in 1862, passed the Pacific Railway Act. This authorized federal support for the “construction of a railroad and telegraph line from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean.” Transcontinental railroads were seen as essential to bind the United States more closely together and to open remote areas for settlement and economic development. The railroad represented progress and development—even if trains were loud, noisy and polluting.

In contrast, influenced by Daoist and Confucian beliefs about the need for harmony and stability, the Chinese government of the Qing dynasty never embraced the new technology. Indeed, in 1876, China‟s first railway—the Shanghai-Wusong line—was bought by and then dismantled by the provincial governor, on the grounds that the “fire-carriages” disturbed the harmony of the land and its residents. His efforts were encouraged by the Dowager Empress Ci Xi, who may also have been concerned about the ability of these new transportation technologies to allow rebel groups in different parts of the country to communicate. After all, the Qing had nearly been overthrown by the Taiping Rebellion only a few short years earlier.

Contemporary China, of course, has no such inhibitions against developing rapid transport to link the country. What changed? The experiences of defeat at the hands of more developed powers and the coming to power of a new government driven by a different ideology than the Qing dynasty—one which embraced modernization and development as necessary for national defense.

One can observe today major differences in the economic policies pursued by the United States and many continental European governments. Americans favor growth while continentals prefer guaranteeing social welfare. As a result,

the Europeans will choose their own model. And that model means that a combination of lower growth and higher degree of social welfare/social security is preferable to a combination of higher growth pattern and less social welfare/social security. And this European preference has its merits. Among other things there are strong reasons to believe that it mobilizes a large share of Europe's human resources while the American model does not do so but compensates by attracting human resources from abroad.58

18

Differences in social preferences—in this case over the role of religion in public life—were also manifested in clashes between the Coalition Provisional Authority and Iraqis over the role Islam should play in public life, in the drafting of legislation, even in the broadcasting of prayers over state television. The American view of the “separation of church and state” clashed with an Iraqi preference for what is known as an accommodationist model—one where religion can enjoy state support and have a visible presence not simply in society but in government as well.59

All of this points to what Wildavsky has observed, that for the institutions of a society to function, there must be

A mutually supportive relationship between a particular cultural bias and a particular pattern of social relations. A way of life will remain viable only if it inculcates in its constituent individuals the cultural basis that justifies it. Conversely, individuals, if they wish to make a way of life for themselves, must negotiate a set of values and beliefs capable of supporting that way of life.60

In other words, without a cultural foundation in place in which to anchor changed or new institutions, they cannot take root. This therefore takes more than changing a law on paper or instituting a training program. Something that Minatoya observed in her travels in Asia, especially when dealing with government institutions where corruption seemed to be the norm, was that

It is difficult to establish government bureaucracy in a nation accustomed to bartering. Following procedural guidelines simply lacks the adventure of bargaining, the sensibleness of simpler forms of operating.61

Minatoya‟s experiences have been echoed by former officials of the CPA in Iraq. The assumption that “if you wanted to change something, you changed the law, just like in the United States” ran up against an Iraqi reality—locals disregarding such instructions and arguing, “Outside solutions won‟t work here. It has to be an Iraqi solution.”62

What can produce change? The application of overwhelming force by a leadership committed to an ideological solution, for one. Josef Stalin in the USSR and Mao Zedong in China forcibly altered the very landscape of their societies, using industrialization and mass repression to destroy the old, agrarian-based societies. Millions were arrested or died (in prison, in famines, in the process of being relocated). As a result, nothing was left unaffected, from political culture to economic infrastructure, language, religion and social habits.

Sometimes, the existence of an existential threat causes a nation to promote rapid cultural change as a way of staving off extinction. Some examples have been the Cherokee nation at the beginning of the 19th century (especially in the adoption of forms of government and economic life patterned on the United States); the reforms in Meiji Japan in the late 19th century, and the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and the creation of the Republic of Turkey by Kemal Ataturk at the beginning of the 20th century.

Generally, however, reform efforts have “almost no chance of succeeding” unless reformers can build “upon a usable past, cultural memories, received skills or aspirations.”63

19

Based on his studies of where the reform process has succeeded in Russia, Nicolai N. Petro, a political scientist based at URI, has concluded that it was “by embracing a positive political myth rooted in [the] past” that enabled regional leaders to ease “the shock of cultural discontinuity, broadened the social constituency in favor of reforms and contributed to dramatically higher levels of confidence in local government.”64

Some have argued that modern India‟s ability to accept and adapt the British parliamentary system into an indigenous form of Indian democracy comes from features in the traditional Indian worldview—among them the belief that “there can be no single universal standard of behavior, belief or duty (dharma)” which leads “to a tolerance of ambiguity, diversity and pluralism.” Because of this cultural foundation, the tensions inevitably created by democratization and modernization could be channeled, moderated and managed.65 Yet how to present reforms as co-existing with traditional concepts of culture can be daunting. This was the dilemma of Li Hongzhang, one of the leading army commanders of the Chinese Empire in the latter half of the 19th century. His unsuccessful attempt was to argue for “Western learning for practical purposes (xixue wei yong)” and “Chinese learning for the fundamentals (zhongxue wei ti).” 66 But this effort was successfully applied in other countries—notably Japan and later South Korea.

