The Three Block
Fellowship
Are we the better friends?
by Capt Brandon Newell
D
uring my current deployment I found myself on a
patrol through the streets
of a town in Helmand
Province, Afghanistan. I was there to
check on the progress of a U.S.-funded
solar power project for the local bazaar.
I was the project officer and was being escorted by the Marines from the
adjacent combat outpost. Essentially
being a guest in their area of operation, I followed their lead regarding
interactions with the local Afghans.
I knew there had been virtually no
small arms fire incidents in the area
recently, though an improvised explosive device explosion had occurred in
another part of town 2 days prior. The
Marines were not aggressive or combative with the locals, but they were
not friendly either. They were stoic,
highly alert, and noncommunicative.
They basically did not interact with
local Afghans at all, and I studiously
followed their lead.
Later that day I was conflicted by
how I had acted. Here I was walking
amongst a community of Afghans,
working on a project to benefit them
and hopefully align their loyalties
with us rather than the Taliban, yet I
acted as if they did not exist. I walked
among them rarely saying hello or
smiling. I found my posture and my
countenance to be buttoned up because I didn’t want to be a nuisance
or a liability to the Marines leading
the patrol. I wondered whether I was
wrong to follow the lead of my fellow
Marines. Should I have followed my
instinct, remembering that I was walking among the very center of gravity
to the Taliban resistance in this area?
Does it matter if our U.S. dollars buy a
Marine Corps Gazette • October 2012
>Capt Newell is assigned to the Expeditionary Energy Office and is the
Liaison Officer, II MEF (Forward),
Regional Command (Southwest),
Afghanistan.
better life for the Afghans if our daily
interactions with them indicate they
barely exist? We must ask ourselves,
on the whole, how do they interpret
our actions?
In Operational Culture for the
Warfighter: Principles and Applications
(Marine Corps University, 2008), Gen
James N. Mattis suggests that:
We must recognize the essential ‘key
terrain’ is the will of a host nation’s
population. . . . [it] permits us to gain
the trust of skeptical populations, thus
frustrating the enemy’s efforts and suffocating their ideology.
Mattis has spoken often of the “three
block war” and the imperative transition from “full-scale military operations” to “peacekeeping” to “humanitarian assistance” and back again. He
coined the phrase “no better friend, no
worse enemy” to stress to his Marines
the importance of showing great power
when facing an enemy and great restraint when facing a friend. We have
mastered the art of teaching Marines to
be our foe’s worst enemy. But how do
we train them to be the “best friend”
that the current mission and future
missions require?
At the Infantry Immersion Training
Facility, Camp Pendleton, and Combat Town located at Marine Corps Air
Ground Combat Center, Twentynine
Palms, we provide topnotch training
for Marines in realistic training environments, complete with Afghan
On patrol—stern faced or with an open hand? (Photo by Sgt Michael S. Cifuentes.)
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33
Ideas & Issues (Commentary)
We should be interpreting our actions through their culture and experiences. (Photo by Sgt Logan Pierce.)
role-players and simulated improvised
explosive devices. I marvel at the improvements made in training since I
began my career 10 years ago. But is
it enough, and is it sustainable? While
the Marines will be better prepared
for their deployment surroundings,
are they effectively prepared to show
Afghans we are the better friends? As
for future missions around the world,
do our training methods translate into
being a better friend to cultures we will
encounter?
We have yet to effectively train our
Marines on how to become the better
friend. To do so we need to genuinely
understand who we are trying to befriend. This is not pacifism, it is maneuver warfare. For the local populace is
the center of gravity in this fight against
ideological nonstate actors. Now on the
surface we believe we are doing well.
We patrol their streets, which to us
represents security. We spend money
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on development, which to us means
prosperity. We kill those who wrongly
subjugate civilians, which to us means
hope for their future. Now read those
three statements again. Two words shed
light on our shortcoming in this area:
to us. We interpret our actions through
our culture and our experiences, expecting locals to see it in the same light.
This expectation is not only ignorant
but dangerously shortsighted.
We have taken men and women from
Ohio, California, New York, and Louisiana. We have trained them and built
them into Marines, instilling our core
values. We have trained them in the
basics of infantry and then trained them
in the particulars of their MOSs. All of
this has molded them into exceptional
warfighters. Now to prepare them for
their upcoming deployments to Afghanistan we have sent them through the
Infantry Immersion Training Center
and Combat Town. One could argue
that today’s Marines are better prepared
for their upcoming deployments than
any of their predecessors in the last 236
years. But do they have the ability to
readily operate in a culture completely
foreign to our own?
The majority of Americans don’t
know what it feels like to worry that
their children will starve. Most of us
don’t know how it feels to watch loved
ones die of acquired immune deficiency syndrome. We don’t live in fear of
antagonistic police or a corrupt local
government. We haven’t experienced a
life in which the only guaranteed protection of our family lies in our own
hands. The places we deploy to most
often know only these truth conditions.
These cultures are in many ways the
complete opposite of our own. Yet the
first time we truly expose our Marines
to these alien environments is under the
context of combat. This leads them to
err on the side of security and firepower,
Marine Corps Gazette • October 2012
because we naturally gravitate toward
the actions we are most often taught.
