JSOU Report 11-1 Cross-Cultural Competence and Small Groups Turnley

Cross-Cultural Competence

and Small Groups:

Why SOF are the way SOF are

Jessica Glicken Turnley

JSOU Report 11-1 March 2011

Joint Special Operations University

7701 Tampa Point Boulevard

MacDill AFB FL 33621

https://jsou.socom.mil
Joint Special Operations University

and the Strategic Studies Department

The Joint Special Operations University (JSOU) provides its publications 

to contribute toward expanding the body of knowledge about joint special 

operations. JSOU publications advance the insights and recommendations 

of national security professionals and the Special Operations Forces (SOF) 

students and leaders for consideration by the SOF community and defense 

leadership. 

JSOU is the educational component of the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), MacDill Air Force Base, Florida. The JSOU 

mission is to educate SOF executive, senior, and intermediate leaders and 

selected other national and international security decision makers, both 

military and civilian, through teaching, outreach, and research in the 

science and art of joint special operations. JSOU provides education to the 

men and women of SOF and to those who enable the SOF mission in a joint 

and interagency environment. 

JSOU conducts research through its Strategic Studies Department where 

effort centers upon the USSOCOM and United States SOF missions: 

USSOCOM mission. USSOCOM provides fully capable and enabled 

SOF to defend the nation’s interests in an environment characterized by 

irregular warfare. 

USSOF mission. USSOF conducts special operations to prepare the operational environment, prevent crisis, and respond with speed, aggression, 

and lethality to achieve tactical through strategic effect. 

The Strategic Studies Department also provides teaching and curriculum 

support to Professional Military Education institutions—the staff colleges 

and war colleges. It advances SOF strategic influence by its interaction in 

academic, interagency, and United States military communities.

The JSOU public Web page is located at https://jsou.socom.mil. 

Joint Special Operations University

Brian A. Maher, Ed.D., SES, President

Kenneth H. Poole, Ed.D., Strategic Studies Department Director

Jeffrey W. Nelson, Colonel, U.S. Army, Ret.; Juan Alvarez, Colonel, U.S. Air Force, Ret.; 

William C. Jones, GS-15, CIA, Ret.—Resident Senior Fellows

Editorial Advisory Board

Alvaro de Souza Pinheiro

Major General, Brazilian Army, Ret.

JSOU Associate Fellow 

James F. Powers, Jr.

Colonel, U.S. Army, Ret.

JSOU Senior Fellow

Richard H. Shultz, Jr.

Ph.D., Political Science

Director, International Security 

Studies Program, The Fletcher School, Tufts 

University and JSOU Senior Fellow

Stephen Sloan

Ph.D., Comparative Politics

University of Central Florida

and JSOU Senior Fellow

Robert G. Spulak, Jr.

Ph.D., Physics/Nuclear Engineering

Sandia National Laboratories 

and JSOU Associate Fellow

Joseph S. Stringham

Brigadier General, U.S. Army, Ret.

Alutiiq, LLC and JSOU Associate Fellow

Graham H. Turbiville, Jr.

Ph.D., History, Courage Services, Inc. 

and JSOU Associate Fellow

Jessica Glicken Turnley

Ph.D., Cultural Anthropology/

Southeast Asian Studies

Galisteo Consulting Group 

and JSOU Senior Fellow 

Rich Yarger

Ph.D., History, Ministerial Reform Analyst; 

U.S. Army Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute and JSOU Senior Fellow

John B. Alexander

Ph.D., Education, The Apollinaire Group 

and JSOU Senior Fellow

Roby C. Barrett, Ph.D., Middle 

Eastern & South Asian History 

Public Policy Center Middle East Institute 

and JSOU Senior Fellow

Joseph D. Celeski

Colonel, U.S. Army, Ret.

JSOU Senior Fellow

Chuck Cunningham

Lieutenant General, U.S. Air Force, Ret. 

Professor of Strategy, Joint Advanced 

Warfighting School and JSOU Senior Fellow

Thomas H. Henriksen

Ph.D., History, Hoover Institution 

Stanford University and JSOU Senior Fellow

Russell D. Howard

Brigadier General, U.S. Army, Ret.

Adjunct Faculty, Defense Critical Language/

Culture Program, Mansfield Center, University 

of Montana and JSOU Senior Fellow

John D. Jogerst

Colonel, U.S. Air Force, Ret. 

18th USAF Special Operations School 

Commandant

James Kiras

Ph.D., History, School of Advanced Air and 

Space Studies, Air University and JSOU 

Associate Fellow 

William W. Mendel,

Colonel, U.S. Army, Ret. 

JSOU Senior Fellow
On the cover. 

Top, April 2010. A Special Forces medic assists a local villager with his paperwork from a hospital in Kandahar province during a medical and veterinarian engagement in the Gereshk Valley, Helmand province. U.S. Army photo. 

Bottom, June 2009. Navy SEALs prepare to cross Phelan Creek during 

exercise Northern Edge 2009 at Fort Wainwright, Alaska. U.S. Air Force 

photo. 

JSOU Report 11-1

The JSOU Press

MacDill Air Force Base, Florida

2011

Cross-Cultural Competence

and Small Groups:

Why SOF are the way SOF are

Jessica Glicken Turnley
This monograph and other JSOU publications can be found at https://jsou.socom.

mil. Click on Publications. Comments about this publication are invited and should 

be forwarded to Director, Strategic Studies Department, Joint Special Operations 

University, 7701 Tampa Point Blvd., MacDill AFB FL 33621. 

*******

The JSOU Strategic Studies Department is currently accepting written works relevant 

to special operations for potential publication. For more information please contact 

the JSOU Research Director at jsou_research@socom.mil. Thank you for your 

interest in the JSOU Press. 

*******

This work was cleared for public release; distribution is unlimited.

ISBN 1-933749-52-0
The views expressed in this publication are entirely those of the author 

and do not necessarily reflect the views, policy or position of the United 

States Government, Department of Defense, United States Special 

Operations Command, or the Joint Special Operations University. 
Recent Publications of the JSOU Press

Africa: Irregular Warfare on the Dark Continent , May 2009, 

John B. Alexander

USSOCOM Research Topics 2010

Report of Proceedings, 4th Annual Sovereign Challenge Conference 

(16–19 March 2009)

Information Warfare: Assuring Digital Intelligence Collection ,

July 2009, William G. Perry

Educating Special Forces Junior Leaders for a Complex Security 

Environment , July 2009, Russell D. Howard 

Manhunting: Counter-Network Operations for Irregular Warfare ,

September 2009, George A. Crawford 

Irregular Warfare: Brazil’s Fight Against Criminal Urban Guerrillas , 

September 2009, Alvaro de Souza Pinheiro

Pakistan’s Security Paradox: Countering and Fomenting Insurgencies ,

December 2009, Haider A.H. Mullick

Hunter-Killer Teams: Attacking Enemy Safe Havens , January 2010 , 

Joseph D. Celeski 

Report of Proceedings, Joint Special Operations University (JSOU) and 

Office of Strategic Services (OSS) Society Symposium, Irregular Warfare 

and the OSS Model (2–4 November 2009) 

U.S. Military Engagement with Mexico: Uneasy Past and Challenging 

Future , March 2010, Graham H. Turbiville, Jr. 

Afghanistan, Counterinsurgency, and the Indirect Approach , April 2010, 

Thomas H. Henriksen 

2010 JSOU and NDIA SO/LIC Division Essays , May 2010

USSOCOM Research Topics 2011

Hezbollah: Social Services as a Source of Power , June 2010, James B. Love

Convergence: Special Operations Forces and Civilian Law Enforcement , 

July 2010, Joseph B. Alexander 

Report of Proceedings, 5th Annual Sovereign Challenge Conference 

(8–11 March 2010)

Terrorist-Insurgent Thinking and Joint Special Operational Planning 

Doctrine and Procedures , September 2010, Laure Paquette 

Innovate or Die: Innovation and Technology for Special Operations , 

December 2010, Robert G. Spulak, Jr. 
vii

Contents

Foreword ................................................................................ix

About the Author ....................................................................xi

Forward-Deployed Warrior Diplomats: SOF and CrossCultural Competence

1. Introduction ........................................................................ 1

2. What is a Warrior Diplomat?................................................ 5

3. SOF and the Concept of Culture .........................................13

4. Selecting and Assessing for Cross-Cultural Competence .......27

5. SOF, General Purpose Forces, and Cultural Knowledge........43

6. SOF as Forward-Deployed Warrior Diplomats.....................45

Creating the Conditions for a Possible Masterpiece: Small 

Groups and SOF

1. Introduction .......................................................................47

2. The Order of Battle and the Nature of Groups.....................51

3. Organizational Structure and Friction ..................................55

4. Teams and Other Organizational Forms ..............................59

5. Does Group Size Matter?................................................... 63

6. Summary and Conclusion .................................................. 65

Endnotes................................................................................69

ix

Foreword

Dr. Turnley has contributed two papers addressing the community’s 

interest on who we are and why we are successful in our operations. 

The two papers are titled Forward-Deployed Warrior Diplomats: SOF 

and Cross-Cultural Competence and Creating the Conditions for a Possible 

Masterpiece: Small Groups and Special Operations Forces. These two papers 

are combined for this monograph to provoke the community’s thinking of 

who we are and how we are organized. 

The Forward-Deployed paper asserts that SOF effectiveness of “by, 

with, and through” depends on our skills as warrior diplomats. This focus 

includes our cultural understanding and language skills or cross-cultural 

competency. Her paper on Creating the Conditions for a Possible Masterpiece 

links the competency to SOF small units as a reason for special operation 

successes. 

SOCOM is promoting the concept of the 3-D warrior. The Ds are diplomacy, defense, and development, which are consistent with by, with, and 

through. The execution of the 3-Ds vary by the SOF component due to 

organization, mission, and unit structure. She explains the size issue of the 

unit in her Creating the Conditions for a Possible Masterpiece. 

Dr. Turnley makes several important points on cultural competency and 

its impact on mission. In addition to language skills, SOF warriors need to 

understand the culture of the supported nation. This understanding will 

afford the SOF warrior a higher probability of success in Dr. Turnley’s model 

of force persuasion. She further develops her position by exploring the relationship between language, culture, and regional knowledge. 

She makes a crucial point about Internal Defense and Development 

(IDAD) for SOF. The difference between IDAD and foreign internal defense 

(FID) is that IDAD requires more cross-cultural skills than FID does. Any 

unit can conduct FID, but IDAD needs specialists—SOF troops. Dr. Turnley 

emphasizes this point in Creating the Conditions for a Possible Masterpiece

by pointing out the key points from William McRaven’s book, Spec Ops on 

the essential principles of special operations. Two of those principles seen 

as critical in IDAD are purpose and simplicity. SOF regional orientation 

realizes purpose and simplicity. This contributes to a focus that can stimu-
x

late a feeling of collective purpose. Their combination allows SOF units to 

work the IDAD campaign. 

Dr. Turnley’s two papers cause us to reflect on who we are, what we 

should do, and how we are organized. Our understanding of cultural, 

language, and SOF core activities permit the collective conscience to become 

that 3-D warrior. 

Kenneth H. Poole, Ed.D., GS-14

Director, JSOU Strategic Studies Department 
xi

About the Author

Dr. Jessica Turnley is president of 

Galisteo Consulting Group, Inc., 

Albuquerque, New Mexico and a senior 

fellow with the JSOU Strategic Studies 

Department. She provides services in 

the national security arena, in strategic 

business planning, organizational development, corporate culture change, policy 

analysis, and economic development to a 

wide variety of clients in the public and 

private sector. Dr. Turnley works directly 

with the intelligence community, including service on the Defense Intelligence 

Agency’s Advisory Board and with other agencies in both programmatic/

analytic and organizational development capacities. She has worked with 

various offices in the Department of Defense as well as with United States 

Special Operations Command (USSOCOM). She also works on a consulting basis with Sandia National Laboratories. Her technical work includes 

projects focusing on computational social simulations; technologies for 

smart, secure international borders; explorations of techniques to detect 

deception; and explorations of the ways in which organizational structures 

and management approaches affect the practice of warfare, national security, 

and science. 

Dr. Turnley has helped the Environmental Protection Agency develop 

approaches to assess social, cultural, and economic impacts at Superfund 

sites; participated in regional economic development efforts; and engaged 

in organizational audits and development projects for local organizations. 

Prior to Galisteo, Dr. Turnley worked for ecological planning & toxicology, 

inc., focusing on risk communication and stakeholder involvement in public 

decision-making. In this capacity, she has given workshops in China and 

Poland on citizen involvement and participated in efforts to formalize public 

participation in environmental management in the U.S. 

Dr. Turnley served as a technical manager at Sandia National Laboratories for programs ranging from the development of a GIS-based 
xii

information management tool on the safety of nuclear reactors around the 

world to methods for evaluating the success of government-funded research 

programs. Prior to Sandia, she started and ran a nonprofit business assistance center for women in New Mexico called WESST Corp; as one of its 

funders, the Small Business Administration praised the center as giving 

the best value for the dollar. Dr. Turnley has a B.A. in Anthropology and 

English Literature from University of California, Santa Cruz; an M.A. 

in Social Anthropology from University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; and a 

Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology and Southeast Asian Studies from Cornell 

University. She was a Fulbright Scholar in Indonesia and has published as 

both Jessica Glicken and Jessica Turnley. Her prior JSOU publications are 

Theoretical Perspectives of Terrorist Enemies as Networks (October 2005), 

Implications for Network-Centric Warfare (March 2006), and Retaining a 

Precarious Value as Special Operations Goes Mainstream (February 2008).
1

War and diplomacy, though in a sense alternative methods of 

adjusting to reality, are linked to such an extent and in so many 

ways that one cannot give a full account of the meaning of either 

without dwelling at length on its relations with...the other. 

— Adam Watson1

1. Introduction

The Capstone Concept for Special Operations characterized Special 

Operations Forces (SOF) personnel as “forward-deployed warrior 

diplomats focused on building long-term, positive relationships throughout the world.” 2

 Although this document has been discontinued (effective 

20 January 2009), the concept is still very visible in the SOF universe. The 

recently issued United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) 

Strategic Plan, Focus Area 1: The Operator claims that “The Operator needs 

to be prepared to excel across the myriad of defense, diplomacy, and development activities....while maintaining an unparalleled capability to employ 

direct action when necessary.” 3 Admiral Olson, commander of USSOCOM, 

spoke explicitly of the need for SOF to develop skills that enable nonkinetic 

as well as kinetic approaches in his 2009 posture statement in testimony 

before Congress:

The complexity of today’s and tomorrow’s strategic environments 

requires that our SOF operators maintain not only the highest levels 

of warfighting expertise but also cultural knowledge and diplomacy 

skills. We are developing “3-D operators”—members of a multidimensional force prepared to lay the groundwork in the myriad 

diplomatic, development, and defense activities that contribute to 

our Government’s pursuit of our vital national interests.4

Forward-Deployed Warrior 

Diplomats: SOF and 

Cross-Cultural Competence
2

JSOU Report 11-1

These official statements all emphasize the importance of leveraging 

the well-known kinetic abilities of special operations with a nonkinetic 

approach. They couch it in the language of diplomacy and promote a military 

component that is equally well versed in kinetic and nonkinetic methods. 

This discussion will address the warrior-diplomat construct, asking if it 

provides an accurate description of SOF as a force skilled in more than one 

way to achieve strategic ends. It also will check the notion that this competency is part of what distinguishes SOF, as a force, from General Purpose 

Forces (GPF).

We have a good sense of what it means to be an excellent warrior. SOF’s 

special warfighting skills are celebrated and have led to significant successes 

in yesterday’s and today’s conflicts. SOF’s diplomatic or nonkinetic skills 

are more problematic, however. Doctrinal and other source materials do 

not directly address the definitional question—what does it mean to be a 

diplomat and how would we know if we saw one. They do suggest, however, 

that diplomatic skills are operationalized through the exercise of competencies in cross-cultural interaction and communication. This discussion will 

explore the ways in which SOF addresses these competencies by looking at 

how the various service components select and assess candidates. Given the 

recent (and still contested) interest in cultural competence among the GPF, 

this monograph addresses the ways in which SOF exercise this competency 

differently than the GPF. 

The definition of a diplomat will set the initial parameters for this discussion. An effective diplomat is able to 

persuasively engage with populations 

who apply different sense-making 

strategies to the world than he does. 

He must be able to understand, 

engage, and convince populations 

with profoundly different frames of reference — populations that have 

different cultures. 

The definition will be followed by an exploration of what it means to be 

cross-culturally competent. That will include a definition of culture, arguing that it is not a thing but an ever-evolving set of sense-making strategies 

or frames of reference. The argument will be toward a distinction between 

cross-cultural competency, which is defined as the ability to quickly learn to 

operate efficiently in any culture, and culture-specific or regional knowledge

An effective diplomat is able 

to persuasively engage with 

populations who apply 

different sense-making strategies 

to the world than he does. 
3

Turnley: Forward-Deployed Warrior Diplomats

that equips one to behave appropriately in a particular culture. The suggestion is that culture-general knowledge is a strategic skill that allows one to 

operate tactically. Culture-specific knowledge is tactical knowledge—timeand space-specific knowledge applicable to a particular operation. Ideally 

the operator will be proficient in both domains.

The monograph will include a discussion of the relationship between 

cultural competency and language. This section will close with a look at 

how cross-cultural competency is measured and assessed. 

