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Authors: David Leahy and Clare BorrasCultural Awareness Decision Support ToolBackgroundMilitary operations are becoming more multi-nationaland are increasingly focused on peace-keeping,operations other than war (OOTW), and counterinsurgencytype operations. The day-to-day culturalinteractions with the local population can unwittinglyturn a potential ‘friend’ or ‘neutral’ into an enemyor induce locals to provide help or information toinsurgents. When U.S. forces tried to keep civilian carsfrom blundering into the path of the invasion forcein 2003, said Maj. Ben Connable, a Marine Corpsforeign-cultures expert, “we started out just by tryingto wave them down, by putting a hand out – ‘Stop!’-- with the palm forward and this wasn’t working at all.It was an Army foreign-area officer who realized thatthe ‘Stop’ gesture was the Iraqi symbol for ‘Welcome,come forward!’ We were actually motioning peopleto come forward, because we had no culturaltraining.”Current UK cultural training initiatives either take placeonly in a pre-deployment timeframe (thus subjectto recall deterioration for the material over time),or the information is hidden in cultural awarenessWebsites – making it difficult to extract the relevantpertinent information. Small cultural awareness paperbooklets are deployed to troops in-theatre, but theyquickly deteriorate and contain limited amounts ofinformation.Thus in an effort to help win the battle of ‘hearts andminds’ and improve cultural relations within the multinationalforce, it was felt that some kind of portable‘cultural awareness decision support tool’ might beExample Scenarioone avenue to investigate to help improve the culturalawareness of forces presently deployed abroad. Itmay also help handle the ‘knowledge vacuum’ thatoccurs when such troops finish their tour and takewith them the cultural knowledge that they haveaccumulated.The purpose of this research was to understandrequirements for information on cultural issues andto work-up scenarios to provide cultural guidancefor deployed forces in Afghanistan. A prototype wasdeveloped out of early requirements and used as afocal point for discussion.Requirements AnalysisRequirements for the prototype were identifiedthrough consultation with stakeholders who included:MOD cultural experts involved with training, medicalpersonnel previously deployed to Afghanistan, andstaff involved in post-operation debriefing. Informationwas gathered through a series of questionnaires,interviews and analysis of post-operative reports.The cultural issues were then organised via a culturalframework and strategies developed to advisetroops on appropriate courses of action. Fromthis, requirements for scenarios providing on-thejobguidance within the context of particular taskswere developed in consultation with the stakeholdergroup.Cultural FrameworkTo classify cultural information such as values,beliefs, behaviours etc. a number of approaches fordescribing cultural characteristics and highlightingcultural differences were assessed for applicabilityto the military domain. These included the work byDescription/ExplanationScenario Wrong House Search If a wrong house was searchedrecompense should be made torestore honour to the senior malemembers of the householdRecommended ActionsAs soon as possible, return to publiclyrestore honour to the householdSacrifice a domestic animal publicly infront of the houseArrange for a financial compensationagreed at a public ‘shura’ (villagemeeting)The household will be shamed until apublic apology has been madePublic display of apologyIt is common for Afghans to acceptfinancial compensation for a wrongdoing against themAppropriate Phrases Who’s in charge ? Tsok salaahiyat larey ?SorryWo bakhe/ bakhshenaRelated ‘War Stories’In 2006, British arms serving in Mazar-e-sharif conducted an aggressive housesearch but searched the wrong house. They restored honour to the householdby returning to the house in minutes, with a live sheep and publicly slaughteringit in front of the house and then presenting the carcass to the household. Itprovided the house with free meat for a week or more, but it was also a publicact of apology, which was well received and accepted.Table showing Example Scenario8
Hofstede (1991)and Klein (2004).However, nonehad been used todescribe Afghaniculture, which wasthe focus for thestudy.The classificationsystem selected wasThe NetherlandsOrganisation forapplied scientificresearch (TNO)cultural framework(2007) developedto train militarypersonnel to analysecultural factorsas they influenceoperations. It hasbeen used in theRoyal Netherlands Army to raise cultural awareness andsupport better interactions with those from adversarycultures. The framework consists of six themes thatcapture the range of cultural issues likely to impactmilitary tasks:1.2.3.4.5.6.PDA screen shot showinga soldier talking to VillageEldersHonour and Face: Describes behaviour requiredto maintain respect and social standing.Hierarchy and Social Stratification: Describessocial hierarchy of those within any social situation,e.g. a community or meeting.Purity, Danger and Taboos: Describes rules aboutissues considered offensive or unacceptable in asociety that should be respected.Proxemics and the Body: Describes the layout ofbuildings, social distance between people andbody language norms within a given society.Speech Acts: Describes conversation patternsin various settings such as when arrangingappointments or being involved in negotiations.Worldview and Belief Systems. Describes issuesthat influence cultural philosophy.The framework was then applied to Afghani cultureand extended from training to supporting on the jobdecision-making.Decision Support ToolOur solution was to organise the information usingthe TNO cultural framework and then ‘chunking’related information via ‘scenarios’ which the enduser could easily search for. Once a scenario hasbeen located, the system would list recommendedactions for that particular cultural scenario (as well asexplanations). The user could also look at multi-mediacontent including relevant pictures (e.g. of gestures),appropriate language phrases (and their audioplaying) and relevant ‘war stories’ of how troops havesuccessfully dealt with similar scenarios in the past. Theprototype (of 20 military & military medical) scenarioswas implemented in .NET compact framework on aPersonal Data Assistant (PDA), which can potentiallyhold 4GB of data.UsageFeedback from our stakeholders (military and militarymedical) indicated that a portable PDA culturaldatabase implementation would be useful, butwould most probably consulted more in a ‘downtime’ timeframe, or when planning a mission or at apre-mission brief.Recommendations and ConclusionsFeedback from a number of the stakeholders indicatedthat, although such a ‘dedicated’ cultural awarenessdecision support tool might be consulted during ‘downtime’ or at a pre-mission brief, it would probably not becarried or used on-the-ground. Instead, stakeholderssuggested that such a solution may have a better‘uptake’ if it was combined with, for example, alanguage translator or tutorial tool, or added on toexisting applications (e.g. PDA), as personnel alreadyhad too much to carry. The ‘cultural awarenessscenarios’ could also be expanded to include someinformation on operational recommendations inorder to provide a more useful tool to the end user. Itis also recommended that other cultural awarenesseducation initiatives be continued in-theatre in orderto revise and refresh personnel cultural awareness– for example role-playing exercises and quizzes.Further work could involve hosting a cultural issuesworkshop for military stakeholders (e.g. DETS (A), OPTAG,DCDC, the warfare centres) and researchers, toidentify knowledge gaps, prioritise requirements, andidentify practical solutions (including non-equipmentbased) to the cultural awareness education problem.An increase in cultural awareness could not onlypotentially reduce the number of casualties andfacilitate working with the indigenous population,but could also facilitate the communication andunderstanding between the coalition partners andtheir internal organisations.ReferencesHofstede, G. (1991). Cultures and organisations:Softwares of the mind. London: McGraw-Hill.Klein, H.A. (2004). Cognition in Natural Settings: TheCultural Lens Model. In M. Kaplan (Ed.) CulturalErgonomics, Advances in <strong>Human</strong> Performance andCognitive Engineering Research, Volume 4, pp 249-280. Amsterdam: Elsevier.9
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