The Marines, Counterinsurgency, and Strategic Culture

Know Thyself 23
their sometimes innovative counterinsurgency practices, and perplexing current
posture (a return to amphibious roots), the Marine Corps surfaced as
the most compelling case for focused study.
Amass a Range of Potentially Significant
Cultural Influences
In the spirit of Kevin Avruch’s pithy “for any individual, culture always
comes in the plural,” 32 the third step of the cultural mapping exercise
prompts the researcher to gather data on the array of various cultural narratives
that may weigh in on decision making for members of the actor set
selected. Anthropological literature is replete with the demonstrated influences
of national, ethnic, religious, socioeconomic, generational, and gendered
cultural narratives on actor behavior. Some influences are not as well
understood. For instance, one enterprising young scholar investigated the
influence of cultural norms cultivated across social media as accelerants to
the process of radicalization. 33 Those employing the cultural mapping tool
are encouraged to research widely and unconventionally for cultural influences
that may be providing context for actor behavior.
The various cultural narratives amassed in this step represent the spectrum
of possible sources—the cultural repertoire—from which members of
the actor set may draw their identity, norms, values, and perceptual lens.
Behavior on one aspect of the security question need not be inspired by
the same cultural influence as a separate aspect. For instance, the success
of individual Marines in connecting positively with Vietnamese villagers
during the Combined Action Platoon (CAP) program may have had less
to do with their institutional training in the Marine Corps and more to do
with family culture, religious culture, or socioeconomic class. Conversely,
the ability to conduct effective night patrols may have had very little to do
with the cultures new recruits brought with them to boot camp and much
to do with norms instilled during USMC infantry training. Both modes of
behavior—good relations with villagers and effective prosecution of night
patrols—were necessary for success in the CAP program but stemmed from
diverse cultural roots.
It is a very regular feature of human behavior to shift back and forth
between diverse cultural layers when determining codes for action. Which
norms are deemed appropriate may be determined by situational context (a
person behaves differently as a student in the classroom than a student at a
party) or role (a Marine will behave differently in his role as drill instructor
than in his role as base sergeant major) even if, over time, both put him
in contact with the same Marines. 34 It is this movement between contextually
driven normative sets that make the issue- dependent nature of cultural
research so critical. For any particular activity, it must be assumed that