The ability to operate cross-culturally has long been touted as one of the 

hallmarks of SOF, particularly of Army Special Forces (SF). This monograph 

explores if and how the various service special operations components select 

and assess candidates for their ability to operate cross-culturally. Among 

other things, this will address the unequal distribution of this competency 

across the SOF service components. The information in this section is based 

on interviews conducted with personnel at the various service components 

and with active duty SOF operators. 

The final part of this work will address current interest in developing and 

transmitting knowledge about the human terrain within the Department 

of Defense. The profile of culture and its importance as a component of 

successful warfighting has risen significantly within the defense community as a whole as that community has embraced the tenants of irregular 

warfare. This monograph addresses whether there is a difference between 

the ways in which the GPF and SOF develop and use cultural knowledge, 

if in fact there is a difference. Has an increased focus on irregular warfare 

simply forced the GPF to adopt a skill set long at work within SOF, or do 

SOF retain either a special type of knowledge (special within the military) 

or a special way to apply knowledge more broadly held? 

5

Turnley: Forward-Deployed Warrior Diplomats

2. What is a Warrior Diplomat?

The recent focus on the direct action mission of SOF in the Middle East 

has underscored the breadth and quality of the fighting skills of SOF

operators. What, however, does it mean to be a diplomat, and how does this 

leverage SOF’s warrior capabilities?

Definition of Diplomacy

A commonly accepted definition of diplomacy argues that its “chief purpose 

is to enable states to secure the objectives of their foreign policies without 

resort to force, propaganda, or law.” 5 The effective exercise of diplomacy is 

thus generally understood to depend heavily on the art of negotiation and 

persuasion and to avoid the use of force. 

Duties of a diplomat fall into three general categories:

a. The first is to serve as the formal representative of one government 

to another, a role that is often characterized as ceremonial. However, 

under this rubric lie many substantive activities, such as the management of ongoing relationships, the promotion of interests or agendas, 

and threat management—that is, “coping with adverse developments 

affecting key interests.” 6 

b. The second category of duties is the explanation and defense of particular policies or positions. Negotiation of formal treaties and agreements 

would be included here. 

c. The third is to serve an information-gathering function for the 

home government, providing timely warning of potentially adverse 

developments.7

All three of the diplomatic tasks involve negotiation between the diplomat 

and some member of the indigenous population. Negotiation is a discussion intended to produce a mutually acceptable outcome. In order for that 

to happen, the parties to the negotiation must be persuaded to change their 

initial positions. Persuasion refers to “any procedure with the potential to 

change someone’s mind,” ultimately resulting in a change in behavior.8 It 

is distinguished from the use of force (coercion), which also can result in 

a change of behavior by inducing fear but without effecting a change in 

attitude.9
6

JSOU Report 11-1

Persuasion involves a sender (i.e., a diplomat), a receiver, and a message. 

Efforts to persuade, to change someone’s mind, engage both emotion and 

cognition on the part of the receiver.10 The receiver subjects the source 

of the message (the diplomat) and the message itself to separate analytic 

processes, in what is called a dual process model.11 The receiver processes 

and responds to the message cognitively and to the diplomat, the sender, 

emotionally. See Figure 1. The sender crafts a message (Step 1). The receiver 

separately perceives the sender and the message (Step 2). He then separately 

responds to each (Step 3). 

All persuasive acts involve both modes of processing. At issue is their relative impact on any given interaction.

The relative impact of cognitive processing is dependent upon the motivation and capability of the receiver. If the receiver finds the message to 

be congruent with his existing knowledge base and value system, he will 

process it cognitively (think about it) and internalize it, resulting in longterm behavioral change. In this case, the diplomat must craft a message that 

achieves his purpose while engaging the value and knowledge systems of 

the receiver. The establishment of the legitimacy of a governmental regime 

will involve some high level of internalization, for example. Legitimacy is 

established when the subject population believes that the regime operates 

fairly over time. Note that perceptions of fairness are locally defined. “It 

Figure 1. The Persuasion Pathway

Sender Message

Cognitive

Processing

Emotional

Processing

Receiver

Step 2

Step 1

Step 3
7

Turnley: Forward-Deployed Warrior Diplomats

is the population that bestows legitimacy upon a regime: a regime cannot 

develop a set of features that would characterize it as legitimate, irrespective 

of the attitudes of the local population.” 12 For example, Thomas Johnson 

and M. Chris Mason argue that governments in Afghanistan historically 

acquired and exercised power either through kinship structures or through 

religious legitimation. If this is true, they go on to say, a democratically 

elected government in Afghanistan is illegitimate by definition because it 

came to power in a manner that is not in accordance with local beliefs about 

how power is acquired.13

If the receiver focuses on the source of the message—the sender—for 

cues as to whether he should be persuaded (change his mind), he will look 

for characteristics of the sender that make him attractive to the receiver. 

These usually are characteristics based on some perceived similarity (also 

called homophily).14 Most often this similarity is one of values or of other 

dimensions that are perceived as good, comforting, or reassuring in some 

way. It is an affective or emotional response, not a cognitive response. The 

resulting behavioral change comes from identification of the receiver with 

the sender. This kind of behavior change requires frequent reinforcement to 

maintain.15, 16 If we continue our legitimacy example, a citizen (receiver) can 

be persuaded to submit to a governmental regime because of his identification with a particular individual who is a part of that regime (a sender)—for 

example, a charismatic leader. However, if we assume the response is an 

affective one to cues the sender provides, if that sender goes away or stops 

interacting with the receiver, the citizen will stop the desired behavior. There 

can be a point over time, however, where the sender can transfer the response 

from himself to the abstraction of the regime, if he crafts the appropriate 

message in terms congruent with local values and belief structures. 

In both types of persuasive mechanisms, the sender must be cognizant 

of the drivers of local behaviors. Knowledge of local value systems that can 

elicit emotional or affective responses and of local belief systems, which can 

affect the cognitive acceptability of a message, all will contribute significantly 

to the effectiveness of the diplomat.

Diplomacy and War

In general, states have institutionally separated war and diplomacy. In the 

United States, the Department of Defense (DoD) and the military services 
8

JSOU Report 11-1

prosecute war. The Department of State and the diplomatic service conduct 

diplomacy. 

Some analysts focus on the strategic ends of states rather than the specific 

means at their disposal to achieve them when discussing war and diplomacy. 

This focus on ends rather than means begins to blur the line between the 

two approaches to achieve them. 

War and diplomacy, though in a sense alternative methods of adjusting to reality, are linked to such an extent and in so many ways that 

one cannot give a full account of the meaning of either without 

dwelling at length on its relations with...the other. War and diplomacy are inseparably joined under the common heading of means 

by which states, in pursuit of their interests, bring their power to 

bear on one another.17

Coercive diplomacy offers an example where the line is blurred between 

force and persuasion. Coercive diplomacy “aims to compel changes in 

behavior using threats, sanctions, and withdrawal or denial of rewards.” 18

It is a bridge between the classic diplomatic language of persuasion and 

compromise and the language of force of war. The Cuban missile crisis 

and the derogueing of Libya as it voluntarily gave up its weapons of mass 

destruction are examples of coercive diplomacy.19 As R. P. Barston argues, 

“Coercive action moves diplomacy into a grey area...Diplomacy no longer 

is distinguished by...argument and persuasion in which the parties achieve 

degrees of mutual benefit, but rather compellence through force.” 20

The DoD also blurs the line between war and other means of international 

engagement when addressing questions of national strategy. The DoD definition of the strategic level of war makes no explicit mention of the use of 

force. The strategic level of war is “[t]he level of war at which a nation, often 

as a member of a group of nations, determines national or multinational 

(alliance or coalition) strategic security objectives and guidance, and develops and uses national resources to achieve these objectives.” 21 The definition 

explicitly speaks of “the use of military and other instruments of national 

power” (emphasis added) in this definition of war.22

Clausewitz saw the distinction between war and other political tools as 

one of means, not of kind. He pointed out that war is, above all, a political 

act. It always must be waged with the political end in mind, or it becomes 

not war but merely violence.23
9

Turnley: Forward-Deployed Warrior Diplomats

It is useful to think of the space between war and diplomacy as a continuum, rather than to think of the two as discrete approaches; see Figure 2. 

The choice of means can be somewhere between the pure use of force and 

a reliance solely on persuasion. As with most archetypes, we never find 

situations located at the ends of the spectrum. At one end, we would be 

in pure violence, not war, as war always has a political component. At the 

other, we would find ineffective persuasion, for it would lack any means of 

compellance.

Both war and diplomacy thus operate at the strategic level in the interactions among states. They both serve as means to “enable states to secure the 

objectives of their foreign policies...” 

In most cases, the strategic means at the end of the continuum in Figure 

2 are the provenance of separate sets of people and operationalized through 

separate institutions, which then must be coordinated. One of the reasons 

SOF are so (theoretically) effective is that they offer the state the ability to 

exercise both these means through the same institution (the SOF) and the 

same men (the operators). 

When Warriors Serve as Diplomats

Diplomatic communications about national strategies and objectives are 

conversations between states, not individuals. A diplomat, when speaking 

in his official capacity, is an officer or representative of the state, serving 

as “its agent of nonviolent interaction with other states and peoples.” 24 He 

represents the interests of the state, not his own. He is formally accredited as 

the agent of the state and must be formally recognized as such by the other 

parties to the conversation. The means by which such recognition takes 

place are set out in international treaties such as the Vienna Convention on 

Diplomatic Relations, a United Nations treaty entered into force in 1964.25

An irregular war, by definition, is fought among state and nonstate actors. 

According to the Irregular Warfare Joint Operating Concept (IW JOC), 

War MEANS to achieve strategic objectives Diplomacy

Use of force Use of persuasion

Figure 2. Force-Persuasion Continuum
10

JSOU Report 11-1

an irregular war is “a violent struggle among state and nonstate actors for 

legitimacy and influence over the relevant populations.” 26 The ultimate objective is to change the local population’s perception of a regime. This struggle 

will involve violence, but it is only won when the population changes its 

mind—is persuaded, not when it simply changes its behavior, which can 

happen through (coercion). Neither the government nor the military are the 

targets of the struggle, although both are engaged. As has been said often, in 

irregular warfare the people are the center of gravity. The now iconic graphic 

from the IW JOC version 1.0, shown here in Figure 3, shows the realignment 

of Clausewitz’s trinity of government, population, and military. 

We can achieve this influence over the population through coercion 

(which will change behavior but not minds), through tools more traditionally 

associated with diplomacy—that is, persuasion and negotiation (which will 

change minds and so behavior), or through both. In all cases, key interactions happen at the local level. 

Traditional diplomats, individuals formally recognized by the country 

they serve and the country to which they are deployed, have a compromised 

role in irregular warfare. In a counterinsurgency operation, for example, 

by definition some critical portion of the population will not recognize 

the legitimacy of the current state regime (hence their status as insurgents). Therefore, they will not acknowledge or recognize any credentials 

that regime may bestow on representatives of a foreign government, nor 

Focus

Focus

Government Government

Population Military Population Military

Effect Desired:

Influence Govt

Effect Desired:

Influence Govt

Effect Desired:

Isolate from Conflict

Effect Desired:

Gain or Erode 

Support

Effect Desired:

Enhance or 

Render Irrelvant

Effect Desired:

Defeat Military

Conventional Warfare Irregular Warfare

Figure 3. Contrasting Conventional and Irregular Warfare Source: IW JOC, 

 version 1.0 (DoD)
11

Turnley: Forward-Deployed Warrior Diplomats

accept any agreements into which the current regime may enter with such 

representatives. 

Players in irregular war may be nonstate actors. In these cases, we may 

find authority vested in local leaders such as tribal elders, or in the leaders 

of unincorporated, informal groups such 

as insurgent groups or religious communities. If this is so, the nature of diplomacy changes. The discourse does not 

take place among citizens of a globalized 

community who may be more like each other in many ways than they are 

like their local constituents. The language becomes one not of demarches and 

treaties and agreements between states, but a local language of security, food, 

and life and death negotiated among players on a local stage. Time frames are 

immediate. Negotiators are from the local population, and representatives of 

the foreign government are those personnel present in local venues, not in 

capital cities. Often these are military personnel, particularly if the situation 

is one which has already erupted in violence or has the potential to do so. 

These kinds of scenarios have shaped the history of SOF. Engagement at 

the strategic level, which clearly places war in the national political arena, is 

not new to SOF. SOF have always been designated as the force of choice for 

actions that can have significant political impact. As codified in the mission 

of SOF in the most recent strategic plan, SOF are designed to “conduct special 

operations....to achieve tactical through strategic effect.” 27 The Army Special 

Forces recruiting Web page describes its SOF component as follows: “Special 

Forces (SF)...is an elite, multipurpose force for high priority operational 

targets of strategic importance.” 28 FM 3-05, the doctrinal description of the 

Army Special Operations Force (ARSOF), which includes SF as its largest 

element, states that “ARSOF expands the options of the President, the SecDef 

[Secretary of Defense], and GCCs [geographical combatant commanders], 

particularly in crises and contingencies that fall between wholly diplomatic 

initiatives and the overt use of large conventional forces.” 29 Every SOF operation theoretically is planned and executed with an eye to the geostrategic 

context. SOF thus operate tactically within a strategic context, recognizing 

that “the advancement of the political objective may take precedence over 

the military disadvantages.” 30

SOF have a long history of engagement with the local population. Some 

of the iconic images from Operation Enduring Freedom were of special 

Players in irregular war may 

be nonstate actors....the 

nature of diplomacy changes. 
12

JSOU Report 11-1

operators riding horseback side by side with Afghan fighters. Working by, 

through, and with indigenous populations has long been a characteristic of 

the unconventional warfare in which special operations engages.

In order to engage with a local population, the diplomat—who may 

be a SOF operator—must be able to speak their language, both literally 

and figuratively. He must be able to recognize and leverage local needs 

and desires if he is to manage the balance between nonkinetic means of 

persuasion (including the recruitment of the local population to act on their 

own behalf while furthering our objectives) and the direct application of 

force. This requires not only linguistic fluency but the ability to recognize 

and exploit local means of getting things done. In short, he must be crossculturally competent. 
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3. SOF and the Concept of Culture

Admiral Olson also described efforts to beef up language and cultural 

knowledge across the special operations force in Congressional 

testimony:

Last year [2008] we called attention to the importance of language 

and regional knowledge as essential to strengthening relations and 

facilitating more effective operations with foreign partners.... We 

have a long way to go in recognizing and incentivizing such expertise 

as an operational necessity before we can truly develop and sustain 

real experts in specific key regions around the world. I call this “Project Lawrence,” after T. E. Lawrence of Arabia.

Among other efforts, Admiral Olson said SOF would be taking advantage 

of the Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest (MAVNI) program, 

a DoD-wide pilot program to recruit aliens legally living in the U.S. but 

who are not citizens. The program—looking for “experts in language with 

associated cultural backgrounds”—will offer a path to citizenship through 

military service.31 Through Project Lawrence, USSOCOM also will look at 

“historical models such as the Korean KATUSAs [Korean Augmentation 

Troops to the United States Army] and the Alamo Scouts who operated in 

the Philippines during World War II” to see if there are any relevant lessons 

that can be learned.32

These efforts focus on developing a cadre steeped in regional knowledge 

and proficient in the language of a particular area. The Army Special Forces, 

in particular, historically have been organized into regionally oriented groups 

that encourage and stimulate the development of regional knowledge and 

language skills. The 7th Group, for example, focuses on support to Latin 

America. It recruits heavily from the U.S. Latino population, many of whom 

speak a region-specific variant of Spanish as their first language and may 

have grown up in ethnic enclaves in the United States that are not much 

different culturally from the areas 7th Group serves. 

Before USSOCOM, SOF, and the service special operations commands 

invest too heavily in the development of regional expertise, it is important 

that they clearly understand just what that development will yield. The 

strategic needs of USSOCOM, SOF, and the services may require a cadre 
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JSOU Report 11-1

that has the capability to deploy anywhere and quickly pick up the skills 

and knowledge specific to a particular region. Immediate needs may require 

region-specific knowledge and languages. Are these mutually exclusive or 

supporting? The answers to these and other questions will influence resource 

allocation decisions, recruiting campaigns, and selection and assessment 

programs, among others. 

The importance of this question is underscored by the demands the 

current conflict has put on SOF. In 2009, over 80 percent of forward-deployed 

SOF were in Iraq and Afghanistan.33 As a consequence, USSOCOM reorganized the geographic assignments of the Special Forces groups. All groups 

would continue to provide operational support to the theater as the ops 

tempo required, whatever the regional proficiency of the operator. In addition, the geographic focus of some of the groups would be changed:34

a. Responsibility for leadership of the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Forces (CJSOTFs) in the Middle East conflict area would 

be split between 5th Group in the south and west and 3rd Group in 

the north and east. 

b. Sub-Saharan Africa, historically an area where 3rd Group had taken 

the lead, would be added to 10th Group’s European responsibilities. 

c. Latin America would continue as the focus of 7th Group, which would 

also support Northern Command (NORTHCOM) in North America. 

d. The Asia-Pacific region would continue as the purview of 1st Group. 

As the global ops tempo changes, the regional focus of elements of 

the force and of individual operators have shifted to different parts of the 

globe. We find SOF operators who are native Spanish speakers in Iraq. SOF

knowledgeable about the Philippines are deployed to Afghanistan. How 

quickly can these men learn to function effectively in entirely new cultures 

and speaking different languages? Do they have an aptitude for this type of 

interaction that goes beyond a collection of behavioral facts or vocabulary 

sets? What is cross-cultural competence? 

