When Elephants Fight Essay

When engaging in a foreign territory, the local cultures contribute to how forces must operate. A population’s culture is “a web of meaning shared by members of a particular society or a group with in a society.” (FM3-24) In a nation like the Democratic Republic of Congo there is a wide variety of culture in the different regions, however, the unifying theme is a culture of survival and oppression. According to a documentary, When Elephants Fight, the DRC is the source many resources the western world relies on. Yet the people living in the DRC see none of the profits and do what they must to simply survive. The equator runs across the northern portion of the country, survival and fulfillment of life’s most basic needs is difficult. In

These groups are armed with small arms and machetes. Too often they will come upon a town and recruit murder or rape the town including women and children. For a nation so rich in resources, the competition for power is driven by the will to survive. Many of the individuals that kill for the scraps of resources missed by big foreign companies recognize that they are perpetuating the problem, but it is the only way they can survive and provide enough for their family to survive. If the United States Army gets involved in a conflict in the Congo understanding these culture of the people will be the only way to come out victorious. Many large world powers are greatly invested in the DRC’s resources meaning the U.S. Army would most likely be facing a different conventional force while having to deal with local organizations individually determining if they were

and the Democratic Republic of Congo. In order to accurately connect the culture to operations, the day to day life and beliefs must be considered. As shown in When Elephants Fight, the people are very keen on the fact that they are being extorted and stolen from by the rest of the world. They recognize that the DRC is a very resource rich nation but despite the prosperity those resources bring, none of it is brought to the Congo – and they are bitter. From the woman who travels 16 miles every day to carry water to her home, to the president of the DRC, everyone is looking out for themselves. Humanitarians are scoffed at because the population knows that there are two ways to fix their situation: a leader that breaks the cultural norm and puts the people first and is willing to stand against the western exploitation; or the western world sacrificing the profits and technology created from the resources that are ripped from the DRC. When people live in such bleak circumstances they flock to hope but will always ensure they get what they need. Operationally speaking, the difficulties with the culture is not “do’s and don’ts” or formal practices, but instead it is that the forces engaging in the environment must convince the locals that their operations will improve the local’s lives