Have also been thinking about what killslowly said about American culture, and it suddenly struck me that it was a British officer making the original critique. I love the English but, sorry to say, I wouldn't really call them the most culturally sensitive people in Europe. The former squaddies I have met have been, almost to a man, supremacists of 'Englishness' or 'Scottishness' if not of race, and this is generally the image of the British Army I get from the Brits I know. So if the British Army is able to behave with greater cultural sensitivity in a counterinsurgency environment than the American, it must be something in the training or culture of the British Army that is overriding the inclination of many of the soldiers, because it certainly isn't due to a greater 'multicultural' outlook of the British soldiers themselves.
Re: OT: Brigadier Aywin-Foster's article
Have also been thinking about what killslowly said about American culture, and it suddenly struck me that it was a British officer making the original critique. I love the English but, sorry to say, I wouldn't really call them the most culturally sensitive people in Europe. The former squaddies I have met have been, almost to a man, supremacists of 'Englishness' or 'Scottishness' if not of race, and this is generally the image of the British Army I get from the Brits I know.
So if the British Army is able to behave with greater cultural sensitivity in a counterinsurgency environment than the American, it must be something in the training or culture of the British Army that is overriding the inclination of many of the soldiers, because it certainly isn't due to a greater 'multicultural' outlook of the British soldiers themselves.