The next section will delve into the question of culture. It will address 

the attribute of cross-cultural competence, asking how it is assessed and 

measured. It will look at the relationship between linguistic capability and 

cross-cultural competence and ask if either or both are aptitudes with which 

an individual is born or skills he can learn. The discussion will revolve 

around what is important to learn in this domain and where might the 
15

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different types of knowledge be useful. It will address the difference (and 

balance) between learning particular behaviors and specific languages and 

developing the general ability to recognize which behaviors might be important in a particular community and how the use of any language can affect 

relationships. This rather academic discussion will lay the groundwork for 

the data section that follows. The data were gathered from interviews with 

various SOF personnel to determine how the different service components 

select and assess candidates for their ability to leverage the cultural dimension to accomplish a wide variety of SOF missions.

What is Culture?

Culture is not an objective thing, something we can pick up and examine and 

then put back unchanged where we found it. Nor is it something through or 

over that we navigate (the human terrain), using it when we can but remaining distinct and separate from it.35 A specific culture (Iranian culture or the 

culture of Silicon Valley or of the Marine Corps) is not something we can 

learn about without engaging with it—and, in the act of engaging with it, 

changing it. In short, culture exists only as it is produced. 

A culture is a set of dynamic, ever-changing frames of reference. It is a 

set of perspectives and assumptions created, maintained, and changed by 

a group of people about the way the world works. These assumptions allow 

people in this group to create shared expectations about the behavior of 

others. They tell us what is relevant. These assumptions also color the way 

in which group members interpret and value what they see. These perspectives apply moral weight to behavior. They tell us what is good and bad, 

right and wrong. In the United States, for example, we expect to see women 

engaging visibly in public life. Not only do we expect women to visibly 

engage in public life, we believe it is right for them to do so because of the 

way in which we define and assign importance to the rights and dignity of 

the individual. (Although we also need to keep in mind that this perspective only gained wide currency in our country less than a century ago. The 

women’s suffrage amendment, which gave women the vote, was passed in 

1919.) These definitions and the level of importance of the individual differ 

dramatically in other parts of the world (in other cultures). For example, 

women’s participation in public life is neither expected nor valued in many 

communities. In short, these frames of reference help make sense of the 

world for us.36
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JSOU Report 11-1

Culture thus is a set of perspectives, frames of reference, or sense-making 

strategies that:

a. Help us define what is relevant to us

b. Tell us how to value those things we have defined as relevant

c. And in so doing, create assumptions which guide our behavior.

Figure 4 shows this selection of relevant, and then valued, elements. 

These assumptions define what is natural in our social environment, 

thus are usually implicit. Most people cannot articulate them and generally are not aware that they are at play. The assumptions also are not evenly 

distributed across what we may define as a group. Take an American whose 

parents immigrated to the United States from Britain and who now lives in 

Washington D.C. and works at the Pentagon. Does he define himself in the 

same way as an American whose great-grandparents emigrated here from 

Mexico and who now lives in El Paso and does day labor? How would these 

two Americans react to questions of immigration reform or the establishment of English as a required national language? Members of even what 

are perceived as homogenous groups such as a military service or function 

differ in their individual interpretations of, for example “what it means to 

be a member of SOF.” 

And these assumptions are not static. They change over time. A few 

generations ago, the dominant perspective was that to be an American meant 

to speak English and to blend in, what we called the melting pot. Today, 

we print ballots in multiple languages and vigorously defend our rights to 

retain ethnic holidays and modes of dress. The relevant metaphor is a salad 

X

X

X

X

X

*

*

*

✓

✓

✓

The world What’s good

What’s bad

What’s relevant X

*

✓

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Behavior

Figure 4. Culture as a Normative Selection from the Possible
17

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bowl—distinct pieces of different kinds of stuff. We do not all agree that 

this is appropriate, but the prominence of this perspective and its impact 

on behavior and on policy is far different than it was a few generations ago. 

Identity—the ways in which people define who they are—is key to 

accessing these assumptions and frames of reference. For example, what does 

it mean to be an Afghan? Some have argued that there is fundamentally no 

such thing as an indigenous Afghan identity, that it has been manufactured 

by Western interests.37 However, an Afghan identity certainly has relevance 

to us. How do we think of someone who belongs to no state, who has no citizenship? But notions of statehood and citizenship may have no relevance to 

someone living along the Durand Line. He may think of himself as a Durani 

Pashtun, defining himself in terms of tribe and ethnic group—concepts 

which, in turn, have virtually no relevance to us. Although we may be able 

to answer questions about our own ethnicity, questions about tribal or 

familial affiliation are not even in our lexicon. We are not even able to frame 

the question in a meaningful way. In short, one’s culture—those frames 

of reference that tell us what is relevant and good in the world—constrain 

our reaction to these and other issues. It is no different in Afghanistan or 

Iraq or India or Indonesia. 

Although culture is located in the strategies we use to guide our own 

actions and understand that of others (i.e., in our heads), we learn about it 

through observable behavior. The rules that prohibit the use of your left hand 

in certain parts of the world, and require the use of honorifics when speaking to someone older than you in other parts of the world are themselves 

not culture. They represent various ways in which one can show respect. 

Knowing that groups of people are differentiated by status—that low status 

people behaviorally defer to high status people (i.e., show respect) and that 

the ways in which such status is demonstrated vary from group to group—is 

the beginning of cross-cultural knowledge in this example. Learning to 

whom and how one must show respect demonstrates an understanding 

of how that strategy is played out in a particular time and place. We can 

learn it by watching behaviors and listening to what people say. But unless 

and until the observer understands that status and respect are important 

(relevant), he will not be looking for behaviors which demonstrate them.

We can also learn about culture through artifacts or things. A car in 

the United States is far more than simply a mode of transportation. It is a 

statement about a lifestyle. In the same way, in certain parts of the Muslim 
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JSOU Report 11-1

world individuals who have made the hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca) have 

earned the right to wear a particular type of hat. The observer must first 

know that clothes (including headgear) can tell us something about status 

in a community. He must then understand the particulars of differences 

among headgear in his area of interest and subsequently understand what it 

means to be a hajji in that community. The headgear becomes a visual cue 

for status in the community and all its attendant rights and responsibilities. 

Sometimes these cues are as subtle to the uninitiated as variants in accent, 

manner of winding a turban, or the like. But again, we are not interested 

in the turban. We are interested in what the wearing of that turban wound 

in that particular way tells us about the role of the wearer in the community and the consequent behavior we can expect from him towards others 

(including us) and vice versa. We are interested in what wearing a turban 

in that particular way means.

The iceberg metaphor (see 

Figure 5) is one often used to help 

understand the culture concept. 

Just as 90 percent of an iceberg is 

invisible below the waterline, and 

just as that 90 percent is critical 

for the stability and longevity of 

the iceberg, so is 90 percent of 

culture invisible to us directly, 

yet critical to understanding and 

engaging with that part we do 

see. 

The top 10 percent of the 

iceberg can be described, as Brian 

Selmeski did, as “procedural and declarative knowledge.” 38 Procedural

knowledge is knowledge of how to do things, which hat to wear or how to 

wind a turban. Declarative knowledge is knowledge about facts (if I wear a 

certain type of hat, it means I have made the hajj). The bottom 90 percent 

of the iceberg, the implicit or hidden parts of culture, is what we might call 

analytic knowledge. This tells us how individuals position themselves in the 

world, how they choose and identify relevant constructs for behavior—What 

respect is due me because I have made the hajj? How does that journey 

BEHAVIOR

ATTITUDES

VALUES

CONCEPTS OF TIME

DEFINITION OF THE 

COMMUNITY

IDENTITY

Figure 5. Iceberg Metaphor
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change the relationship between us? This analytic knowledge is what leads 

to different problem-solving strategies and outcomes. 

General Characteristics of Culture

Despite the wide variety of definitions of culture among professionals and 

academic communities, there are a set of generally agreed-upon characteristics. This list would include what follows.

Culture is learned. Culture—that set of strategies or frames of reference 

we use to make sense out of behavior—is learned. It is transmitted vertically across generations and horizontally across communities. Although 

we are born with a capacity for learning and using these types of strategies, 

we are not born knowing any particular set of them. The set we do learn 

is an accident of time and space. Operationally, the implication is that as 

we acquire values and beliefs through contact with others, thus they can 

be influenced and changed in the same way. It is critical to understand the 

sense-making strategies of communities, groups, social networks, and other 

forms of social collectivities if we are serious about influencing attitudes 

and changing perceptions.

Culture is both implicit and explicit. This set of sense-making strategies is 

both implicit and explicit. As suggested with the iceberg metaphor, some of 

the most enduring and influential cultural dimensions are not visible. Almost 

by definition, practitioners of a particular culture are generally unaware of 

the deeper dimensions, for they are the taken-for-granted descriptions of 

how the world is and how we are supposed to operate within it. Operationally, this means that the operator must be able to go beyond what he sees, 

beyond the behavioral observations to the implications of such behavior. 

Culture varies by time. These sense-making strategies will vary by time. 

Generally, the explicit forms (what is above the water in our iceberg metaphor) will change faster than implicit forms. Slang and vocabulary change 

relatively quickly, for example, while syntactical or grammatical structures 

will change much more slowly. A subject matter expert who has in-country 

experience a decade old may be a valuable source for information on values 

such as the respect shown to the elderly. However, if an operator relies on 

him for information on how that respect is expressed in language or behavior, he runs the risk of being out of date, the equivalent of speaking in 2010 
20

JSOU Report 11-1

the slang of the American beatniks in a room full of 20-something college 

students. While the principles behind social network structures will remain 

reasonably constant over time, the individuals populating those networks 

may change rapidly. The implications for operations are obvious here.

Culture varies over space. As we all know, behavior and the assumptions 

that drive it varies across space. What one does in Indonesia is different 

than what one does in Saudi Arabia. SOF historically formally recognized 

this variation with the geographic variation in the orientation of its forces. 

Each group focused on a different geographic part of the world. Each group 

then oriented its training and education (including language learning) to 

a particular region. Ideally, as was often the case for operators in Special 

Operations Command South (SOCSOUTH), operators were raised in some 

variant of the target culture and spoke the target language since birth, 

significantly reducing the time needed to learn to operate effectively with 

indigenous peoples, thus reducing the risk of various operations.

The wars in the Middle East have put significant pressures on this model 

of operational assignment. A shortage of personnel has sent SOF from all 

theaters to the Middle East where they have operated with distinction, despite 

a lack of in-depth language and cultural variation. So how important is 

knowledge of a particular culture for effective action in it? Are there general 

principles that can be learned that can be translated into local knowledge 

anywhere in the world?

Culture-general or culture-specific knowledge? There are two general ways 

to talk about this set of strategies or frames of reference we call culture:

a. A culture-general approach suggests a familiarity with concepts and 

analytic approaches that can be applied anywhere in the world. 

b. A culture-specific or regional approach entails the acquisition of 

information about a specific culture at a particular time. 

Culture-general knowledge consists of “core attitudes, skill sets, and knowledge basis that facilitate adaptation to multiple culturally diverse contexts 

over time.” 39 It should teach one how to think. Culture-specific (or regional) 

knowledge consists (rather self-evidently) of “the necessary attitudes, skills, 

and knowledge sets that enable effective mission performance in a given 

task or operation characterized by significant cultural diversity.” 40 It will 

teach one what to think. 
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This monograph suggests that culture-general knowledge is a strategic 

skill that allows one to operate tactically. Culture-specific knowledge is 

tactical knowledge—time- and space-specific knowledge applicable to a 

particular operation. 

Language and culture. A question often arises about the relationship of 

language to culture. Language is both above and below the waterline in 

the iceberg metaphor. Arguably one can quickly learn the relatively small 

vocabulary set and few grammatical structures needed to get around. At 

the other end of the spectrum, the Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR) 

scale (also known as the Foreign Service Institute scale) used by the DoD to 

rate language proficiency, says that level 5, “native or bilingual proficiency,” 

requires “speech on all levels [that is]...fully accepted by educated native 

speakers in all of its features, including breadth of vocabulary and idiom, 

colloquialisms, and pertinent cultural references.” 41

There is a very large body of thought and literature on the relationship of language to culture. It is worth some exploration of the different 

perspectives here, for the perspective adopted will guide the development 

of language-learning policy in the DoD and its relationship to requirements 

for cultural training. 

The relationship of language to culture can be thought of in two general 

ways. In the first, language and culture exist as two separate systems, each 

with its own logic and structure. They can be separately mastered and 

analytically treated. The second posits some intimate relationship between 

language and culture. 

This relationship can take two forms. One, known as sociolinguistics, 

deals with the relationship between language and society. It focuses on ways 

in which language use and structure can provide insight into organizational 

structure and social characteristics. How does language choice or dialect use 

influence both speakers’ and listeners’ notions of identity? What clues do 

honorifics or language levels provide us to important dimensions of status, 

role, and other social dimensions? How important are national language 

issues in our area of interest and what, if any, emotional baggage do they 

carry (back to issues of identity)? 

The other approach, known as cultural linguistics, looks at language for 

clues to fundamental attitudes and values. How does the English (Western) 

linguistic focus on linear time (e.g., every verb must be marked as to past, 
22

JSOU Report 11-1

present, or future) play into other areas such as our ideas about progress and 

development? How does this contrast with an Austronesian language and 

culture such as Bahasa Indonesia, which does not mark verb tense explicitly and which is used in a part of the world that traditionally used cyclical 

calendars and places a heavy emphasis on the importance of coincidence?

Clearly these two approaches drive different policy regimes in terms 

of language and culture training. Suppose we think of this as a matrix, as 

shown in Figure 6. Analytically, one can have linguistic competence, cultural 

competence, or some mixture of both. 

If one is in the cell marked 1, with neither linguistic nor cultural competence, we assume communication is nonexistent for all practical purposes, 

and meaningful engagement is not possible. (Very few people fall into this 

category, by the way.) Conversely, if one is in the cell marked 4 with high 

cultural and linguistic competence, we assume that one is approaching native

status, engagement is rich, and gross misunderstandings are low. 

It is in cells 2 and 3 that questions arise. If one is in the cell marked 2, 

one has high linguistic competence, but low cultural competence. At its 

extreme, this could take us back to the approach that one can learn a pure

language—a language completely separated from its use environment. 

Here one clearly runs the risk of being grammatically or syntactically 

correct but culturally offensive. (As some would say, “I know people who 

can be extremely rude in any language.”) On the other hand, there are those 

who would vigorously contend that by SIL definition, to be linguistically 

competent makes one simultaneously culturally competent thus cell 2 is 

meaningless. To learn the language is to learn the culture. As for cell 3, we 

all know those who, with just a few words of a local language, are able to 

make fast friends, make themselves understood, and generally create good 

will no matter where they are. 

Figure 6. Linguistic and Cultural Competence
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A particular language is a culture-specific piece of knowledge. It is 

knowledge that increases effectiveness in one particular culture, but not 

another. It can be combined with other bits of regional information and 

strengthened and supported by culture-general structures of knowledge. 

Many (but not all) subject matter experts and many individuals who have 

lived abroad for a long period of time will have excellent regional knowledge 

and be proficient in one or more local languages. However, this knowledge 

is no guarantee they have the culture-general competence that will allow 

them to quickly and effectively operate in a different regional environment. 

It is the ability to learn another language or culture, not the knowledge of 

a particular language or culture per se that is the basis of cross-cultural or 

culture-general competence.

Linguistic, culture-general, and regional knowledge. Abbe et al. conducted 

an excellent review for the Army of the literature on cross-cultural competence. Rather than duplicate their work, this monograph shall draw on it 

for discussion of the intersection of culture-specific, culture-general, and 

linguistic knowledge.

Abbe et al. concluded, “Evidence shows that culture-general competencies 

contribute more to intercultural effectiveness than do more specific skills 

and knowledge, including language proficiency, culture/region-specific 

knowledge, and prior international experience.” 42 That said, the most 

effective operator would be at the intersecting center of the Venn diagram 

illustrated in Figure 7. 

This figure is a rather roundabout way of bringing us to the next area 

of discussion. Exactly what does it mean to be culturally competent? This 

query will take us to our target questions: Are SOF culturally competent? 

Are they more culturally competent than GPF? Do they need to be? If they 

are, how did they get there?

Aptitude or skill? Are you born with an aptitude for cultural competence, 

like some people are born with an aptitude for languages? Or is it something 

for which you can be educated or trained? The answers to these questions 

have significant implications for selection and assessment screenings and 

programs as well as for subsequent training and professional military 

education (PME).
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JSOU Report 11-1

A lot of recent work addresses this question, although most has targeted 

the health care and the international business communities. Again, this 

monograph draws heavily on the Abbe et al. survey of this work. They were 

looking specifically for “empirical research on predictors of intercultural 

effectiveness and describ[ing] existing measures of cross-cultural competence 

and related constructs” with a particular eye toward application in a military 

environment.43 Their model of cross-cultural competence, shown here in 

Figure 8, depicts what they assessed from the literature to be the primary 

input variables: dispositional or personality characteristics; biographical 

characteristics including prior experience, gender, and age; and notions of 

self and identity. Note that the dispositional or personality characteristics, 

age, and gender all may be variables which contribute to aptitude and are 

difficult to influence or modify through education or training. Self and 

identity may be modifiable although with difficulty. Experience would be the 

most mutable of the variables. Note also that the measures of effectiveness 

(MOEs) are not applied directly to cross-cultural competence but to various 

behavioral domains that purportedly utilize the competency. Cross-cultural 

competence thus is positioned as an enabling competency, not an end in 

itself. It is measured through surrogates—how well the subject performs 

tasks defined as requiring cross-cultural competence.

