The cultural dimension of multinational military cooperation

This thesis is about how soldiers of dissimilar cultures live and work together in combat environment and how they overcome their cultural dissimilarities. It examines the influence of cultural factors—language barriers, religion, customs, philosophy, values, stereotypes, heritage, gender, mentality, ethnic background, economic and social outlook—on the effectiveness and cohesiveness of multinational applications of force. It addresses the questions: do cultural differences influence the operational effectiveness of multinational military operations? In which potential fields could culture hamper cooperation and when could it achieve the exact opposite? How do military organizations address the problem of cultural dissimilarity, and which techniques are used to mitigate cultural tension? How do general trends and perceptions about other racial and cultural groups in society as a whole affect cultural attitudes in the military? And finally, how important is military leadership and the role played by individual coalition commanders to the accomplishment of effective cross-cultural cooperation?; The study proposes three hypotheses: high exposure to other cultures leads to greater cross-cultural cooperation; the core society's intolerance of other cultures will lead to cultural tensions; and the greater one partner's relative power, the greater the cultural insensitivity. These hypotheses are explored in five case studies: Germany and Turkey during WWI, Japan and Britain during WWI, the U.S. and China during WWII, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War; and Israel and the South Lebanon Army from 1985–2000.; The thesis shows that culturally related issues could affect operational relations among military forces of dissimilar cultures and in some cases even impact the outcome of campaigns, if not the entire war. It concludes that cross cultural exposure and high level of cultural tolerance in the core society are the two key factors contributing to effective multinational cooperation. It also demonstrates that cross-cultural tension can be managed and mitigated if enough attention is given to the partner's way of life and its cultural sensitivities. This in itself can facilitate more stable, better coalition relations.