In Baghdad (2003), just 3 days after the statue of Saddam was famously
yanked down, I found myself 100 yards
from that site providing communications for the civil-military operations
center. After weeks of racing through
southern Iraq, expecting to be hit with
chemical weapons or engaged by Saddam’s forces, I was in the midst of a fullscale civil-military operation focused on
restoring the country’s infrastructure.
Each day Iraqis would line up 100 deep
to offer their services to restore the infrastructure. Twice daily an organized
mob formed on the street, collectively
chanting for an hour. Some days the
chants were anti-Saddam; other days
they were anti-United States.
While my fellow Marines were
spread throughout Baghdad trying to
restore order, their operations falling
somewhere between full-scale combat
operations and peacekeeping, I had to
quickly transition my mindset to humanitarian aid. I learned then and there
that maintaining a comfortable barrier
of security was counterproductive to the
civil-military mission. I had no choice
but to let my guard down and interact
with local Iraqis, simply as people and
not as threats. I had to use my intuition
to determine if someone was a friend or
a foe.
Later in my career I deployed to Haiti
following the January 2010 earthquake.
I was the lone uniformed member of a
six-member team tasked with facilitating civil-military coordination between
U.S. Government organizations and the
nongovernmental organization community. Before leaving the United States I
watched with the rest of America as clip
after clip on the news showed “machetewielding Haitians causing anarchy.” But
what I saw in Port-au-Prince was very
different. What I saw was people trying
to figure out a path forward from the
devastation.
I decided to change out of my uniform so that I could move freely around
the city. I jumped in crowded local tabtabs, traveling to the other side of the
city in order to check out health clinics
that potentially needed communications infrastructure. I walked crowded
Marine Corps Gazette • October 2012
streets full of crumbled buildings and
homeless civilians. I had no weapon.
My only security was my intuition
and judgment. I quickly realized that
sensationalized stories from the media
were not representative of what was
happening. The Haitian people were
gracious, hopeful, and grateful for the
international assistance. I could better
facilitate interactions with Haitians and
move throughout the city out of uniform and on my own. When I found
myself among Marines, however, I noticed a stark contrast in behavior. They
wielded their weapons as though they
were patrolling the streets of Fallujah,
not Port-au-Prince. Their facial expressions and posture intended to intimidate, not support.
Who could blame them? They were
the finest warfighters in the world, being
trained and tested in combat in Iraq and
Afghanistan. However, I know their actions were somewhat counterproductive
to their mission. Their mission was not
just that of providing security. Their
mission was to provide assistance to our
friends. I learned from my interactions
with Haitians that our military’s actions
led some to question our motives and
create rumors of an invasion. We know
this is nonsense. But what does it matter
how we interpret our actions? The key
to our mission success is how the host
nation actually interprets our actions,
not how we intend for them to do so.
In It Happened on the Way to War
(Bloomsbury USA, 2011) by Rye
Barcott and The Heart and the Fist
(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2011) by Eric Greitens,
the authors talk about their experiences
doing humanitarian work prior to their
military service. Barcott spent a substantial amount of time in the largest
slum in Kenya, Kibera, and started a
nongovernmental organization himself
before his commissioning in the Marine
Corps. Greitens did humanitarian work
in Rwanda, Croatia, and Bolivia before
being commissioned in the Navy and
becoming a SEAL. As I read their stories I saw in both of their perspectives
one that mirrored my own. I saw that
their experiences gave them the ability
to see the humanity of individuals in a
culture foreign to their own. I saw that
they did not err on the side of security
and firepower because they were better
prepared to distinguish friend from foe
and engage with the friend in a way
that promoted trust. They understood
how to listen and communicate with
individuals of different cultures. These
men and their stories revealed to me a
training strategy that could address the
gap in our cultural limitations. I’ll call
it the three block fellowship.
The three block fellowship concept
is very simple. We take young officers,
grow their hair out, put them in civilian
clothing, and send them for 3 months to
work with humanitarian organizations
in the slums of the world. Then we bring
them back to whatever Marine Corps
path they were on. There is no special
MOS, no special duty or assignment.
These officers will have an opportunity
to live and serve, day in and day out,
among those in true need and learn to
earn their respect and trust. The exposure will give them better instincts to
distinguish friend from foe in foreign
lands, and a better understanding of
the motivations that shape the lives of
people whom they will need to befriend
in future operations. The experience
would serve them well in combat and
prepare them for the three block war.
Leadership sets the tone. Junior officers who receive this cultural immersion
experience will be equipped with the
intuition required to set an appropriate
tone for their Marines wherever they
may go. This is a broad strategy that
prepares Marines for deployments to
any part of the world.
If the tenets of maneuver warfare
are to be believed, we have to concede
that combat firepower alone will not
bring victory. Innate cultural intuition
is critical to winning the will of the
host-nation’s people and defeating the
enemy’s center of gravity. The three
block fellowship strategy will bear fruit
no matter where Marines are called to
be the best friends or worst enemies that
Gen Mattis described.
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