Figure 7. Dimensions of Cultural Competence

Regional

knowledge

Linguistic

proficiency

Culturegeneral

knowledge

Knowledge space

of regional expert

Zone of greatest

effectiveness
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The impact of cross-cultural competence on the quality of performance of 

these tasks in the Abbe et al. model is mediated and impacted by situational 

and organizational variables. These could include training and/or education 

specifically directed at enhancing cross-cultural competence or, alternatively, other activities related to mission execution or general life experience. 

These mediating variables could include experiences that could potentially 

reinforce negative stereotypes or simplistic thinking about others—that 

is, which could negatively impact the ability to accomplish the tasks. The 

problem, as with any surrogate MOE, is that the significant confounding 

variables (labeled here as situational and organizational variables) could 

mask, enhance, or degrade the impact of cross-cultural competency on the 

behaviors that are measured.44

Summary

Culture is not a thing, an artifact. It is more useful to think of it as a prism, 

something that distorts the vision but in knowable (nonrandom) ways. It is a 

set of ever-changing sense-making strategies that differ from place to place. 

These strategies can be learned. Some (a minority) of them are explicit. Those 

who use them are aware of them and can and generally will talk about them. 

Most of them are implicit and need to be learned through observation and 

Antecedent

variables

Figure 8. Framework for Cross-Cultural Competence

 Source: Abbe et al. (U.S. Army, see endnote 43)
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JSOU Report 11-1

participation. Linguistic knowledge thus is important, but neither necessary 

nor sufficient to learn about these strategies—and knowledge of a language 

in isolation from behavior will not tell you much about a culture. 

Learning how to recognize these strategies, the questions to ask to elicit 

them, or the behaviors to observe to recognize them we have called culturegeneral knowledge. This type of knowledge can be exercised anywhere in 

the world at any time. Culture-specific or regional knowledge is declarative 

or factual knowledge about a time- and space-specific set of strategies and 

includes knowledge of a language. 

There is evidence that culture-general knowledge alone is more valuable 

for effective cross-cultural interaction (i.e., movement among cultures) than 

regional (culture-specific) knowledge alone or linguistic knowledge alone 

(assuming that the regional or linguistic knowledge is not of the target area). 

That said, the zone of greatest effectiveness is clearly at the intersection of 

the three where the operator has culture-general knowledge, information 

about a particular region, and linguistic proficiency in the target language. 

We do not yet definitely know how much of cross-cultural competency 

is an aptitude (i.e., inherent) and how much a skill or learned. However, 

we do know that both are at play and thus both (inherent characteristics 

or aptitude as well as teachability) must be considered when selecting and 

assessing candidates for jobs that will require cross-cultural competency. 
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4. Selecting and Assessing for Cross-Cultural 

Competence, a Manifestation of the Culture 

of SOF

As described in the opening sections of this discussion, the long engagement of SOF in irregular and unconventional warfare has always 

emphasized the need for the force as a whole to compliment its kinetic capabilities with a nonkinetic approach that depended upon effective engagement 

with a local population. This requires the exercise of cross-cultural competence by at least some portion of SOF. Admiral Olson’s recent comments 

on the importance of the warrior diplomat have underscored the need for 

this competency in the force. The explanation of the concept of culture in 

the previous section was an effort to demonstrate in just what the force is 

expected to be competent.

This section takes us one step further in the application of cross-cultural 

competencies, demonstrating that it works both ways. SOF “have culture” 

just as any organization, group, or society does whether it be American or 

foreign, large or small, formal or informal. One can and should use cultural 

skills to understand oneself better. In fact, self-awareness is an important 

step toward the same type of awareness of an “other.” 

Approach

This section discusses one particular aspect of SOF’s culture—a part of it 

that communicates to its members the value of acquiring cross-cultural 

competencies. The culture of each of the SOF service components reflects 

the importance that the component attaches to missions, which require a 

high level of engagement with a local population. This importance is usually 

expressed as the relative importance placed on each of a set of competencies 

required from its members. These competencies range from those which come 

into play when the level of engagement with a local population is high (e.g., 

cross-cultural competencies) to those which focus on kinetic engagements or 

other types of activities that allow a distance between the SOF operator and 

members of the local population. The relative importance of these different 

types of activities in turn conditions the type of individual the components 

seek to identify through selection and assessment activities. The relative 

importance assigned to associated capabilities is formalized in the selection 
28

JSOU Report 11-1

and assessment process—a codification of capabilities deemed important by 

the services. The culture of the entire SOF is a function (not simply the sum) 

of these component cultures, presenting to the national security community 

a collection of kinetic and nonkinetic capabilities designed to accomplish 

certain missions. These capabilities may be exercised in varying strengths 

through the different components as the exigencies of the mission require.

This section presents an attempt to gain insight into each component’s 

attitudes towards the importance of cross-cultural competency for its operators. Selection and assessment was chosen as an activity on which to focus 

for it can provide insight into the kinds of operators the service components 

were seeking and how they evaluated them. The descriptions of selection and 

assessment programs will be used to illustrate the divergence in attitudes 

and values among the components (the components’ cultures) toward the 

relative importance of cross-cultural competency for operators. 

The research will describe the initial screen through which candidates 

must pass to join each of the SOF components. The shape of the holes in 

each component’s screen (the nature of its selection and assessment process) 

constrain what emerges on the other side (successful candidates). Subsequent 

training and education must work with the raw material (the successful 

candidate) provided by the selection and assessment process. It is important 

to emphasize that, by design, this research did not include any training the 

operators receive after they pass from candidate to full member status.

The selection and assessment programs described here were compiled 

from research done in late 2008 to mid-2009. By the time this research was 

submitted to JSOU Press as a draft in mid-February 2010 and the planned 

release in December, the selection and assessment programs could have 

changed significantly. As noted in the earlier discussion of the characteristics of culture, the explicit or behavioral dimensions of culture often change 

rapidly in response to immediate conditions and pressures. The organization’s values and attitudes, the part of the culture iceberg that is below the 

water and not visible, change much more slowly. The enduring values and 

attitudes are accessed through behavior (which includes language), but are 

not the same as that which we see. Think, for example, of a change effort 

implemented in any organization. The behavior of organizational members 

may change very quickly in immediate response to the new requirements, 

but unintended consequences often emerge as enduring values and attitudes 
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Turnley: Forward-Deployed Warrior Diplomats

drive organization members to act in ways that subvert the stated changes. 

Research such as this is designed to look through the behavior to the underlying values and attitudes. The comments made by respondents and their 

reactions to new programs and directions provide insight into the more 

deeply held values and attitudes. 

Deliberately changing organizational cultures is possible but nontrivial 

and takes a long time. (Cultures are actually changing all the time as new 

people join the organization, the external environment changes, and the 

like. But we are not speaking here of “cultural drift” but rather of deliberately focused change efforts.) By their nature, cultures are very conservative 

constructs and resistant to change. Effective deliberate changes in organizational culture usually take anywhere from 5 to 10 years, with some taking 

even longer. Based on empirical studies of several large organizations that 

underwent culture change efforts and other work, John Kotter developed 

eight steps he felt were critical for implementation of fundamental cultural 

changes in any organization.45 These steps are as follows:

a. Establishing a sense of urgency by relating external environmental 

realities to real and potential crises and opportunities facing an 

organization 

b. Forming a powerful coalition of individuals who embrace the need 

for change and who can rally others to support the effort

c. Creating a vision to accomplish the desired end result

d. Communicating the vision through numerous communication channels

e. Empowering others to act on the vision by changing structures, systems, 

policies, and procedures in ways that will facilitate implementation

f. Planning for and creating short-term wins by publicizing success, 

thereby building momentum for continued change

g. Consolidating improvements and changing other structures, systems, 

procedures, and policies that are not consistent with the vision

h. Institutionalizing the new approaches by publicizing the connection 

between the change effort and organizational success.46

Note that an effective culture change effort goes far beyond simply adding 

new training programs or changing vocabularies or policies and procedures. 

That is only one step in the middle of this process (step e). Lasting change 

in organizational culture takes time, investment by leadership, and the 
30

JSOU Report 11-1

engagement of the entire organization. The values, attitudes, conceptions 

of identity and self-description within an organizational framework are 

deeply embedded and change very slowly.

As discussed earlier, the selection and assessment processes of the SOF

components were chosen as the target for this research as they represent 

formal and explicit statements by the component of the type of individual 

it wants. Data collected was qualitative. Data on the processes at each of 

the components was gathered primarily through semi-structured and 

unstructured interviews with personnel connected with the selection and 

assessment programs of the various services. The interviews were conducted 

from October 2008 to September 2009. Active duty SOF from all the service 

components were also involved. This field data collection was supplemented 

by perusal of doctrinal material and other relevant documents. This secondary research was also conducted in 2009. 

Information solicitation from active duty personnel in addition to those 

responsible for programs is an important part of this type of study. In 

research on culture, the perception of activities, icons, people, programs, and 

the like is as important in shaping behavior as are the formal requirements 

for behavior. Personnel responsible for the programs will provide (quite 

appropriately) the formal rules and requirements. Personnel engaged with 

but not responsible for the programs will provide a different perspective. 

This perspective may reflect rather faithfully the formal rules and requirements, or it may not. As described in Section 3, cultural constructs are both 

models for behavior (i.e., prescriptions or rules or suggestions) and models 

of behavior (reflections of the values held by the participants). If a particular type of training or program is available but personnel believe it is not, 

that perception will shape the response to a question about the character 

of the program and will drive the behavior of the individual who uttered 

it. Since culture is a frame of reference, data on perception is as important 

as “objective” information.

The sample of those interviewed was a purposive or judgment sample, 

extended by a snowball sample. Prior to the contact with each component, 

interviews were set up for the researcher by personnel associated with 

the specific SOF component. These personnel were identified through the 

researcher’s professional contacts who were either on site themselves, engaged 

with the selection and assessment process at the time of the research or 

previously, or otherwise knowledgeable of the process at that particular 
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component. Once on site, this purposive sample was supplemented by a 

snowball sample. As respondents became more knowledgeable about the 

project through engagement with the researcher, they suggested and often 

made available additional individuals to contact.

Data collected through qualitative means is subjected to the same search 

for patterns as one might conduct on quantitative data. The researcher 

continues to collect data until she begins to hear from each new informant 

the same responses, descriptions, phrases, references, and other key indicators she heard before. Qualitative research is not predictive as samples 

are not randomly selected from the full population and does not have the 

same level of precision as does quantitative research. Qualitative research 

can be highly indicative, however, and is often informative enough to serve 

certain management or knowledge-seeking needs. Furthermore, any rigorously conducted quantitative study should begin with qualitative work to 

ensure that the survey or other quantitative data collection instrument is not 

constructed based on what the researcher believes are issues for the target 

population: qualitative research methods allow the target population to 

surface issues the researcher might not have considered. In addition, many 

of the questions raised by cultural research (questions of believe, self-identity, 

and the like) generate data that themselves are not quantitative and which 

can be manipulated quantitatively only through surrogates. Finally, qualitative studies must be as methodologically rigorous as quantitative ones. 

Definition of a sample population, information elicitation instruments and 

procedures, and the like must be considered and controlled. An interview is 

not the same thing as a hallway conversation, although a hallway conversation can yield interesting data if it is appropriately contextualized.

Visits for this study were to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, home of the 

Army Special Operations Command (USASOC); Coronado, California, where 

the Naval Special Warfare Command (NAVSPECWARCOM) is based; and 

Hurlburt Field, Florida, home of the Air Force Special Operations Command 

(AFSOC). The data collected at these sites included direct conversations with 

personnel and briefings on the programs. Data on the Marine Corps Forces 

Special Operations Command (MARSOC) program was collected primarily 

through telephone interviews. For all the components, these primary data 

were supplemented by perusal of doctrinal material, material put out by 

Public Affairs offices, and other material.
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JSOU Report 11-1

Results, the Selection and Assessment Programs of SOF Components

The components do, indeed, give different emphasis to cross-cultural competencies. By way of introduction to this diversity among the components, in 

2009 only the Army’s Special Forces (SF) addressed the cultural dimension 

in its online recruiting material. The front page of the SF recruiting Web site 

said “[SF] are experts in unilateral direct action operations and unconventional warfare, as well as having thorough knowledge of foreign languages, 

customs, and cultures.” 47 The Marines noted in an embedded page of their 

Web site on individual training that “All MARSOC Marines are required 

to undergo continual language training” during the individual training 

course, which is part of the selection and assessment process.48 They make 

no mention of any kind of cultural training. The Navy SEALs did not address 

it at all in their online material nor did AFSOC. 

The Army.49 In 2009, USASOC was composed of two component subordinate 

commands and four component subordinate units. USASOC’s two component subordinate commands were U.S. Army Special Forces Command 

(Airborne) and the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and 

School. The component subordinate units included the Sustainment Brigade 

(Special Operations) (Airborne), 75th Ranger Regiment, 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne), 95th Civil Affairs Brigade (Airborne), 

and 4th Psychological Operations Group (Airborne). USASOC also provided 

oversight of the Army National Guard.50 For those not familiar with SOF, it 

is important for this study to note that the SF Command does not include 

the Ranger Regiment. 

Of all these elements, the U.S. Special Operations Command Fact Book 

(2009) described only the SF Command as conducting unconventional 

warfare and foreign internal defense, mission areas of SOF. The other component and component subordinate units, including Psychological Operations51 

and Civil Affairs, all provided some kind of support to this area, but only 

SF are described as conducting unconventional warfare. Thus SF have the 

direct charter to combine elements of both the warrior and the diplomat 

in discharging their mission. The Rangers are certainly warriors, skilled 

in the kinetic competencies required for direct action, and Civil Affairs 

and Psychological Operations are certainly diplomats; however, none of 

these elements must formally combine both the warrior and the diplomat. 

(Certainly any military operator in an irregular or unconventional warfare 
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battlespace may find himself or herself discharging both the warrior and the 

diplomat function at some time. The discussion here is focusing on those 

military operators whose charter specifically requires both.)

The SF Operational Detachment A, a 12-man operational team better 

known as the ODA, was described as the “heart and soul of SF operations.” 52

Therefore, this discussion will focus on the selection of the SF operator, the 

essential element of the ODA team. The ODA team is the operational element 

of SF and in turn the central way the Army provides warrior diplomats to 

contribute to the discharge of the SOF mission. 

USASOC put high value on cross-cultural competency. Doctrine characterizing the entire Army SOF component (which referred to it as Army 

Special Operations Forces or ARSOF) called out the products of the application of cross-cultural competence. “Language skills, cross-cultural training, regional orientation, and understanding of the political context of 

the operational environment make ARSOF unparalleled when working in 

complex environments.” 53 (Note that descriptions of ARSOF include all of 

Army SOF, from the Rangers to Civil Affairs.)

This competence in language, culture, regional knowledge, and political understanding was a function both of what the soldier brought to the 

selection process as well as subsequent training. “The unique capabilities 

of ARSOF are a function of the quality of ARSOF Soldiers, the training 

and education of those Soldiers, and the mission profiles the Soldiers must 

execute... The competitive ARSOF selection process, coupled with technological training and education, produces an ARSOF Soldier who is adaptable, 

mature, innovative, culturally aware, self-assured, and self-reliant” (emphasis 

added).54 These qualities, which allow the troops to engage local populations in mission achievement (to operate by, through, and with...) and take 

advantage of local resources, allow ARSOF to be “effective in...generating 

military and diplomatic advantages disproportionate to the resources they 

represent” in conflict situations.55

The doctrinal descriptions of ARSOF (the entire component) are operationalized in the selection and assessment processes for SF, one of the two 

subordinate commands. The other subordinate command is the John F. 

Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School, often known as SWCS, the 

command schoolhouse. SWCS is responsible for special operations training, leader development, doctrine, and personnel propensity for SF, Civil 

Affairs, and Psychological Operations (as of December 2010, called Military 
34

JSOU Report 11-1

Information Support Operations) — that is, for those ARSOF elements 

that have engagement with a local population as an integral part of their 

mission.56

Selection into and participation in the SF qualification or Q course 

came with a battery of psychological and experiential tests and exercises 

that addressed social as well as physical abilities. The tests and the exercises 

evaluated characteristics such as flexibility, intelligence, the ability to deal 

well with others in conditions of moderately high stress, to process novel 

information, and to operate in ethically or morally ambiguous situations 

as well as the candidate’s ability to endure physical stress and high levels of 

mission ambiguity. 

The individuals who were interviewed emphasized the importance of the 

recruits’ ability to deal with social and situational ambiguity. SF mission 

orders often are vague. “Managed chaos is the norm,” said one interviewee. 

“You don’t know what you will be doing an hour from now.” The ability to 

rapidly assess and respond to the physical and social requirements of any 

possible situation was a key SF competency. 

Evaluation of the candidates’ ability to deal with managed chaos and 

the moral and ethical dilemmas that arise in cross-cultural situations were 

primarily handled through experiential exercises. One of the individuals 

interviewed pointed out that humans tend to default to what he called 

stereotypes or automatic responses when under stress. In order to evaluate the likelihood of a candidate defaulting to this type of response (which 

will not serve the soldiers of SF well), the training and evaluation must be 

conducted experientially. As one interviewee put it, “the training environment is the same environment for which you are being trained—a mess.” 

The stress that might prompt such a reversion to stereotypes and automatic 

responses cannot be mimicked in a classroom environment. When classroom instruction was provided for the candidates, it was enriched by what 

might be called surrogate or proxy experience —stories and anecdotes 

from the instructors of their own field experiences used to emphasize the 

cognitive explanations of success and failure strategies provided through 

formal classroom instruction. Thus in addition to teaching the candidates 

direct cross-cultural skills through cognitive and abstract instruction, the 

instructors also taught through experience even in the classroom. 

