This Culture, Regional Expertise and Language (CREL) focused issue of the Military Intelligence Professional Bulletin contains contributions from CREL stakeholders who are engaged in today’s “heavylifting” and setting the conditions for a globally responsive and regionally engaged Army.

The contemporary operational environment is often characterized by ambiguous, multi-cultural contexts, where Army Soldiers must rapidly adapt without extensive prior knowledge of a region or its people. Ongoing training development efforts are addressing the need for general cross-cultural competence, but this broad competence must be clearly defined and assessed in order to determine if Soldiers are being adequately prepared.

This report discusses the need for an improved SOF language training and education program consisting of improved initial language and culture training, advanced regional studies and in-country immersion.

Overview

 

Increasingly, the United States Army operates in multinational, and therefore, multicultural, environments. Teamwork within such settings requires the ability to see events as members of other cultures see them. The goal of the research was to define a set of multicultural perspective taking skills that will enable Army leaders to function effectively in multinational alliances.

This report discusses cross-cultural competence (3C) training, development, and assessment in the U.S. Army.

This report presents a framework for cross-cultural competence in Army leaders, reviews empirical research on predictors of intercultural effectiveness, and describes existing measures of cross-cultural competence and related constructs.