Court Is Assembled

Mastering Multinational Integration with a Winning Mindset

By Colonel Andrew M. McKee

Article published on: January 1, 2025 in The Army Lawyer Issue 1

Read Time: < 8 mins

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)

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.

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)

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.

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

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

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)

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

Notes