The post-action deconstruction of an exercise and the self-, peer, and 

instructor evaluations that candidates receive during and after experiential 
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exercises served as evaluative as well as learning tools. A respondent said 

that the schoolhouse had not yet found a measuring instrument that was 

reliable enough and consistent enough to beat the cadre’s assessment of a 

candidate. The cadre, all former operators themselves, evaluated candidates 

based on their own experience of what worked and what did not in the 

stressful, ambiguous, and ever-changing situations of the theater. 

SF followed the model developed by Abbe et al. presented earlier in this 

discussion in which cross-cultural competency is not an end in itself or a 

competency on which one might be evaluated. As one respondent said, “The 

cultural part of the problem is part of the process. It’s part of what you need 

to do to get through it. It isn’t the solution.” For example, the candidate might 

have been presented with an ethically ambiguous situation at a point in the 

training regime when he was physically fatigued. The evaluators assessed if 

the candidate recognized the moral dilemma and how he handled it in the 

context of mission achievement. The candidate’s management of the situation was not a pass or fail gate, but rather an evaluation of competencies. In 

general, the purpose was not to select in, to measure the candidates against 

some model of perfection as that model was unknown. The purpose rather 

was to select out individuals with undesirable characteristics. 

SF assessment and selection focused on culture-general skills. Culturespecific (i.e., regional) skills are addressed through training, education, 

and experience after acceptance into SF and so are not part of this research.

The Navy.57 In 2009, NAVSPECWARCOM major organizational elements were 

the Naval Special Warfare (NSW) groups. These were “major commands that 

train, equip, and deploy components of NSW squadrons...” 58 There were two 

logistical support teams and two detachments responsible for training. NSW

Combat Service Support Teams provided support to SEAL teams, Special 

Boat Teams, and NSW Task Groups/Task Units. The NSW Center provided 

instruction and training, and the NSW Development Group managed the 

test evaluation and development of applicable technologies.59

The Navy defined its SEAL teams as “the heart of the NSW force.” 60 SEAL

is an acronym for Sea, Air, and Land—a reminder of the integrated mission 

and skill set of the service component. “SEALs conduct clandestine missions 

infiltrating their objective areas by fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft, Navy 

surface ships, combatant craft, submarines and ground mobility vehicles.” 61
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JSOU Report 11-1

SEAL Delivery Vehicle Teams are specially trained SEAL teams, while Special 

Boat Teams provide support for exfiltration and other activities. 

The clandestine nature of most SEAL missions meant that the mission 

challenge was to infiltrate, execute the mission, and leave without indigenous 

personnel knowing that the operators ever were there. In such a scenario, 

exercising cross-cultural competency (i.e., engaging with the local population) meant that the team had failed to meet that challenge of invisibility 

and the clandestine nature of the mission was violated. If the mission did 

call for such engagement, the SEALs called on Army Civil Affairs or Military 

Information Support Operations teams as necessary to provide the competencies.62 Although this engagement with Army elements did contribute to 

effective operation in a joint environment, it also relieved pressure on the 

SEALs to provide that capability themselves. 

Recent conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere have called upon many 

SEALs to serve in land-based missions, maintaining a persistent presence. 

(Although many SEALs have served in land-based missions in past conflicts, 

the “Naval Special Warfare Command is the maritime component of U.S. 

Special Operations Command” (emphasis added) and “SEALs” certainly 

evokes a water-based focus.)63 The recent USSOCOM restructuring of SOF

assignments to theater commands even raised the possibility of a SEAL

commanding the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force (CJSOTF) 

in Afghanistan—hardly a maritime mission. It will be interesting to track 

the effect of this change in emphasis on the type of man the SEALs recruit.

Until recently, SEAL recruiters looked only for physical fitness in potential 

recruits. The Physical Screening Test (PST) was the only pass or fail gate in 

the recruitment process, although candidates also did need to achieve certain 

minimum scores on selected portions of the Armed Services Vocational 

Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) test to ensure their readiness for certain tasks. 

(The portions include general science, mechanical comprehension, and 

electronics information, mechanical knowledge, coding speed, and verbal 

expression.64 With the possible exception of verbal expression, none of these 

sections would contribute much to cross-cultural competency.) However, 

by 2008, pressure from the Quadrennial Defense Review and other sources 

to significantly and quickly increase overall numbers of special operators 

led the SEALs to search for a way to push more candidates through Basic 

Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) training, the SEALs qualification 

course, by reducing attrition. 
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In February 2008, the SEALs added the Computerized Special Operations 

Resilience Test (C-SORT) to the PST as a gate that must be passed for admission to BUD/S.

65 C-SORT is a psychological test that screens for characteristics 

such as a candidate’s ability to function as a team player, to be motivated to 

withstand pain, and his ability to focus on an end product while dealing with 

the immediate term. In effect, the test assesses the psychological characteristics whose presence will increase the likelihood of the candidate’s passing 

BUD/S.

66 A candidate could enter the selection program if he passed the PST

and had one of the following: a high PST (above a designated threshold) or a 

high C-SORT (having already met the minimum PST requirements). If his 

C-SORT is low, then he must meet the high or very high PST designations. 

Note that the first gate is the minimum PST, and a very high PST could 

obviate the need for a C-SORT score—a signal that physical qualifications 

are the common denominator of the force. High physical performance will 

trump poor performance in other areas.67

It is important to emphasize that the addition of the C-SORT as a requirement for admission as a candidate did not change the assessment criteria for 

becoming a SEAL. The C-SORT was intended only to increase the likelihood 

of the candidate passing the physical test of BUD/S and Hell Week. As of 

late 2009, a Navy directive said that the program was cancelled in November 2008—a bare 10 months after implementation. The justification for the 

cancellation was that the program had “served its purpose.” 68 The SEALs

were back to the PST as a screening tool.

At the time of this research, the SEALs were exploring diversity recruiting 

programs in an effort to introduce some cultural diversity into what was 

historically a rather homogeneous force. Respondents brought up suggestions about attaching such individuals to platoons as interpreters or in some 

other non-SEAL role, in the event that there would not be enough who could 

survive the rigors of BUD/S. “They could do the diplomat part of the warrior 

diplomat. The other guys could be the warriors.” That conversations like 

these were taking place suggest a very different conception of the warrior 

diplomat than that found in SF. Conceptually it was accepted that the two 

functions could be exercised by two different persons, giving the unit the 

capability but not the individual. Criteria related to the diplomat function 

were not considered for addition to either the SEALs selection or assessment 

process. At that time, the need for force diversity was not seen as a reason 

to alter section and assessment standards. The essential nature of the SEAL
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JSOU Report 11-1

remained the same—one defined around physical capabilities and the ability to exercise those in difficult, chaotic, stressful, and dangerous situations. 

Although there were language and some region-specific resources available to SEAL candidates at the time of this research, they were not required of 

the candidate cohort. Area-specific courses on the Middle East were offered, 

along with regional languages. No culture-general courses were available 

at that time to candidates. The courses were accessed by the candidates on 

an individual request basis, rather than assigned as part of an institutional 

structure of selection during candidacy.69 Several anecdotes heard during 

the data collection period in 2009 suggested there was peer pressure to focus 

on kinetic, not nonkinetic, training even though the cultural familiarization program was fairly well subscribed. “That culture stuff? That’s just not 

what we do.” 

The Air Force.70 In 2009, AFSOC was organized into two special operations 

wings—reserve and National Guard wings, overseas groups, a special tactics 

group and several operations and support units.71 AFSOC’s mission was one 

that generally kept personnel either on a base (particularly maintenance 

personnel) or in the sky. There was little need to contact or interact with 

indigenous populations. 

There are exceptions. The 720th Special Tactics Group, made up of special 

tactics personnel also referred to as Battlefield Airmen, was an exception 

to this distance between the force and any indigenous populations. This 

group, which contains the combat controllers, pararescuemen (PJs), special 

operations weather, and tactical air control party personnel, has been called 

AFSOC’s “air/ground interface.” 72 It often interfaces with SEALs, SF, MARSOC

Marines, and other ground forces in kinetic activities. The other exception 

was the Combat Aviation Advisors (CAA) of the 6th Special Operations 

Squadron (6 SOS), the element of AFSOC primarily responsible for foreign 

internal defense (FID). As Hoffman said, “These Air Commandos [the CAA] 

are culturally savvy, linguistically trained, and politically astute Airmen, 

hand selected for their skill, maturity, and professionalism to advise foreign 

forces.” 73

With the exception of the CAA and certain elements of the special tactics 

group—specifically combat controllers and PJs—there was no selection 

and assessment for Air Force special operations personnel comparable to 

the SF Q course and the Navy SEALs BUD/S training.74 AFSOC billets other 
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than CAA, combat controllers, and PJs were assigned through the normal 

Air Force assignment process. 

As mentioned earlier, the 6 SOS, which handled FID for the Air Force, 

is the primary exception to the distance between the force and indigenous 

personnel in AFSOC.

The CAA did go through a selection and assessment process. Candidates 

were all volunteers. They were assessed in areas such as flying and tactical 

skills, physical fitness, language ability, and motivation. Once accepted 

into candidacy, they were put through a series of courses and exercises 

before final selection. “Through a combination of lecture and practical 

operation, the 6 SOS ensures that its members are versed in cross-cultural 

communications and integration techniques, regional studies, instructor 

and advisor techniques, security-assistance management, and interpreter 

and translator operations.” 75 Candidates were also taught language skills 

and, of course, a full suite of aviation and ground tactical/operation skills. 

The CAA selection process also included a practical exercise called Raven 

Claw, similar to the SF’s Robin Sage, in which the candidates are expected 

to exercise appropriately the skills learned in the classroom and are assessed 

by their peers and the cadre. 

The 6 SOS members do exhibit the characteristics of warrior diplomats. 

However, although the squadron had increased significantly in size in recent 

years as the FID mission had taken on a different role within SOCOM’s 

mission space, at the time of this research the 6 SOS still counted its personnel in the hundreds out of the total AFSOC complement of well over 10,000. 

Thus the part of AFSOC with an interest in and focus on engagement with 

an indigenous population is proportionally very small and not representative of the component as a whole. The preponderance of AFSOC exercises 

another important function, serving as the SOF aviation wing. This function, in general, requires little or no engagement with a local population. 

The Marines.76 MARSOC was too new at the time of this research to speak 

of definitively in this context. MARSOC was activated in 2006. Its earliest members were the personnel of both 1st and 2d Force Reconnaissance 

Company who transferred to MARSOC to form 1st and 2d Marine Special 

Operations Battalions. The first selection specifically for the MARSOC

component was in 2007. The first MARSOC group to go through the entire 
40

JSOU Report 11-1

selection, assessment, and training program deployed in 2009, just about 

the time this research was completed. 

The MARSOC selection and assessment and training programs were 

deliberately patterned after the SF program, while retaining the Marine 

emphasis on direct action and special reconnaissance. Their selection and 

training did use “culture-neutral scenarios,” testing the candidate’s ability to 

interact in ambiguous and unfamiliar environments. He was evaluated on 

how he established rapport, turned needs into wants, and how he handled 

ethical/moral dilemmas. As with SF, these scenarios were exercised and 

evaluated experientially, not in the classroom, and run when the candidate was under physical stress. And, as with SF, they were not designed as 

hard pass or fail gates but rather to evaluate whether or not the candidate 

was trainable. “You can screw up badly on this but you won’t get dropped 

immediately.” 

At the time of this research, MARSOC operators came from Marine 

infantry battalion and combat arms units. They thus came into the program 

with a strong emphasis on direct action and special reconnaissance skills. 

As one respondent said, “They’re not used to sitting down and drinking tea.” 

It will be useful to follow the MARSOC program as it evolves, particularly 

in light of the USSOCOM emphasis on the warrior diplomat. 

Summary

Selection and assessment is a screen or filter by which the different components can tailor their search for men who meet the requirements peculiar to 

that component. As such, it is a differentiator among the components. If all 

the components were looking for a man with similar capabilities, the selection and assessment processes would be much more similar than they are.

By looking at the general nature of the components’ selection and assessment processes, this research endeavored to identify the different importance 

the components assigned to high levels of cross-cultural competency in their 

recruits/candidates. This research was not intended to make a value judgment about or to critique those selection and assessment processes, simply 

to ascertain the differences among them on this one dimension. 

Army SF was the only special operations component that put a heavy 

emphasis on selecting candidates who have an aptitude for the diplomat 

component of the warrior-diplomat construct. In addition to testing for 

physical fitness, SF also looked for candidates who could handle situational 
41

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and moral ambiguity, had strong interpersonal skills, and other attributes 

the component believed contributed to effective cross-cultural interaction. 

SF identified these candidates primarily through experiential evaluations. 

The service also tested not for the presence of the competency itself but 

for the way in which the candidate used the competency to achieve an end 

or accomplish a task. During selection and assessment, the focus was on 

culture-general competencies, as the service was looking for individuals 

who could perform effectively anywhere in the world. Culture-specific or 

regional skills and knowledge were learned after the candidate had been 

accepted into the component.

The Navy SEALs historically have not seen their mission as one which 

required cross-cultural competency, as it asked for little or no contact with 

indigenous populations. As such, they selected and assessed primarily on 

physical fitness and on psychological qualities that would help candidates 

get through BUD/S (teamwork and the ability to complete tasks under 

stress). What culture-related activities were provided to the candidate in 

2008 through early 2009 were primarily region-specific, and were accessed 

at the candidate’s initiative. That type of knowledge was not assessed during 

BUD/S. Changing missions for the SEALs are requiring more linguistic and 

cultural capabilities, but as of the time of this research, these requirements 

had not yet driven changes in selection and assessment. Though there is 

a growing set of post-selection, region-specific courses on languages and 

cultures, the SEALs culture seems to be one that emphasizes the warrior 

portion of the equation. 

The Air Force provided no special selection and assessment regime for 

most of its special operations component, with the exception of special 

tactics personnel and the 6 SOS CAA, the squadron specifically dedicated 

to FID. Of those AFSOC elements with a selection and assessment process, 

only the 6 SOS selected and assessed for cross-cultural competencies. And 

though this element was and still is growing in size, it comprised but a very 

small fraction of the AFSOC component. 

MARSOC, the Marines special operations component was only a few 

years old at the time of this research and was still developing its selection 

and assessment regime. Initial recruits for MARSOC came from Marine units 

with a heavy direct action and special reconnaissance mission. Although 

MARSOC selection and assessment was modeled loosely after the Army 

SF program, including a couple of short exercises focused on assessing a 
42

JSOU Report 11-1

candidate’s ability to interact cross-culturally, the program was too new to 

form any conclusions about its character at this point. However, the emphasis 

on kinetics introduced by the early recruits may establish an organizational 

culture that will be difficult to change. 
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5. SOF, General Purpose Forces and Cultural 

Knowledge

The U.S. military has shifted its emphasis in conflict characterization in 

recent years. It has moved from a focus on force to one that is structured 

by irregular warfare. The appointment of USSOCOM as the supported or 

lead command for the current conflict in 2005 is a significant marker of this 

shift. One of the ways in which USSOCOM and the SOF have put their brand 

on this conflict is through a change in the appreciation of the leveraging 

power cultural competency can bring to the fight.

The GPF are recognizing this power. They have responded through a 

variety of vehicles. Doctrinally, for example, FM 3-24—jointly issued in 2007 

by the Army and the Marines—uses chapter 3 on intelligence to stress the 

importance of recognizing, understanding, and leveraging local cultures.77

The PME institutions are offering courses and programs in culture. Air 

University (the lead university of the Air Force), for example, has set up a 

Language and Culture Center that focuses on developing cross-cultural 

competency in airmen as well as regional knowledge. The Army established 

the Human Terrain System, designed to “provide deployed commanders 

with the relevant socio-cultural understanding necessary to meet their 

operational requirements” through the deployment of social scientists and 

the development of reachback capabilities.78

The increase in attention and resources for the training of foreign forces 

by the GPF has often been used as an argument for mission overlap between 

GPF and SOF in an area where cross-cultural competency is key. However, 

others have argued that training foreign forces is qualitatively different 

than conducting FID as an element of supporting a host nation’s internal 

defense and development (IDAD). Under IDAD, the trainers must be able 

to work across the governmental spectrum, engaging local structures for 

administering justice and legal punishment, working with reconciliation and 

reintegration programs, and the like. In this approach, where FID is but one 

element of a larger program, a high degree of competency in working with 

the local population is required. The program may even require some limited 

negotiation with local power structures.79 This scope and related activities 

are qualitatively different than a narrower (but important) focus only on 

the training of troops. (Note that although the Air Force’s 6 SOS material 
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JSOU Report 11-1

talks about FID, it describes the activities in IDAD terms: “Squadron advisors help friendly and allied forces employ and sustain their own airpower 

operations resources and, when necessary, integrate those resources into 

joint and combined (multi-national) operations.” 80) 

Clearly there are individuals within the GPF who are culturally competent. As personnel move up through the officer ranks, they have access 

to (and often are required to take advantage of) educational and training 

resources that help them think of warfare in its strategic context, which 

includes its impact upon local populations. However, SOF are working to 

inculcate this capability in all ranks, including the enlisted operator. SF in 

particular select for individuals who demonstrate the capability, ensuring 

that its representation in the entire SOF is much stronger than it is in the 

GPF. This practice follows Robert Spulak’s thesis that the “smaller and 

tighter distribution of personnel with greater average attributes is the source 

of the nature and capabilities of SOF.” 81 A greater proportion of men who 

demonstrate relatively high levels of cross-cultural competency distinguish 

SOF from GPF in this arena. 
45

Turnley: Forward-Deployed Warrior Diplomats

6. SOF as Forward-Deployed Warrior Diplomats

SOF have long been renowned as accomplished warriors. The importance 

to battlefield success of the diplomatic portion of the warrior-diplomat 

construct has recently received increased attention as the U.S. planning focus 

has shifted to irregular warfare. SOF, and SF in particular, were described 

as exercising diplomatic skills as they worked by, with, and through indigenous populations. 

