The Ugly American: A Look at the Special Operations Imperatives

The Ugly American was written in 1958 and was meant to be an indictment on the U.S. government’s failures in foreign policy. The book provides valuable lessons that we can learn from today as special operators. I will use several stories and characters in this book and my own personal stories to explore if the Special Operatives (SO) Imperatives were applied and analyze if we as Special Operations Forces (SOF) are applying them well today. We, as SOF, should never be afraid of learning new principals or examining principals from the past to see if they are applicable. The Ugly American is a good example of a work from the past, even though it is fiction, which we can learn from today.

Colonel Edwin Hillandale was an U.S. Air Force Colonel who put forth the effort to learn the culture of which ever country he was in. He had already had great success working in the Philippines before he arrived in Sarkhan. Once he arrived in Sarkhan, Hillandale made every effort to learn his new operational environment. He walked around downtown Haidho and noticed the large number of palm reading offices and the level of respect the palm readers received from the locals. Hillandale also studied the biographies of the politicians in Sarkhan. During the Philippines Ambassador’s dinner party, he was granted the opportunity to read the palm of the Sarkhanese Prime Minister, and he took full of advantage of the knowledge he had acquired. Hillandale made a good impression with the Prime Minister because of his knowledge of the culture, their taboos, and the Prime Minister’s personal background. Hillandale was invited to read the palm of the king. He was going to use this opportunity to have the king make a maneuver that would work to the advantage of the ...

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...stained by the people they were intended to help. Policy makers must understand that self-reliance is the best way to win people’s hearts and minds and gain their respect. This lesson from The Ugly American was obviously not learned by those in decision making positions.

In conclusion, the use of these stories from the book and my own personal stories I have demonstrated that we as SOF, exclusively the SF regiment, are following the SO imperatives well. The regiment has been occupied with twelve years of combat operations in two different theatres which has degraded the regiment’s ability to execute some of the imperatives well. Some detachments and groups are applying the imperatives better than others, but in general the force is adhering to them well. There is always room to improve and SF will relearn the lessons from the past and apply them to the future.