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Britney: No, sorry-as far as substandard performance by multinationals it goes way deeper than that. I noted with painful frequency the very negative reactions of the folks in the US HQ where I was stationed to the bumbling idleness, procrastination and inertia of ISAF VI. Being a LO for ISAF VI was kind of like having a grotesque idiot relative: you couldn't deny that you were related to them, and sometimes you felt like you had to defend them, but most of the time you just wished you had never met them. Other nations may have such stories about us: all armies havetheir idiots (as some of the less fortunate posters on Army .ca have richly displayed) but I'll bet you not nearly as many as ABCA folks can speak of. ABCA is not just an exclusive club because of language: it is exclusive because of a cultural outlook about putting mission first and getting the job done. The US folks have a different tack from us "former Imperials" but we can all get to the same place at the same time and know we're there. I challenge you to do that with some of these multi-national horror shows.
Cheers.
Now I'm getting increasingly into WAG territory here, as my experience with European armies comes nowhere close to that of the other posters here, but I still think it's a bad idea to paint with such broad brushes. ABCA armies are used to working peace support operations in complex multinational settings. We train for it and we have a lot of institutional experience, but I almost start to think the mentality of the excusively expeditionary force is begining to color our world view and we think ops like ISAF are the be-all end-all. To use a colloquial term, maybe the Europeans don't give a rat's *** because they never train for it and (they think) it's just not their day job? Hey, we even have a word, "Dom ops" to referr excusively to homeland defence operations, but homeland defence, as oppose to fighting little bush wars on the other side of the planet, is proably something that (rightly or wrongly) is the primary focus of European armies. Most European nations still have memories of their entire country being demolished twice or 3 times in the last 100 years by invading foreign armies. I don't think most of them join the army to "see the world" or anything like that which we take for granted.
EDIT: wow, that one takes the cup for the most incoherent post ever....... I should get more sleep.....