This discussion used cross-cultural competency as the lens through which 

to view diplomatic engagement. Such competency is necessary to execute 

the persuasion that underlies successful diplomatic negotiations. 

The research focused on the selection and assessment processes of the 

SOF components as a guide to understanding the capabilities of importance 

to each component. The research assumption was that the component would 

devise a process that only allowed through men who demonstrated high 

levels of ability in those designated capability areas. 

A review of SOF selection and assessment approaches revealed a highly 

unequal distribution of cross-cultural competency across the special operations community. Army SF strongly selected and assessed for high levels 

of cross-cultural competency in its candidates. Navy SEALs used tests of 

physical competencies as a screen. AFSOC’s CAA of the 6 SOS required 

high levels of ability in cross-cultural competency. However, the squadron 

comprises only a fraction of AFSOC’s full force, most of which requires no 

selection and assessment at all. The portion that does require it does not 

include cross-cultural competence in the menu of desired competencies. At 

the time of this research, the MARSOC fledgling selection and assessment 

program was too new to provide any insight. However, it is worth noting 

that MARSOC had loosely modeled its program on the SF program with 

its strong cross-cultural component, although early recruits into MARSOC

came from Marine units with a very strong kinetic focus. All components 

provided at least regional, and in most cases culture-general education and 

training to their members once they had moved out of candidate status. 

Culture is no longer the exclusive province of SOF. However, because 

SF, in particular, selects for certain characteristics arguably related to the 

demonstration of cross-cultural competence and the GPF does not, as a 

force SOF is more culturally competent than GPF. (The 6 SOS also selects 
46

JSOU Report 11-1

for cross-cultural competency, but its influence in this domain on the SOF

is small as its numbers are so low.) Given the low level of attention paid by 

SOF components other than the Army through SF in selecting personnel 

with attributes related to cross-cultural competency, one could argue that 

by the numbers SOF deploy as warrior diplomats; but by service component, currently only the Army (USASOC through SF) fully embraces the 

title. (The 6 SOS exception is noted, with the caveat that its absolute small 

numbers and its consequent very small proportion of the full force do not 

change this statement.) 

That only SF and AFSOC CAA are invested fully in both elements of 

the warrior diplomat construct is not necessarily a bad thing. However, as 

MARSOC and its ground-based mission develop, and if SEALs continue to 

emphasize the land component of their compound mission, they may find 

a need to recruit, select, and assess for a very different type of individual 

than they target now. The increasing need for IDAD-competent forces may 

drive even faster growth for CAA than it has seen recently.

This research was not designed to judge SOF selection and assessment but 

to train an analytic eye upon it. Much of SOF action remains in the kinetic 

domain. Becoming a warrior diplomat is a nontrivial process involving far 

more than just learning a language and a few behavioral do’s and don’ts. 

Clearly, the description of a force required to best manage the balance 

between the kinetic and nonkinetic activities in unconventional warfare is 

a decision that must be made at the top levels of command at USSOCOM.

The components then need to ensure that they acquire the raw material (the 

members who successfully pass through candidacy) that will allow them 

collectively to discharge the SOF mission. 
47

By the substitution of a sure job for a possible masterpiece, military 

science made a deliberate sacrifice of capacity in order to reduce 

the uncertain element, the bionomic factor, in enlisted humanity. 

— T. E. Lawrence 82

1. Introduction

The U.S. has determined it is strategically important to have Special 

Operations Forces (SOF). SOF are organized and act in small groups 

because their homogenous, highly capable personnel allow small relatively 

interchangeable teams to accomplish objectives through the exercise of 

flexibility and creativity. In contrast, the wide range of capabilities of the 

personnel of General Purpose Forces (GPF) requires them to deliver force 

through large, functionally differentiated groups that use discipline to ensure 

integration and relative certainty of behavior. 

The creation of the United States Special Operations Command 

(USSOCOM) and the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations 

and Low Intensity Conflict (ASD SO/LIC) by Congress in 1987 established 

visibility, legitimacy, and influence for SOF. USSOCOM gave SOF legitimacy 

in the world of the military services and the theater commands, and ASD 

SO/LIC gave SOF a voice at the policy table in the Department of Defense 

(DoD). With the promotion of USSOCOM to the supported or lead command 

in the current, post-9/11 fight, SOF have achieved even greater prominence.

Creating the Conditions for

a Possible Masterpiece: 

Small Groups and Special 

Operations Forces
48

JSOU Report 11-1

The importance of a small group of special men to execute special operations stemmed from their history of unorthodox operations requiring small 

footprints. The special operations conducted during World War II, including 

such operations as Jedburgh,83 required clandestine infiltration and exfiltration, and an invisible presence behind enemy lines. David Stirling, who 

organized the Special Air Service (SAS) for the British during World War 

II—the prototype for many present-day SOF around the world—argued 

for 16-man teams that could be modularized into two 8-man patrols, four 

4-man patrols, or eight 2-man patrols.84 The American Office of Special 

Services (OSS), U.S. counterpart to SAS, made use of the 3-man Jedburgh 

teams and 30-man operational groups. Aaron Bank, considered the father 

of the American Green Berets (Army Special Forces), which evolved out 

of the OSS when it was disbanded, considered both the SAS and the OSS

models. He proposed small teams as the basic unit of organization, initially 

of 15 men.85 These evolved into today’s 12-man A-teams. This organizational 

approach now is codified in American doctrine:

The successful conduct of SO (special operations) relies on individual 

and small unit proficiency in a multitude of specialized, often nonconventional combat skills applied with adaptability, improvisation, 

innovation, and self-reliance. The small size, unique capabilities, 

and self-sufficiency (for short periods of time) of SOF operational 

units provide the United States with feasible and appropriate military 

responses.86

In fact, Special Forces A-teams and SEAL platoons have become iconic 

actors in the special operations world. But why have these small teams taken 

on such importance, when the 

focus in the Army as a whole, for 

example, is on the brigade or division with personnel levels in the 

thousands or tens of thousands? 

Is it something peculiar about the 

task (the mission), the way in which SOF are used strategically, or about the 

men who comprise the group? This discussion will explore whether changing 

the size of the operational unit is key to changing its effect, or whether there 

is something about the way the unit and the force are structured that makes 

a difference. In the course of this exploration, the discussion will address 

...why have these small teams taken 

on such importance, when the focus 

in the Army as a whole, for example, 

is on the brigade or division...
49

Turnley: Creating the Conditions

the relationship of the operational unit to the whole force and explore differences in the ways in which bureaucratic and other organizational structures 

exploit human resources. This will take us into the realm of Clausewitzian 

friction and the implications different organizational structures have for the 

military’s encounter with friction. The conclusion is that, given what little 

we know about the effect of group size on the functioning of the group, the 

nature of the organization—the type of men recruited for the operational 

unit, the relationship of the operational unit to the whole, and the implication of these two factors for unit functioning—are more important variables 

than size in understanding the effectiveness of SOF. 

If “war is merely the continuation of politics by other means” 87 as Clausewitz famously said, then militaries are the tool for “the implementation 

of state policy by armed force.” 88 The men in the militaries thus are the 

ultimate delivery vehicle for the use of force.89 This discussion will explore 

some of the dimensions of difference organizational structure can make on 

the delivery of that force. 

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Turnley: Creating the Conditions

2. The Order of Battle and the Nature of Groups

Retaining a Precarious Value as Special Operations Go Mainstream

remarks on the surprising absence of work on the social structural 

dimensions of the military.90 Military sociology has generally addressed 

three areas: 

a. Relationship of the individual to the institution (in numerous works 

on the professionalization of the military)

b. Relationship of small subgroups such as women, racial minorities, 

and others to the larger military community

c. Relationship of the military itself to other social actors such as a 

diplomatic corps (often captured under the rubric of civil-military 

relations). 

There appears to be relatively little research on the role of small groups in 

the military. 

The question of the relative importance of the small group in SOF is an 

intriguing one. Is this importance an accident of history, growing out of the 

organization of the British SAS and American OSS during World War II? Is 

it no more interesting than the need to have a small footprint? Or is there 

something about small groups that contributes to the special nature and 

function of SOF? 

The military is more than a random collection of individuals who are 

executing force in the name of the state. As it has “shared rules and typifications that identify categories of social actors and their appropriate activities 

or relationships,” 91 it can be called an institution. It is this institutional nature 

that this monograph explores, for it is the institutional definition of actors 

that highlights the importance of the team or small group in SOF. Again, 

our primary interest is in exploring the special function of the small team 

as an actor in SOF.

The particular arrangement of categories of social actors and their relationships in a specific institution is known as that institution’s organizational 

structure. Organizational structure in a military context is usually described 

as part of the order of battle. And it is, indeed, generally descriptive, not 

prescriptive. The DoD Dictionary, taking its guidance from Joint Publication 

2-01.3, defines the order of battle as “The identification, strength, command 
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JSOU Report 11-1

structure, and disposition of the personnel, units, and equipment of any 

military force.” 92, 93 This definition is purely descriptive because it contains 

no guidance on determining the relationship of any of these variables to 

force effectiveness.

Clausewitz’s 180-page Book V, “Military Forces,” in On War devotes less 

than 5 pages to the description of force structure.94 (The remainder of the 

book is devoted to the disposition or deployment of the force on the battlefield.) In this book, Clausewitz posited three principles of what he called 

the “distribution and composition of arms as individual parts of the whole”: 

a. The whole will be unwieldy if it has too few subdivisions.

b. If the subdivisions are too large, the commander’s personal authority 

will be diminished.

c. Every additional link in the chain of command reduces the effect of 

an order in two ways—by the process of being transferred and by 

the additional time needed to pass it on.95

These principles and the accompanying description focus primarily on span 

of control. He gave little guidance on group size or nature.

The modern, professional military — whose rise is often credited to 

Napoleon and which Clausewitz described—emerged at the beginning of 

the industrial age, a time that set the stage for the emergence of bureaucratic institutions. Militaries have often been touted as the quintessential 

bureaucracy.96 (The military is one of the case studies that threads through 

James Q. Wilson’s treatment of bureaucracy, for example.97)

On the surface, the military does, indeed, appear to be a classic bureaucratic organization. The primary elements of a bureaucracy are a ruledefined structure that endures over time (i.e., a stable structure) and the 

actors who populate that structure. Bureaucracies operate according to “...

the principle of fixed and official jurisdictional areas, which are generally 

ordered by rules— that is, by laws or administrative regulations.” 98 Actors 

move in and out of these jurisdictional areas (jobs or functions) and have 

existence separate from their functions. This aspect provides a mechanism 

by which organizations can replace individuals who leave (or, in the case of 

deployed forces, become casualties) without compromising the functioning 

of the organization. 

Bureaucracies have several defining characteristics: 
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Turnley: Creating the Conditions

a. They exhibit a strong division of labor that is codified in rules defining a structure specialized by function.

b. Each function has standardized procedures that govern behavior, no 

matter which individual occupies the position.

c. An individual’s movement through the organization is governed by 

demonstrated competency that is often codified as rules of a profession. 

Talcott Parsons succinctly sets out the key characteristics of bureaucracies:

...an organization devoted to what is from the point of view of the 

participants an impersonal end. It is based on a type of division of 

labor which involves specialization in terms of clearly differentiated 

functions, divided according to technical criteria, with a corresponding division of authority hierarchically organized, heading up to a 

central organ, and specialized technical qualifications on the part 

of the participants. The role of each participant is conceived as an 

“office” where he acts by virtue of the authority vested in the office 

and not of his personal influence. This involves a clear-cut distinction 

in many different respects between his acts and relationships in his 

official and his personal capacity. It in general involves separation 

of office and home, of business funds and property from personal 

property, above all of authority in official matters from personal 

influence outside the official sphere.99, 100

An often neglected aspect of bureaucratic theory is the legitimacy it 

accords to the individual. In a bureaucracy, the individual exists separate 

from his function. The individual moves in and out of offices and carries 

his identity with him from place to place. That identity is subsumed by the 

role or function as the individual moves into the office. He becomes “Mr. 

President,” “General” or “Sergeant.” The democratic principle is based 

on the same notion. As I move into the role of citizen, the individuating 

characteristics of color, gender, or religion drop away. The function takes 

precedence and continues to contribute to the life of the whole as different 

individuals move in and out of office. 

Bureaucracies are highly rational organizations. Weber goes so far as to 

say that in a military even supposedly irrational factors (such as morale and 

inspiration) need to be calculated as rationally as “one calculates the yields 

of coal and iron deposits.” 101 Employment of large numbers of personnel 
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JSOU Report 11-1

and the movement of large amounts of materiel require certainty, efficiency, 

and calculability—the outcomes of a rational (i.e., bureaucratic) structure. 

Achievement of these outcomes is (partially) the result of the application 

of discipline. Bureaucracies use discipline to inculcate conformity, which 

leads to what the military calls certainty of command—the assurance that 

an order will be followed in a prescribed fashion every time:

The content of discipline is nothing but the consistently rationalized, methodically trained and exact execution of the received order, 

in which all personal criticism is unconditionally suspended and 

the actor is unswervingly and exclusively set for carrying out the 

command...this conduct under orders is uniform.102

There is a cost associated with the application of discipline. T. E. Lawrence 

suggested that the cost of certainty of performance was the lowering of the 

standard of individual achievement. However, he also does acknowledge 

the increased certainty of performance it provides:

...discipline in the sense in which it was restrictive, submergent of 

individuality, the Lowest Common Denominator of men...discipline 

meant the hunt, not of an average but of an absolute; the hundred 

percent standard in which the ninety-nine were played down to the 

level of the weakest man on parade. The aim was to render the unit 

a unit, the man a type; in order that their effort might be calculable, 

and the collective output even in grain and bulk. The deeper the 

discipline, the lower was the individual excellence; also the more 

sure the performance...103
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Turnley: Creating the Conditions

3. Organizational Structure and Friction

Arguably, the application of discipline and the development of bureaucratic structures is one way in which militaries try to counter friction. Friction, one of Clausewitz’s best known yet still highly ambiguous 

contributions to the theory of war, is “the force that makes the apparently 

easy so difficult” in war.104 Barry Watts, in one of the more complete treatments of friction, identifies three ultimate causes of friction: 1) constraints 

imposed by human limitations, both cognitive and physical, 2) informational 

uncertainties and the difference between perceived and actual reality, and 

3) the structural nonlinearity of combat itself.105 In fact, Watts asserts that 

friction is the central fact of war and could be used to derive a general theory 

of war itself.106

The military is engaged in a constant attempt to overcome friction on 

the battlefield in order to achieve its objectives. Initiatives such as the DoD’s 

Revolution in Military Affairs, defined as “...a major change in the nature 

of warfare brought about by the innovative application of new technologies 

which, combined with dramatic changes in military doctrine and operational 

and organizational concepts, fundamentally alters the character and conduct 

of military operations” assumed that new types of technology would reduce 

friction by significantly increasing our information awareness and reducing 

what Watts called informational uncertainty. Use patterns for these new 

technologies would drive changes in military organization and structure. 

In that effort, the driving factor was technology. Changes in force structure 

were driven by the nature of available technologies. Here the discussion 

explores whether the organizational structure of the force itself can be the 

driver in the attempt to overcome friction, not derivative of other efforts. 

Can direct manipulation of force structure and organization within the 

context of available tools and technologies have an important impact on 

military effectiveness? 

The application of large amounts of manpower in an effort to overcome 

friction pushes the military toward a bureaucratic ideal through the imposition of rationality and the search for behavioral certainty, as exemplified 

in the GPF. The use of creativity and flexibility to address friction moves 

the military institution to the development of a SOF based on small teams. 

Clausewitz points out the importance of having a larger force than the 

enemy. He speaks of the “decisive importance of relative strength” on the 
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JSOU Report 11-1

battlefield and notes that “In tactics, as in strategy, superiority of numbers is 

the most common element in victory.” 107, 108 The principles of war as codified 

in U.S. doctrine modify this premise somewhat. The principle of mass speaks 

of the deliverance of overwhelming effects, which generally (although not 

always) requires large numbers of personnel.109 Robert Spulak points out 

that since conventional forces cannot change the game the way SOF can, 

they are left only with the option of doing more of what they are doing to 

overcome friction.110

Those who discuss theories of special operations argue that special operations are a way to address friction without the application of large amounts 

of personnel and attendant organizational structure. William McRaven and 

Spulak both address friction in their theoretical treatments.111, 112 McRaven 

addresses it indirectly through what he calls special operations’ relative 

superiority, while Spulak talks about it at length. 

Spulak characterizes Watts’ three ultimate sources of friction as follows: 

war is hell, we can’t know what’s out there, and we can’t predict what will 

happen. He argues that SOF address the first through the creation of elite 

warriors who can overcome the physical and cognitive limits experienced by 

most men. This objective is achieved through selective recruiting. He argues 

that the “smaller and tighter distribution of personnel with greater average 

attributes is the source of the nature and capabilities of SOF.” 113 It is worth 

reproducing his schematic of this distribution, because the small number of 

men who are more like each other than not in critical attributes is central 

to our argument about the primacy and usefulness of small groups in SOF. 

