Nuclear Weapons

Army Seeks to Promote Cultural Literacy

10.27.11 | 1 min read | Text by Steven Aftergood

A new U.S. Army publication (pdf) invites American soldiers to ponder the role of cultural factors in shaping perception and action.

Analyze this statement: ‘The English drive on the wrong side of the road.’

In some Islamic countries women wear burkas.  Who is advantaged and who is disadvantaged by this?

Why do you think major religious traditions tend to have a plain version and a more mystical version?

What do television commercials tell us about American culture?

This is not a purely theoretical exercise, but is intended to support the Army’s counterinsurgency role in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

“Soldiers must understand how vital culture is in accomplishing today’s missions,” the new publication says. “Military personnel who have a superficial or even distorted picture of a host culture make enemies for the United States.  Each Soldier must be a culturally literate ambassador, aware and observant of local cultural beliefs, values, behaviors and norms.”  See “Culture Cards: Afghanistan & Islamic Culture,” U.S. Army, September 2011.

 

publications
See all publications
Nuclear Weapons
Report
Nuclear Notebook: Russian Nuclear Weapons, 2023

The FAS Nuclear Notebook is one of the most widely sourced reference materials worldwide for reliable information about the status of nuclear weapons, and has been published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists since 1987.. The Nuclear Notebook is researched and written by the staff of the Federation of American Scientists’ Nuclear Information Project: Director Hans […]

05.08.23 | 1 min read
read more
Nuclear Weapons
Blog
Video Indicates that Lida Air Base Might Get Russian “Nuclear Sharing” Mission in Belarus

On 14 April 2023, the Belarusian Ministry of Defence released a short video of a Su-25 pilot explaining his new role in delivering “special [nuclear] munitions” following his training in Russia. The features seen in the video, as well as several other open-source clues, suggest that Lida Air Base––located only 40 kilometers from the Lithuanian border and the […]

04.19.23 | 7 min read
read more
Nuclear Weapons
Blog
Was There a U.S. Nuclear Weapons Accident At a Dutch Air Base? [no, it was training, see update below]

A photo in a Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) student briefing from 2022 shows four people inspecting what appears to be a damaged B61 nuclear bomb.

04.03.23 | 7 min read
read more
Nuclear Weapons
Blog
STRATCOM Says China Has More ICBM Launchers Than The United States – We Have Questions

In early-February 2023, the Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) had informed Congress that China now has more launchers for Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) than the United States. The report is the latest in a serious of revelations over the past four years about China’s growing nuclear weapons arsenal and the deepening […]

02.10.23 | 6 min read
read more