So, if reforms can be presented as something that is indigenous, rather than imposed from the outside, they have a greater chance of taking root and being successful. This process can be assisted if there a cadre of people who can navigate between the cultures and nations. Thus, just as translators can bridge the language gap, the United States, over the last fifty years, has relied on the openness of its educational system to international students who

… are not American in their physical origin. They are, however, American in their intellectual apparatus. They are the foreign students who come to American universities and learn American principles and practices. In particular, they are the economics majors and business school students who come to believe in the free market, and the political science majors and law school students who come to believe in liberal democracy and the rule of law. When (or if) they return to their home countries, they will know both the culture and customs of their own society and the principles and practices of American society. … And, indeed, a significant number of current officials in Latin America, Europe and East Asia are graduates of American universities, and an even larger cadre of graduates is now entering into official careers.67

Some Closing Thoughts

Both government and the private sector are creating more resources which can help provide the national security professional with assistance; knowing what questions to ask can transform these materials from being a burden to a source of actionable knowledge.

20

In his assessment of why cultural awareness would matter to the national security professional, David Kriebel reached the following conclusions:

The need for military professionals, especially staff officers, to acquire an understanding of culture has never been more clear—or more pressing—than today. We live in a multi-polar world of joint and combined environments, transnational terrorism fueled by appeals to religion, sustained counterinsurgency operations, and large-scale humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations. As U.S. forces become more expeditionary, officers and those they advise and lead will find themselves interacting with people of vastly different cultures from allied and host nations. U.S. service members will be even more seen as ambassadors of our nation, and must be careful to avoid cultural missteps. They will also need to understand the religious beliefs and appeal of adversaries, as well as how adversaries can manipulate those beliefs in order to generate popular support. Just as the principles and discoveries of physics were instrumental in creating the weapons systems that sustained our national defense during the Cold War, the principles and insights of anthropology will be central to winning the Long War. Learning about culture, religion, and ideology is now a vital part of an officer‟s professional military education.

… Staff officers must be adept at convincing those they support that cultural insights are important and be able to explain how such insights can be used. Cultural expertise will be increasingly important in future staffs, and staff officers will have the opportunity to shape cultural capabilities. In this, they stand at the forefront of a revolution, and that is never a comfortable place to be. But by getting out in front in developing cultural capability, staff officers will help ensure that their comrades in the field will have a crucial edge, both in preparing for conflict and avoiding it.68

NOTES

1 David Kriebel, “Culture,” U.S. Naval War College, May 2008, 1. 2 Harry Kreisler, “American Nationalism: A Conversation with Anatol Lieven,” Conversations with History Institute of International Studies, University of California at Berkeley, May 6, 2004, 3, at http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people4/Lieven/lieven-con3.html. 3 Gregory Feifer, The Great Gamble: The Soviet War in Afghanistan (New York: Harper Collins, 2009), 105. 4 Kriebel, 1-2. 5 Raphael Patai, The Arab Mind, rev. ed. (New York: Charles Scribner‟s Sons, 1983), 161 6 Kriesler interview with Lieven, op. cit, 3. 7 Robert L. Hardgrave, Jr. and Stanley A. Kochanek, India: Government and Politics in a Developing Nation, 4th ed. (San Diego: Harcout Brace Jovanovich, 1970, 1986), 148. 8 Benjamin L. Whorf, Collected Papers on Metalinguistics (Washington, DC: Department of State Foreign Service Institute, 1952), 5. 9 Benjamin Whorf, Language, Thought and Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1956), 214.