Schematic 

distribution 

of the values 

of a typical 

individual 

attribute 

for SOF 

and the 

entire 

military. 

“Score” for some individual attribute

Military

SOF

Number with that score
57

Turnley: Creating the Conditions

(The figure is reproduced from A Theory of Special Operations: The Origin, 

Qualities, and Use of SOF, page 11, and used with Dr. Spulak’s permission.)

Spulak suggests that SOF address the second source of friction (we can’t 

know what’s out there) through what he calls flexibility. Small SOF units 

can have a much larger range of capabilities than even a large conventional 

unit as a result of the smaller range of (more capable) personnel. Finally, 

SOF mitigate the consequences of the inability to predict what will happen 

by using creativity. SOF immediately change the combat process to one that 

presents fewer risks but still allows them to achieve the military objective.114

Their ability to change the process is made possible by greater attributes, 

training, and technology.115

Note that particularly the second and third of these characteristics of 

SOF (flexibility and creativity) are directly counter to the bureaucratic 

model. Rather than attempt to create certainty by overcoming the risks 

through brute force, the application of flexibility and creativity allow SOF

to recognize and address existing uncertainty to change the game. In order 

to accomplish this application, SOF require men who have certain capabilities, rather than men who are only trained in certain skill sets targeting 

particular functions. Furthermore, they require organization into a set of 

small teams, relatively homogenous in their base capabilities, rather than 

fragmentation into functionally differentiated groups. 

McRaven speaks specifically to the question of how a small force can 

defeat a larger and suggests six essential principles of special operations’ 

success: simplicity, security, repetition, surprise, speed, and purpose. He 

argues that although large forces may be able to apply one or more of the 

principles, the success of small forces depends on the “proper integration 

of all six principles.” McRaven argues that the “inherent advantages” of 

SOF allow it to reduce friction to a “manageable level.” 116 He defines these 

advantages as “technology, training, intelligence, etc.”—which is actually 

a mixture of different logical categories, as technology and training can be 

provided to any man, while intelligence inheres in the recruit. But all this 

discussion still begs the question of why small teams are the organizational 

structure of choice. 

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Turnley: Creating the Conditions

4. Teams and Other Organizational Forms

A review for the Army of 10 years of research on team and small group 

performance (1989 through 1999) concludes that there is no common 

accepted definition of a team, despite a plethora of research on the subject.117

The reviewers craft their own definition, which is “two or more people, 

who, despite having separate, distinct tasks, work concurrently and interdependently to achieve a common goal” (emphasis added). They emphasize 

the importance of a common purpose or task. Most importantly for our 

purposes, they focus on “the efforts of a few people who must work together 

to achieve a goal that would otherwise be unobtainable by the summed 

efforts of the members working individually.” 118

This definition reflects Émile Durkheim’s notion of collective conscience—

the totality of beliefs and sentiments common to the average members of a 

society [that] forms a determinate system which has its own life.” 119 In more 

modern parlance, this phenomenon is called emergence—“how successive...interactions among autonomous individuals result in the emergence 

of collective phenomena...argue[ing] for the nonreducibility of higher 

levels of analysis.” 120 This description provides a language by which we can 

speak of the team (a social group) as an actor, distinct from the sum of the 

actions of its members. 

Durkheim’s notion of collective conscience formed the basis for what 

he called mechanical solidarity through likeness.121 “A social solidarity 

exists which arises because a certain number of states of consciousness are 

common to all members of the same society.” 122 In a group characterized 

by social solidarity, all members of the group are identified by something 

they have in common. If the end game is a group of men brought together 

because of their sameness (in the case of SOF, ‘sameness’ in terms of some 

basic level of ability), it would be important to have that sameness variable 

set at a high level. This focus is not the same in a structural sense as pushing 

all towards Lawrence’s lowest common denominator, which the GPF must do 

because of broad-based recruiting. SOF use conscious selection and practice 

to leverage similarity. Spulak’s smaller, tighter distributions of variation of 

many variables become critically important.

SOF explicitly recognize their distinction from GPF through the special

moniker. As some minority groups do, they take pride in that difference, 
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JSOU Report 11-1

tout it as a virtue, and use it as a source of solidarity. Understandably, this 

behavior arouses resentment among GPF which, in turn (paradoxically), 

underscores the apartness of SOF by making that distinctiveness an explicit 

topic of discussion. 

The emphasis on something similar and shared that is the basis of 

mechanical solidarity is sharply characterized with organic solidarity, which 

is found in groups with a strong division of labor. “They are constituted, 

not by a repetition of similar, homogeneous segments, but by a system of 

different organs each of which has a special role, and which are themselves 

formed of differentiated parts.” 123 In this system (clearly tied to bureaucratic 

structures), the appropriate functioning of each functional part is critical 

for the life of the larger organization. Lawrence recognized this characteristic of the bureaucratic structure—functional differentiation or division 

of labor. “[T]he fighting man,” he said, “was the product of the multiplied 

exertions of a long hierarchy, from workshop to supply unit, which kept 

him active in the field.” 124

Every group has two general sets of activities it must perform. One is 

around task performance, the other around the development and maintenance of social ties (often described as the development/maintenance of 

cohesion). While there appears to be a significant albeit small correlation 

between task performance and social cohesion (i.e., teams that perform 

effectively at tasks also demonstrate high levels of cohesion), LaJoie and 

Sterling were unable to determine from the literature they reviewed if there 

was any causality between these two variables, and if so, its directionality.125 This monograph suggests that the nature of the task and the ways in 

which cohesion develops in operational groups are different in important 

ways in SOF and GPF. These differences in development lead to differences 

in performance and ultimately differences in the ways in which the two 

forces counter friction. 

GPF, because of their size and because of the composition of their forces 

resulting from broad-based recruiting efforts, are organized bureaucratically. Discipline is used to establish conformity, which generates certainty 

of command. Because they have a high division of labor, sub-organizations 

are functionally defined. An operating actor in the GPF, to be functionally 

complete, must be composed of a large number of sub-organizations; hence 

the GPF focus on the brigade or division as the primary actor. 
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Turnley: Creating the Conditions

Organic solidarity, derived from the division of labor, means that each 

sub-organization must focus on performance of its function to the minimum acceptable standard, given the push of personnel toward the lowest 

common denominator and the bureaucratic proclivity to clarify what it 

means to fail and leave ambiguous the definition of success.126 This situation 

is particularly true in the American military where staff rotate in and out 

of functional units. Task identity is high. Social identity of the group is not 

naturally developed. In fact, some have argued that any social identity or 

cohesion that is developed is located in individual-focused social networks 

that cross military units.127

The iconic SOF actor—the A-team—is quite different. Operational 

SOF teams are designed to be relatively self-sufficient. This design clearly 

distinguishes them from forward-operating units of the GPF, where phrases 

like the long logistics tail required to support such units evoke Lawrence’s 

“long hierarchy, from workshop to supply unit.” An A-team, on the other 

hand, is one of a set of such teams in a SF group, all of which are more or 

less the same. In fact, every A-team has the same functional composition 

(medic, communications, engineer, weapons) and is relatively flat from a 

command point of view. And although each team is internally functionally differentiated, Stirling’s notion that the team could be broken down 

into ever-smaller modules argues that every man is at the base sufficiently 

capable, and cross-trained sufficiently so he is enough like all the other men 

on the team to adequately assume their role.128

Historically, the major differentiation among A-teams was through 

geocultural orientation, manifest in language and cultural skills specific 

to a particular part of the world. (Each SF group, and therefore the teams 

of which it is composed, has a geographical focus.) That said, any A-team 

can and will deploy to any part of the world. (A-teams oriented to South 

America are currently serving in the Middle East, for example). This feature 

is distinctly different than unit differentiation within the GPF, where a logistics unit, for example, cannot fulfill an artillery unit’s function. The lack of 

flexibility at the unit or group level points toward a difference in task definition for the A-team from operational units in 

the GPF. Rather than be given a task defined at 

the behavioral or functional level, SOF operators 

are given an objective. The small teams in SOF

have greater latitude in planning their own missions than do operational 

The small teams in SOF

have greater latitude in 

planning...
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JSOU Report 11-1

units in the conventional forces, and their mission space tends to be much 

broader than the rather narrow slice given to GPF operational units. The 

operational team develops its own operational plan, rehearses together, and 

executes as a team. McRaven emphasized the need for tight integration of 

the planning, preparation, and execution phase.129 In this way, because the 

entire team is involved in creating the mental model of the operation, it 

operates in a common universe. Team research has shown that the high 

level of interpositional knowledge this intense interaction engenders leads 

to highly effective interaction on task. Team members are able to anticipate 

each others’ information needs and push each other information without 

an explicit request for it. Actions of others can be better anticipated, and 

behaviors of team members more effectively integrated and synchronized.130

Since A-teams spend intense amounts of time in each other’s presence, 

beginning with the planning of a mission through its execution, they develop 

strong social ties. In fact, several of the selection criteria for SF are focused 

around a plays well with others criterion. The men who will develop a plan 

for the necessary behaviors, prepare together and execute. In so doing, they 

develop a shared understanding of and commitment to a common purpose, 

one of McRaven’s criteria for success and one of the distinguishing characteristics of mechanical solidarity. 

In SOF, the task is received at the level of context, as an objective. This 

approach requires that each team be similarly and broadly capable, as the 

behaviors it may be required to execute can vary widely. There must be a 

broad range of functional capabilities internal to the team for the team to be 

able to demonstrate the creativity Spulak argued was critical to overcoming 

the unpredictability generated by friction. The team also must be flexible in 

order to be able to deal with informational uncertainties. 
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5. Does Group Size Matter?

I

ntuitively, it seems that these teams should be small. Interestingly, most 

of the literature addressed the question of team performance; size was 

treated as an independent (not a dependent) variable and simply asserted. 

The most important conclusion from the literature suggests that there is a 

great deal more research to be done in this area.

The social brain hypothesis suggests that the ability of the brain to process 

social knowledge (as distinct from memory size) sets limits on the number of 

individuals with whom one can have face-to-face contact. That number has 

generally been accepted to be around 150.131 The core social grouping appears 

to be about 3 to 5 individuals, while the next commonly found group size is 

about 12 to 20 individuals. Using data from a variety of different societies 

(small- and large-scale) and from different contexts (e.g., social networks, 

task-oriented groups), Wei-Xing Zhou et al.132 found that as group sizes get 

bigger, scaling seems to be in factors of three. Each level is about 3 times 

the level beneath it. Interestingly, the authors claim that “the military probably provides the best examples” of this scaling. For example, the smallest 

groups are composed of 10 to 15 men, platoons of about 35, and companies 

around 120 to 150. 

What is perhaps of greatest interest to us here is the statement from Zhou 

et al., “we have little real understanding of what mechanisms might limit 

the nucleation point to a particular value,” 133—that is, why the progression 

starts with 3 to 5 individuals. Clearly, there is a great deal more research 

that needs to be done here. Also found was literature that demonstrated 

the relationship between group size and other structural components such 

as the amount of division of labor, hierarchical differentiation, and spatial 

dispersion is inconsistent. The same absence of correlation much less causation also holds for size and level of formalization.134

Despite the absence of support from research, McRaven asserts that “it 

is difficult for large forces to develop a simple plan, keep their movements 

concealed, conduct detailed full-dress rehearsals (down to the individual 

soldier’s level), gain tactical surprise and speed on target, and motivate all 

the soldiers in the unit to a single goal.” 135 Although large group size does 

not necessarily correlate with complexity,136 certainly concealment is more 

difficult for a large force, full-dress rehearsals are expensive and timeconsuming, and speed of the whole is hard to achieve when one is moving 
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JSOU Report 11-1

lots of parts. The covert nature of many (although not all) special operations, 

the need for speed, and the degradation of communication as the number of 

participants increases—that Clausewitz highlighted in his brief discussion 

of force composition—may be functional limiters on size for SOF. 
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Turnley: Creating the Conditions

6. Summary and Conclusion

This discussion focused on the implications of different types of organizational structure for the execution of force in the military. It was 

stimulated by curiosity about the difference in size between the iconic actor 

in SOF (a small team of about 10 to 15 people) and the focus in the GPF on 

organizations with thousands or tens of thousands of personnel. 

The military is often cited as the archetypical bureaucratic organization. 

Bureaucracies manage large numbers of people through functional differentiation and the application of discipline. This organizational structure allows 

the military to engage in broad-based recruiting and, through the application 

of discipline, develop organizational control at the behavioral level. Division of labor within the military is high with organizations defined by task. 

Mission accomplishment thus requires participation of and coordination 

among many organizations, hence the brigade with thousands of men or 

the division with tens of thousands. Discipline and other bureaucratic tools 

move personnel in the direction of the predictable (certain) behavior required 

for such high levels of coordination to be effective. This mechanism allows 

the force to address Clausewitzian friction by reducing the uncertainty that 

is one of its key components. 

If the force is trying to mitigate friction through flexibility and creativity, 

it needs to be organized around groups of broadly capable men. In this case, 

the division of labor within each team is low, and solidarity or cohesion is 

attained by the investment of all members in the team’s purpose. Each team 

is relatively self-sufficient. This feature allows the organization to begin 

with context (mission and environment) and collectively develop behaviors appropriate to that context, rather than beginning with a function and 

developing behaviors appropriate to that function. The collective engagement 

in mission planning, rehearsal, and execution found in SOF teams because 

of this focus on context generates high social and task cohesion. 

The size of SOF teams may be limited by factors dictated by the mission. 

Speed and concealment are much more difficult with large numbers of men 

than they are with small. However, the other factors characteristic of team 

performance (vice the functional units in a bureaucratic structure) are 

equally important for SOF success.

Changing the size of the operational unit is not key to changing its effect. 

Simply chopping the GPF into smaller pieces will not turn it into SOF because 
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JSOU Report 11-1

it will not be possible to infuse those pieces with the qualities of SOF. A full 

transformation would require the men in those units to have the necessary 

attributes or capabilities, which would enable them to learn to engage in a 

functionally undifferentiated social environment and to exercise the flexibility and creativity that also characterize SOF. The rigorous SF psychological and operational selection and assessment process, for example, with its 

high attrition rates (sometimes as high as 60 percent per cohort) illustrate 

the scarcity of these capabilities in the general military population. SOF and 

GPF units differ fundamentally in the nature of their tasks, the nature of the 

men who compose the units, and the consequent ways in which solidarity or 

cohesion develops in operational groups. These differences in development 

lead to differences in performance and ultimately differences in the ways 

in which the two forces counter friction. 

But why a unit size of around 15 men? While there does not appear to be 

much research on the effective size for SOF-like interaction (groups characterized by mechanical solidarity, aka high-performing teams), intuitively 

it appears that small groups are more effective. McRaven asserts that large 

groups cannot develop simple plans, one of the criteria for success for special 

operations. Informal communication (a hallmark of these types of groups 

and critical for developing relationships) degrades quickly as pathways gain 

in length. Developing unit or social cohesion at the brigade or division level 

is, on the face of it, a daunting task. 

Although organizational structure in SOF may have originated as an 

accident of history (perhaps guided by intuition), the effectiveness of its 

small, undifferentiated teams to overcome battlefield friction has been 

demonstrated over time. SOF are organized and act in small groups because 

their comparatively homogenous, highly capable personnel allow small 

teams relatively undifferentiated in basic capabilities to exercise flexibility 

and creativity. This organizational form mitigates friction in a fundamentally different way than the relative certainty of behavior exhibited by GPF, 

whose large manpower base with a wide range of distribution of critical 

attributes and capabilities requires large, functionally differentiated groups 

to be effective. 

It also is important to recognize the primary contribution that the development of certainty on the battlefield can make to the management of friction. SOF exist because they can perform strategically important missions 

that GPF cannot without unacceptable risks. In fact, as Clausewitz and the 
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Turnley: Creating the Conditions

principles of war insist, mass is often the deciding factor on a battlefield. 

Therefore, bureaucratic structures have their very important place. The 

challenge to those engaged in force structure planning is to recognize the 

costs and benefits of both and to make the appropriate tradeoffs in terms 

of manpower and treasure. Truly, as Lawrence said:

By the substitution of a sure job for a possible masterpiece, military 

science made a deliberate sacrifice of capacity in order to reduce 

the uncertain element, the bionomic factor, in enlisted humanity.137

69

Turnley: Endnotes

Endnotes

Forward-Deployed Warrior Diplomats: SOF and CrossCultural Competence

1. Adam Watson, Diplomacy: The Dialogue Between States (New York: Routledge, 30 

September 1984).

2. Department of Defense (DoD), United States Special Operations Command 

(USSOCOM), Capstone Concept for Special Operations (2006), p. 7.

3. DoD, USSOCOM, Strategic Plan (18 December 2009), p. 8.

4. Admiral Eric T. Olson, USSOCOM Posture Statement (4 June 2009), p. 3; available 

from www.socom.mil/SOCOMHome/Documents/2009%20Posture%20Statement%20(3).pdf , accessed October 2010.

5. G. R. Berridge, Diplomacy: Theory and Practice (New York: Palgrave, 2002), p. 1.

6. R. P. Barston, Modern Diplomacy (London, U.K.: Pearson Education, Ltd., 2006 

[1988]), p. 3.

7. Barston, Modern Diplomacy, pp. 2-3.

8. R. E. Petty, Persuasion: From Single to Multiple to Meta-Cognitive Processes Perspectives on Psychological Science (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2007), p. 3.

