MAJ Amanda Dixson (standing, second-from-left), legal exchange officer
with 3rd (UK) Division, stands with members of the 3rd (UK) Division
legal team, including Lieutenant Colonel (UK) Andy Farquhar (kneeling,
right), former deputy director of the Legal Center, The Judge Advocate
General’s Legal Center and School, in Charlottesville, VA. (Photo
courtesy of author)
Court Is Assembled
Mastering Multinational Integration with a Winning Mindset
By Colonel Andrew M. McKee
The Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps mission statement requires
Judge Advocate Legal Services (JALS) personnel to operate “in support of
a ready, globally responsive, and regionally engaged Army.”1
The JAG Corps unsurprisingly achieves this part of its mission by
stationing and rotating forces worldwide. By extension, the JAG Corps’s
support to commanders at echelon will bring JALS personnel into contact
with allies and unified action partners across all strategic contexts:
competition, crisis, and armed conflict.2
As members of our Corps around the world, these personnel are engaged in
or supporting multinational operations and developing legal
interoperability.3
Army interoperability doctrine acknowledges that the Army will have
limited time to integrate with allies and partners, which means now is
the time to develop interoperability to adequately prepare for
conflict.4
However, the Army’s approach to interoperability is quite broad, and it
entails an overwhelming amount of information to master.5
One personal experience drove this breadth of the Army’s broad
interoperability mandate home for me. The moment was memorable because
it was exceptionally humbling.
There we were, having just completed Warfighter Exercise 21-4 in April
2021. As the 1st Armored Division (1AD) staff judge advocate, I felt
very proud of how the division staff and the national security law team
performed during the exercise. The exercise was a major multinational
warfighter with 1AD fighting as the U.S. division alongside the 3rd
United Kingdom Division and 3rd French Division as part of a coalition
that III Corps (U.S.) led. The exercise design placed us along the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) eastern flank in opposition to a
near-peer adversary. The exercise culminated in a ten-month training
cycle and reflected a significant investment in our time, resources, and
energy.
During the after-action review (AAR), our division continued to take a
hard look at itself, reflecting an organization at the peak of its
warfighting abilities but still willing to seek opportunities to
improve. As the AAR wound down, the division command sergeant major
interjected with a comment along these lines: “We talk about these
problems as if they are new, but did anyone here read any NATO STANAGs
to prepare for this exercise? NATO has been solving these problems for
years and already has doctrine for almost all of the issues we have been
discussing.”6
In full confession, I had not read any NATO STANAGs up to that point,
likely because I had not even heard of them, despite having recently
been stationed in Europe. I rushed out of the AAR to search “STANAG”
online and learned that a “STANAG” is a NATO standardization agreement.
My assignments since that experience have afforded me opportunities to
learn more about NATO, NATO STANAGs, and the vast breadth of knowledge
already developed among our NATO allies. Each new experience and each
new lesson serve as reminders that we do not know what we do not know.
Being aware of our own ignorance can present a barrier that can impede
taking the risk of an assignment in unfamiliar locations. Moreover,
current political tensions in the world increase the risk that our
ignorance could come at a cost. Despite the enormity of the risk and the
significant amount of new information to master, how can our JALS
personnel, especially, but not exclusively, young judge advocates (JAs)
and paralegals who have yet to gain extensive repetitions and
experience, prepare themselves to operate worldwide as part of a
multinational team? What can inspire a young JA or paralegal to leap
into developing legal interoperability when achieving a mastery of the
law challenges even seasoned JAs?
Any of our legal professionals can succeed in an overseas assignment
with the right mindset. The task is massive, but not insurmountable.
Success is rewarding, bringing new friendships, a deeper understanding
of other cultures and approaches (and likely a deeper understanding of
your own culture and approaches), and the satisfaction of accomplishing
a difficult task. The best part is that each JA and paralegal has
complete agency over their mindset, making success in this area
imminently achievable by every single member of the JALS team. Below, I
offer three traits that members of our Corps can adopt to successfully
approach multinational integration.
Openness
The first component of a winning mindset for multinational integration
is being open to the experience. Every
trip to a foreign country is an opportunity to travel—both to a new location and to a place outside of one’s comfort zone.
These opportunities that the JAG Corps offers its members to engage in
the most consequential practice on earth—in locations all over the
earth—are unique and often once-in-a-career experiences. Every
engagement with a multinational partner is also an opportunity to travel
outside one’s comfort zone. These opportunities can be disorienting,
especially at the outset. It is understandable and expected to feel
timid while adjusting to a culture shock and hesitant to misstep or risk
unintended offense. However, if you embrace the initial discomfort, you
will adapt to respond with more certainty and less discomfort over time.
.jpg?ver=WnNe05M2N5dZHUfGhaL7Pg%3d%3d)
CPT Megan Holt (right), U.S. Army Europe and Africa national security
law attorney, while on an observer mission to the United Kingdom for a
multinational exercise. (Photo courtesy of author)
Humility
The second component of a winning mindset for multinational integration
is humility. Multinational integration
involves forming relationships. Having gotten comfortable with the idea
of being uncomfortable, approaching new experiences with a humble
attitude is critical to helping form those relationships necessary for
success.7
Approaching the multinational environment with a full awareness of one’s
knowledge gaps and a willingness to learn from others regardless of
expertise in other legal domains will prevent alienating allies and
contribute to building comfort and trust.