21

10 Richard Lewis, The Cultural Imperative: Global Trends in the 21st century (Boston, MA: Intercultural Press, 2002), 145-46. 11 Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone (New York: Vintage Books, 2006, 2007), 260. 12 Ibid, 271. Chandrasekaran notes the problems of translation errors in Iraq on the part of the CPA were magnified because so few of its members had any facility in Arabic. 13 Anthony Shadid, Night Draws Near: Iraq’s People in the Shadow of America’s War (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2005, 2006), 236-237. 14 Hugh Miles, Al-Jazeera: The Inside Story of the Arab News Channel That is Challenging the West (New York: Grove Press, 2005), 356-357. 15 Shadid, 274. 16 Patai, 56. 17 Arkady N. Shevchenko, Breaking with Moscow (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985), 300. 18 Azadeh Moaveni, Lipstick Jihad: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America and American in Iran (New York: Public Affairs, 2005), 89. 19 Patai, 350. 20 Kevin Young, “US Policy and Democracy in Latin America: The Latinobarómetro Poll,” Venezuelanalysis, June 3, 2009, at http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/4495. 21 Lewis, xxiii. 22 Ibid, xx. 23 Francis Fukuyama, Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996), 19. 24 Culture Matters is the Peace Corps multicultural workbook, designed to train volunteers. The quote is taken from chapter 1, “Understanding Culture,” 5, at http://www.peacecorps.gov/wws/publications/culture/. 25 Aaron Wildavsky, “How Cultural Theory Can Contribute to Understanding and Promoting Democracy, Science, and Development,” in Culture and Development in Africa, eds. Ismail Serageldin and June Taboroff (Washington, DC: The World Bank, 1992), 158. 26 Michal Lumsden, “Lipstick Jihad: An Interview with Azadeh Moaveni,” Mother Jones, March 2005, at http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2005/03/lipstick-jihad-interview-azadeh-moaveni. 27 Lydia Minatoya, Talking to High Monks in the Snow (New York: Harper Perennial, 1993), 105. 28 Yoweri Museveni, “The Qaddafi I Know,” Foreign Policy, March 24, 2011, at http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/03/24/the_qaddafi_I_know. 29 Wildavsky, 141. 30 Fukuyama, 26. 31 Fukuyama, 28-29. 32 Patai, 93. 33 Fukuyama, 26, 36. 34 “Kenyans 'rearming for 2012 poll',” BBC News, October 7, 2009, at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8293745.stm. For more on the background of Kenyan politics, including the identification of different parties with different ethnic groups, see David Throup, “Elections and Political Legitimacy in Kenya,” Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, 63:3 (1993), 371-396. 35 David Axe, “6th Time‟s the Charm? NATO Tries, Again, to Train Afghan Militias,” Danger Room, March 24, 2011, at http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/03/6th-times-the-charm-nato-tries-again-to-train-afghan-militias/. 36 Lewis, 144-45. 37 Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco (New York: Penguin Books, 2006), esp. 228-232 38 Kriebel, 10. 39 See, for instance, Douglas Porch, “Occupational Hazards: Myths of 1945 and U.S. Iraq Policy,” The National Interest (Summer 2003), for an example of this debate. 40 Geoff Eley and Ronald Suny, “Introduction,” in Becoming National: A Reader (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 11. 41 John O‟Sullivan, “In Defense of Nationalism,” National Interest, Winter 2004/05, 37. 42 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 2nd edition (London: Verso, 1983, 1991), 6.

22

43 Lorenz Khazaleh, interview with Benedict Anderson, December 15, 2005, at http://www.culcom.uio.no/english/news/2005/anderson.html. 44 Erica Strecker Downs and Phillip C. Saunders, “Legitimacy and the Limits of Nationalism: China and the Diaoyu Islands,” International Security, 23:3 (Winter 1998/99), 120-22. 45 Olli Lagerspetz, “Nationalism and Political Legitimacy,” undated essay, at http://web.abo.fi/fak/hf/filosofi/Research/Nationalism_and_Political_Legitimacy.htm. 46 O‟Sullivan, 37. 47 For a discussion of this, see Lisa Anderson, “The State in the Middle East and North Africa,” Comparative Politics 20:1 (October 1987), esp. 4, 5, 7-8. 48 See, for instance, Kathleen Ridolfo, “Iraq: Is Al-Sadr Stirring The Pot Or Promoting Peace?” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, February 28, 2006, at http://www.rferl.org/content/article/1066214.html. 49 Edward Mansfield and Jack Snyder, Electing to Fight: Why Emerging Democracies Go to War (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005), 10. 50 Quoted in Karl E. Meyer, The Dust of Empire: The Race for Mastery in the Asian Heartland (New York: Century Foundation, 2003), 78. 51 Chandraekaran, 91. 52 Tim Clissold, Mr. China (New York: Harper Business, 2004, 2005), 142. 53 Ricks, 230. 54 See Max Weber, Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology (New York, Bedminster Press, 1968). 55 Derek Nurse and Thomas Spear, The Swahili: Reconstructing the History and Language of an African Society, 800-1500 (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985), 93. 56 Victor T. Le Vine, “African Patrimonial Regimes in Comparative Perspective,” Journal of Modern African Studies 18:4 (December 1980), 660. 57 Amatzia Baram, The Iraqi Tribes and the Post-Saddam System, a brief of the Saban Center of the Brookings Institution, July 8, 2003, at http://www.brookings.edu/papers/2003/0708iraq_baram.aspx. 58 J. Ørstrøm Møller, “The Shape of Things to Come,” In the National Interest, http://www.inthenationalinterest.com/Articles/Vol2Issue26/Vol2Issue26Moller.html 59 See Chandrasekaran, esp. 151-52. 60 Michael Thompson, Richard Ellis, and Aaron Wildavsky, Cultural Theory (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1990), 2. 61 Minatoya, 208. 62 Chandrasekaran, 272. 63 S. Frederick Starr, “A Usable Past,” in The Soviet System: From Crisis to Collapse¸ rev. ed., ed. Alexander Dallin and Gail W. Lapidus (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1991, 1995), see esp. 11-12. 64 Nicolai N. Petro, “A Russian Model of Development,” in Civil Society and the Search for Justice in Russia, eds. Christopher Marsh and Nikolas K. Gvosdev (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2002), 44. 65 Hardgrave and Kochanek, 150. 66 Arthur Cotterell, China: A Cultural History (New York: Mentor, 1990), 237. 67 James Kurth, “Migration and the Dynamics of Empire,” National Interest, Spring 2003 68 Kriebel, 13.