Americans in general suffer from a massive deficit of cross-cultural awareness. With few exceptions, ethnocentric hubris has been the main reason for all of our wars – foreign and domestic.
Whether at the White House, State Department, or Pentagon, failure to understand other countries cultures has caused innumerable – and unnecessary – political faux pas ranging from simple political embarrassment to open conflict.
In today’s asymmetric conflicts, cross-cultural communication skills take on even more importance. The enemy is always like the “fish in the sea” (Mao) – not blending in with the population but actually part of the population. Working in a hostile environment in which the entire population is welded together by religion makes influence operations near impossible – a fact Bush, Jr. and every one of his successors failed to appreciate.
The perceived legitimacy of the population has always been THE key to success in counterinsurgency, low-intensity conflict or Asymmetrical Warfare or whatever the latest buzz word is. (see: Defeating Communist Insurgency by Sir Robert K. Thompson, 1966). It is the one paradigm ignored by presidents, politicians and military careerists at the Pentagon that has led to multiple FAILED efforts at “exporting democracy” and other equally fallacious labels for enriching the political-military-industrial complex.
Deploying the American military into hostile environments where the U.S. is perceived as the intruder dooms the troops to failure.
That is the situation our troops in Syria are attempting to survive in.
That is why Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres Tovar, Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard of Marshalltown, Iowa died.
“IS was ‘defeated’ on the battlefield in Syria in 2019 but the group’s sleeper cells still carry out deadly attacks in the country. The United Nations says the group still has between 5,000 and 7,000 fighters in Syria and Iran.” – PBS News, Dec. 13, 2025
This is the government talking out of both sides of its mouth to the masses.
Like Bush, Jr’s premature claim to victory in Iraq, IS has obviously NOT been defeated if there are still thousands of the enemy still conducting attacks against the government.
Victory in the Middle East will never be complete because no government can annihilate an ideology or religion. Our enemy in the Middle East will never surrender, can not be “annihilated,” nor be “defeated” no matter how many threats are uttered by a blustering American (cowardly, communist-loving, gold-obsessed) President.
Thrust into such unwinnable, hostile environments makes cross-cultural communication (CCC) even more critical. The vast majority of Americans have never lived overseas or been exposed to other cultures in any significant way. The military’s idea of CCC is to hire Muslim contractors who covertly attempt to convince female soldiers into “submitting” to an Arab man and overtly convincing male soldiers Muslims are patrons of peace. The military chain of command has no idea how to train their troops in effective cross cultural communications.
Perhaps that kind of inter-cultural sensitivity can’t be taught. It requires overcoming cultural prejudices – an almost impossible task in any situation.
Those two Iowa soldiers were sent into a situation for which they were grossly unprepared for several reasons.
The first is the military’s unwinnable presence in Syria. Syria will become just another Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan because of the culture of the population.
The second is they lacked the proper, detailed training, rank, experience and maturity to conduct such a meeting.
Thirdly, and the most important question is where was their “leader?”
Fourthly, What was the objective of that KLE that was so important to justify exposing two junior NCOs to ambush by IS?
Fourthly, those two junior NCOs were accompanied by an interpreter. This means they weren’t just part of a patrol whose patrol leader was the actual one doing the meet and greet – they themselves were doing it.
Some might excuse this by saying the soldiers were HUMINTers conducting human intelligence or some other specialized MOS-related task.
That is no excuse. The Army said they died conducting a Key Leader Engagement. No matter how you frame it, that is NOT a junior NCO task or mission.
Even HUMINTers, despite their claims to operational independence, do not possess the command presence to conduct interviews with “Key” leaders.
KLEs, regardless of level, are always very sensitive. Whether you are meeting with a Masai village chief, Somali clan leader or a foreign two-star general you are representing the United States – militarily, politically and culturally. Your indigenous counterpart is not stupid. I don’t care if he’s four hundred miles from Nairobi or a general commanding foreign elite forces – they are acutely aware of who you are and what status you carry.
“Key Leader Engagements” are meetings between two representatives of different parties for the main purpose of understanding each other and conducting the necessary coordination with the goal of meeting each other’s needs and objectives.
A “Key Leader” is someone who has the position of power and authority to speak and act on behalf of their constituency. Regardless of culture or country, every leader in every country in the world at every level is aware of their position in their community and of yours in your “community.”
Sending junior NCOs to a Key Leader Engagement with a village Chief, in all likelihood, could have been perceived as an insult or a gesture of disrespect.
In my experience, I can not conceive of any meeting – at any level – with a foreign “Key” leader in which I would send anyone below the rank of captain – the lowest rank of command.
To avoid sending troops outside the wire to just stir up dust and needlessly expose them to IEDs and ambush [like ‘presence’ or ‘show of force’ patrols], every Patrol’s objective – including KLEs – every departure outside the wire – should be to answer Priority Intelligence Requirements (PIRs) and to gather information that leads to actionable intelligence by the commander and subsequent PIRs for the intelligence officer.
They’re never just social meetings for sipping chai.
Junior NCOs are not trained for that.
Rank alone doesn’t guarantee an instinct for conducting sensitive cross-cultural communications. From my experience, far more Special Forces senior NCOs and Warrant Officers were attuned to the sensitivities required meeting with foreign key leaders than “RLOs” (real, live officers) living out their Lawrence of Arabia fantasies. Hopefully that has changed since the Army made Special Forces a branch of their own. But they are just a small percentage of the Army.
Our foreign counterparts are always very rank aware of whom they are dealing with. To them it is a sign of respect and it means they are dealing with someone with the authority to speak for their side – not wasting their time with subalterns.
The Diplomatic Service is acutely aware of this protocol. The same principle applies – or should apply – at the tactical level especially in a hostile environment.
The National Guard chain of command sending junior NCOs to conduct a Key Leader Engagement into such a hostile, diplomatically sensitive environment was like sending unarmed children into a free-fire zone.
Was it ignorance, laziness or cowardice – or a combination of all three – by their officers that subjected those two young, naively brave and admirably patriotic soldiers into a situation way above their pay grade – while their “leaders”‘ stayed back safe within the wire of the FOB out of harm’s way?
Why wasn’t their captain with them?