Army Doctrine Publication 6-22 states, “A leader with the right level of
humility is a willing learner, maintains accurate self-awareness, and
seeks out others’ input and feedback.”8
A JALS professional in a multinational setting is expected to contribute
an appropriate level of expertise in U.S. law and the customs,
courtesies, and procedures of the U.S. Army. However, those personnel
lack the same level of expertise in host-nation law, customs,
courtesies, procedures, history, and culture. Exercising humility will
help cultivate a healthy self-awareness of these completely
understandable deficiencies and drive the humble leader to seek
resources to learn more about one’s teammates. Humble leaders ask
questions—asking questions with a genuine interest and respect for your
international partners’ customs, personalities, capabilities, ambitions,
sensitivities, history, languages, religions, and cultural habits builds
rapport. This rapport, in turn, feeds the mutual confidence that allows
teams to embrace and understand their differences and build the cohesion
necessary for successful teamwork and unity of effort.9
CPT Phil Tonseth, V Corps Office of the Staff Judge Advocate national
security law attorney, poses while at Exercise Northern Spirit. (Photo
courtesy of author)
Fearlessness
The third component of a winning mindset for multinational integration
is to be fearless. According to Army
doctrine, humility exists on a continuum where too little humility
represents arrogance while too much humility is interpreted as passivity
or timidity (among other issues). To put this into an Army leadership
construct, being open to new opportunities and experiences and being
humble about your knowledge gaps are components of “being” in a
BE-KNOW-DO construct, whereas fearlessness is the path to translating
those attributes into action, or “doing.”10
Due to our career model, the knowledge requirements of our dual
professions, and other critical demands on our time and attention, very
few JALS members will be bonafide experts in the multinational context
in which they must operate at the outset of an assignment or mission.
Waiting to gather sufficient expertise prior to accomplishing the
critical tasks is a recipe for failure. Therefore, operating in the
multinational context requires a willingness to take action despite not
having perfect information. Multinational partners are willing to give
substantial grace for well-intended actions undertaken with a spirit of
humility. Having already started your journey with the appropriate dose
of humility, JALS members can take action without fear of embarrassment
or failure. Further, if things do not go quite right on the first
attempt, the humble JALS member willing to learn from well-intentioned
errors will undoubtedly make the necessary corrections for the next
iteration. Further, the secret power of the legal tech chain will be
there to ensure these are merely opportunities to learn and grow rather
than complete mission failures.
The U.S. Army and the Army JAG Corps are expeditionary organizations. We
will fight on the future battlefield with allies and partners. We will
win on the future battlefield in no small part because of our ability to
form and sustain strong relationships with our teammates from other
friendly nations. Take a moment to consider your JAG Corps, and the
significant number of teammates assigned overseas. Once upon a time,
each of these members of our Corps considered their first overseas
assignment and weighed the risks of discomfort with the opportunity to
take on an exciting challenge. As you consider your next assignment,
remember those who previously seized the opportunity with an open
mindset, ample humility, and fearlessness illuminated the path. I look
forward to welcoming you to Europe or Africa in the future!11 TAL
COL McKee is the Judge Advocate for U.S. Army Europe & Africa in
Wiesbaden, Germany.
Notes
1.
U.S. Dep’t of Army, Field Manual 3-84,
Legal Support to Operations 1-1
(1 Sept. 2023) [hereinafter FM 3-84].
2. Id. para. 2-18 & fig.2-1.
3. See id. paras. 2-29 to 2-32;
id. para. 2-30 (“Interoperability
is the ability to act together coherently, effectively, and
efficiently to achieve tactical, operational, and strategic
objectives.”).
4.
U.S. Dep’t of Army, Reg. 34-1, Interoperability para. 1-8(b) (9 Apr. 2020).
5. See id. para. 1-8(c) (“The
foundation of interoperability is broad, spanning all Army
[warfighting functions], with human, procedural, and technical
domains.”).
6. This comment itself was possibly planted by the senior mentor,
himself a former NATO Land Command (LANDCOM) commander.
7. The human dimension builds the basis of mutual understanding and
respect that is fundamental to unity of effort and operational
success.
8.
U.S. Dep’t of Army, Doctrine Pub.
6-22,
Army Leadership and the Profession
para. 2-31 (31 July 2019) (C1, 25 Nov. 2019) [hereinafter ADP 6-22].
9. See U.S. Dep’t of Army, Field Manual
3-16,
The Army in Multinational Operations
paras. 1-15 to 1-18 (15 July 2024).
10. ADP 6-22, supra note 8, at ix
fig.1 (Logic Map).
11. Although my comments are focused on Europe, I have served in three
other geographic combatant commands (CONUS/NORTHCOM; INDOPACOM; and
CENTCOM) and I believe this approach to be valid regardless of
geographic location.