9. Tom. R. Tyler, “Psychological Perspectives on Legitimacy and Legitimation,” Annual 

Review of Psychology Vol. 57 (2006): pp. 375-400, p. 376.

10. W. D. Crano and R. Prislin, “Attitudes and Persuasion,” Annual Review of Psychology

Vol. 57 (2006): pp. 345-374, p. 347.

11. Crano and Prislin, “Attitudes and Persuasion,” p. 348. 

12. Jessica Turnley, “Legitimacy and Power: An Exploration of Doctrine as it Relates to 

PSOM,” manuscript prepared for DoD Joint Staff Warfare Analysis Division (J8), 

November 2008.

13. Thomas H. Johnson and M. Chris Mason, “Saigon 2009: Afghanistan is today’s 

Vietnam,” Foreign Policy, 20 August 2009; available from www.foreignpolicy.com/

articles/2009/08/20/saigon_2009, accessed October 2010. 

14. Paul Lazarsfeld and Robert Merton, “Friendship as a Social Process: A Substantive and Methodological Analysis,” in Freedom and Control in Modern Society, ed. 

Morroe Berger et al. (New York: Van Nostrand, 1954), pp.18-66. The concept of 

homophily has gained recent visibility in the current literature on social networks.

15. H. C. Kelman, “Compliance, identification, and internalization: Three processes 

of attitude change,” Journal of Conflict Resolution Vol.2, No.1 (1958): pp. 51-60, 

p. 53.

16. R. E. Petty, J. T. Cacioppo, and R. Goldman, “Personal involvement as a determinant 

of argument-based persuasion,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Vol. 4 

(1981): pp. 847-855. 
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JSOU Report 11-1

17. Adam Watson, Diplomacy: The Dialogue Between States (New York: Routledge, 

1991), p. 59.

18. Barston, Modern Diplomacy, p. 45.

19. Bruce Jentleson, “Coercive Diplomacy: Scope and Limits in the Contemporary 

World,” The Stanley Foundation Policy Analysis Brief (December 2006); available 

from www.stanleyfdn.org/publications/pab/pab06CoerDip.pdf , accessed October 

2010.

20. Barston, Modern Diplomacy, p. 45.

21. DoD Dictionary of Military Terms “strategic level of war”; available from www.

dtic.mil/doctrine/dod_dictionary/data/s/7287.html, accessed October 2010.

22. Ibid. 

23. Carl Von Clausewitz, On War, ed. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, NJ: 

Princeton University Press, 1984), Book One, Chapter 1.

24. Charles W. Freeman, Jr., Arts of Power: Statecraft and Diplomacy (Washington, DC: 

United States Institute of Peace, 1997), p. 137.

25. See http://untreaty.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/conventions/9_1_1961.

pdf; accessed October 2010.

26. DoD, Irregular Warfare (IW) Joint Operating Concept (JOC), 11 September 2007, 

p. 6.

27. United States Department of Defense, Irregular Warfare: Countering Irregular 

Threats, Joint Operating Concept Version 2.0, IW JOC, 17 May 2010, p. 9..

28. U.S. Army Special Forces Recruiting page, www.bragg.army.mil/sorb/SF.htm; 

accessed October 2010.

29. DoD, Department of the Army, Army Special Operations Forces, FM 3-05 (September 

2006), pp. 1-58.

30. Ibid., pp. 1-65.

31. See www.defense.gov/news/MAVNI-Fact-Sheet.pdf, accessed October 2010.

32. Olson, USSOCOM Posture Statement, pp. 11-12. 

33. Robert Martinage (Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments), Special Operations Forces: Challenges and Opportunities, Testimony Before the U.S. House of 

Representatives, House Committee on Armed Services, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities, 3 March 2009.

34. Sean D. Naylor, “SOCom directive announces major changes,” Army Times, 30 

August 2009; available at www.armytimes.com/news/2009/08/army_spec_ops_

shakeup_082709w/; accessed December 2010.

35. Although in some ways, the metaphor of human terrain is a helpful one because 

it invokes a useful complex of learning and operational behaviors, we have to be 

careful not to take the metaphor too far.

36. Karl Weick, Sensemaking in Organizations (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 

1995). 
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Turnley: Endnotes

37. Amalendu Misra, Afghanistan: The Labyrinth of Violence (Cambridge, U.K.: Polity 

Press, 2004).

38. Brian R. Selmeski, “Military Cross-Cultural Competence: Core Concepts and 

Individual Development” (Royal Military College of Canada Center for Security, 

Armed Forces, and Society, Occasional Paper Series, No. 1, May 2007), p. 1.

39. Remi M. Hajjar, “A New Angle on the U.S. Military’s Emphasis on Developing 

Cross-Cultural Competence: Connecting In-Ranks’ Cultural Diversity to CrossCultural Competence,” Armed Forces & Society Vol.36, No. 2 (2010): pp. 247-263, 

p. 249. For one of the seminal presentations of this concept, see Selmeski, “Military 

Cross-Cultural Competence.”

40. Ibid. 

41. SIL International, 1999. The ILR (FSI) proficiency scale is available from www.sil.

org/lingualinks/languagelearning/mangngyrlngglrnngprgrm/TheILRFSIProficiencyScale.htm; accessed October 2010.

42. Allison Abbe, Lisa M. V. Gullick, and Jeffrey L. Herman, Cross-cultural Competence 

in Army Leaders: A Conceptual and Empirical Foundation (Arlington, VA: U.S. Army 

Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences), Study Report 2008-01 

(October 2007) p. vii.

43. Ibid., p. vii. Also, Figure 8 is in this publication as Figure 1, which is on page 2.

44. With some exceptions, efforts to teach and train the military in cross-cultural 

competence are fairly recent. While there is evidence from business, health care, 

and other venues that selection, training, and education specifically directed at 

developing cross-cultural competence can improve performance in this area, at 

this date there is no direct evidence from a military environment.

45. John P. Kotter and James L. Heskett, Corporate Culture and Performance (New 

York: The Free Press, 1992). 

46. Achilles A. Armenakis and Arthur G. Bedeian, “Organizational Change: A Review 

of Theory and Research in the 1990s,” Journal of Management Vol. 25 (June 1999), 

pp. 293-315 and p. 301. 

47. U.S. Army Special Forces Recruiting page, www.bragg.army.mil/sorb/SF.htm; 

accessed October 2010. 

48. U.S. Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command Web site, MARSOC 

Individual Training Course (ITC) page, www.marsoc.usmc.mil/itc.html; accessed 

October 2010. 

49. The information in this section came from interviews with selected instructors and 

staff at SWCS and active duty SF, as well as textual material as noted. The author 

extends thanks to all who agreed to be interviewed. 

Any material in this and the following section in quotation marks that are not 

sourced with an endnote represents actual statements made by individuals interviewed. All other material is the author’s paraphrasing or summary of their remarks.
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50. United States Special Operations Command Fact Book, produced by USSOCOM 

Public Affairs (2009), p.10; available at www.socom.mil/SOCOMHome/newspub/

pubs/Documents/FactBook.pdf, accessed February 2011. 

51. The name was changed to Military Information Support Operations (MISO) 

per Secretary of Defense 3 December 2010 memorandum, “Changing the Term 

Psychological Operations (PSYOP) to Military Information Support Operations 

(MISO).” The prior unit name—Psychological Operations—is used here as this 

research describes the force as of 2009. 

52. United States Special Operations Command Fact Book.

53. DoD, Department of the Army, Army Special Operations Forces, FM 3-05, paragraph 

1-59.

54. Ibid., paragraph 1-54.

55. Ibid., paragraph 1-57.

56. United States Special Operations Command Fact Book, p. 13.

57. The information in this section came from interviews with selected personnel 

at NAVSPECWARCOM, NSW Group 1, including recruiters, senior leadership, 

program developers, and active duty SEALs, as well as textual material as noted. 

The author extends thanks to all who agreed to be interviewed.

58. United States Special Operations Command Fact Book, p. 18.

59. Ibid., pp.18-19.

60. Ibid., p. 20.

61. Ibid.

62. It is important to keep in mind that whether or not this information is “true” in 

terms of observed activities or programs in place, the researcher heard it from 

several respondents in various positions within NSW and with different perspectives. This means that this perception of the SEALs activities existed within the force 

and among people in positions to influence the selection and assessment process 

at the time of this research. 

63. Ibid., p.18.

64. See www.sealswcc.com/navy-seals-general-requirements.aspx, accessed February 

2011.

65. See www.cnrc.navy.mil/publications/NOTICES/1130CSORT.pdf, accessed October 

2010.

66. DoD, Department of the Navy, Navy Recruiting Command, implementation of 

“Computerized Special Operations Resilience Test—(CSORT)” in Delayed Entry 

Program, COMNAVCRUITCOMNOTE 1130, p. 25 (February 2008).

67. See C-SORT Users Guide; available at www.cnrc.navy.mil/publications/Directives/CSORT%20USERS%20GUIDE.pdf, accessed February 2011.

68. See Command Naval Recruiting Command Cancelled Directives for Calendar Year 

2008; available at www.cnrc.navy.mil/Publications/cancelled.htm, accessed February 

2011. Since late 2009, the C-SORT program is different—i.e., was later reinstated. 
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Turnley: Endnotes

69. Although language and regional studies courses are required of the cohorts after 

they had passed the selection process, this study is focusing on the selection and 

assessment processes only. 

70. The information in this section came from interviews with active duty AFSOC 

personnel, as well as textual material as noted. The author extends thanks to all 

who agreed to be interviewed. 

71. United States Special Operations Command Fact Book, p. 26-27.

72. Justin Hoffman, To Hell with the Paperwork: Deciphering the Culture of the Air 

Commandos (Monterey, CA: Naval Postgraduate School, December 2008), master’s 

thesis; p. 28.

73. Ibid., p. 30. 

74. Jessica Turnley, Retaining a Precarious Value as Special Operations Go Mainstream

(Hurlburt Field, FL: JSOU Press, February 2008), Report 08-2, p. 25.

75. David E. Johnson, Jennifer D. P. Moroney, Roger Cliff, M. Wade Markel, Laurence 

Smallman, and Michael Spirtas, Preparing and Training for the Full Spectrum of 

Military Challenges: Insights from the Experiences of China, France, the United 

Kingdom, India, and Israel, pp.12-13 (RAND Corporation, 2009).

76. The information in this section came from interviews with personnel associated 

with developing the MARSOC assessment program, as well as textual material as 

noted. The author extends thanks to all who agreed to be interviewed.

77. DoD, Department of the Army, The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field 

Manual, with forewords by General David H. Petraeus, Lieutenant General James 

F. Amos, and Lieutenant Colonel John A. Nagel and a new introduction by Sarah 

Sewall (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007); original text of U.S. Army FM 

3-24/Marine Corps Warfighting Publication 3-33.5, first issued on 15 December 

2006.

78. See http://hts.army.mil/Default.aspx. The Human Terrain System has received a 

lot of criticism for the manner in which it is executing this mission. Our job here 

is neither to support nor defend it, but simply to put it forth as an example of an 

institutional effort to provide cultural information on the battlefield.

79. John Mulberry, “ARSOF, General Purpose Forces and FID: Who Does What, 

Where, and When?” Special Warfare Vol. 21, No. 1 (January/February 2008): 

Military Module, pp. 17-21. 

80. See 6th Special Operations Squadron fact sheet; available at www2.hurlburt.af.mil/

library/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=3496, accessed February 2011.

81. Robert Spulak, A Theory of Special Operations: the Origin, Qualities, and Use of 

SOF (Hurlburt Field, FL: JSOU Press, October 2007), Report 07-7, p. 12.
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Creating the Conditions for a Possible Masterpiece: Small 

Groups and SOF

82. Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph is the autobiographical account of the experience of British soldier T. E. Lawrence.

83. The Jedburgh Operation consisted of 3-man international teams composed of a 

British member, an American member, and a member from the targeted country. 

The teams parachuted into Nazi-occupied France, Holland, or Belgium to conduct 

sabotage and guerilla warfare and to lead the local resistance forces against the 

Germans.

84. Charlie A. Beckwith (Col, U.S. Army, Ret.) and Donald Knox, Delta Force (New 

York: Dell Publishing Co., 1983), p. 102.

85. Aaron Bank (Col, U.S. Army, Ret.), From OSS to Green Berets (New York: Pocket 

Book, Simon and Shuster, 1987), p. 176.

86. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Doctrine for Joint Special Operations, Joint 

Publication 3-05 (17 December 2003), p. I-2.

87. Clausewitz, On War, p. 87.

88. Samuel Huntington, The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of CivilMilitary Relations (Carbridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001 [1957], p. 71.

89. Since this discussion focuses on operational units of SOF (i.e., units that engage 

in combat) and is interested primarily in the American force, this monograph will 

speak of men rather than men and women. Women are precluded joining these units 

by the DoD 1994 ground combat exclusion policy (Memorandum from Secretary of 

Defense Les Aspin to the Secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force et al., Direct 

Ground Combat Definition and Assignment Rule [13 January 1994]). Although 

American women have seen combat in recent years in various roles in the GPF, 

the Special Forces A-teams and SEAL platoons are still male-only organizations.

90. Turnley, Retaining a Precarious Value as Special Operations Go Mainstream.

91. Stephen R. Barley and Pamela S. Tolbert, “Institutionalization and Structuration: 

Studying the Links between Action and Institution,” Organization Studies Vol. 18, 

No. 1 (1997): pp. 93-117, p. 97.

92. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Intelligence Preparation of the Operational 

Environment, Joint Publication 2-01.3 (16 June 2009).

93. DoD Dictionary of Military Terms, www.dtic.mil/doctrine/dod_dictionary/, as 

amended through April 2010; accessed October 2010.

94. Clausewitz, On War, pp. 292-297.

95. Ibid., p. 295.

96. See, for example, General Rupert Smith, The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the 

Modern World (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007).

97. James Q. Wilson, Bureaucracy (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 2000 [1989]), New 

Edition.
75

Turnley: Endnotes

98. H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (translators and editors), From Max Weber: Essays 

in Sociology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946), p. 196.

99. Talcott Parsons, The Structure of Social Action (Glencoe, NJ: The Free Press, 1949 

[1937]), 2nd Edition, p. 506.

100. See also Gifford and Elizabeth Pinchot, The End of Bureaucracy and the Rise of the 

Intelligent Organization (San Franciso, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 1993).

101. Parsons, The Structure of Social Action, p. 254.

102. Ibid., p. 253.

103. T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom: a Triumph (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 

Doran & Company, Inc., 1936), p. 339.

104. Clausewitz, On War, p. 121.

105. Barry D. Watts, Clauswitzian Friction and Future War Revised Edition (Washington, 

DC: National Defense University, 2004), McNair Paper 68. 

106. Ibid., p. 53.

107. Clausewitz, On War, p. 282.

108. Ibid., p. 194.

109. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Operations, Joint Publication 3-0 (17 

December 2006, incorporating Change 1, 13 February 2008), p. A-2.

110. Spulak, A Theory of Special Operations, p. 17.

111. William H. McRaven, Spec Ops: Case Studies in Special Operations Warfare Theory 

and Practice (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1995).

112. Spulak, , A Theory of Special Operations.

113. Ibid., p. 12.

114. “Risks include not only physical risk to the personnel executing the mission but 

also risk of failure to achieve the objectives and risk of negative strategic or political 

consequences,” Ibid., p. 21.

115. Ibid., pp. 20-21.

116. McRaven, Spec Ops, p. 8.

117. Andrew S. LaJoie and Bruce S. Sterling, A Review and Annotated Bibliography of the 

Literature Pertaining to Team and Small Group Performance (1989 to 1999), (Alexandria, VA: U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences, 

December 1999), Research Product 2000-01.

118. Ibid., p. 1, emphasis in the original.

119. Émile Durkehim, The Division of Labor in Society, George Simpson, trans. (New 

York: The Free Press, 1933 [1893]), p. 79.

120. R. Keith Sawyer, Social Emergence: Societies as Complex Systems (New York: 

Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 22.

121. Durkheim, The Division of Labor in Society, Chapter Two.

122. Ibid., p. 105.
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123. Ibid., p. 181.

124. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom: a Triumph, p. 339.

125. LaJoie and Sterling, A Review and Annotated Bibliography of the Literature Pertaining to Team and Small Group Performance (1989 to 1999), p. 12.

126. See Wilson, Bureaucracy.

127. David R. Segal and Mady Wechsler Segal, “Change in Military Organization,” 

Annual Review of Sociology Vol. 9: pp. 151-170, p. 156.

128. Beckwith and Knox, Delta Force, p. 102.

129. McRaven, Spec Ops, pp. 8-11.

130. LaJoie and Sterling, A Review and Annotated Bibliography, p. 9.

131. R. I. M. Dunbar, “Coevolution of neocortex size, group size, and language in 

humans,” Behavioral and Brain Sciences Vol. 16 (1993): pp. 681-694.

132. W.-X Zhou, D. Sornette, R. A. Hill, and R. I. M. Dunbar, “Discrete hierarchical 

organization of social group sizes,” Proceedings of the Royal Society of Britain Vol. 

272 (February 2005), pp. 439-444.

133. Ibid., p. 443.

134. Richard H. J. Hall, Eugene Haas, and Norman J. Johnson, “Organizational size, 

complexity, and formalization,” American Sociological Review Vol. 32, No. 6 (1967), 

pp. 903-912.

135. McRaven, Spec Ops, p. 8. Notable exceptions such as D-day do not disprove this 

general rule.

136. Hall, Haas, and Johnson, “Organizational size, complexity, and formalization.”

137. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom: a Triumph, p. 339.