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Rapport Development And Native Language Use Between U.S. Advisors And Afghan Counterparts, Sean Ryan Ryan

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Advisory activities form a central element of the U.S. National Security Strategy to mitigate the need for employment of large military formations. The commitment of large U.S. combat formations has resulted in more than 6,000 fatalities since September 11, 2001; poor relationship skills were cited as contributing factors in 51 or more fratricide-murders of U.S. soldiers by Afghan compatriots in 2012. Informed by social exchange theory, servant leadership theory, and role theory, the Army conceptual rapport framework provided a lens for this phenomenological symbolic interactionism study of rapport between Afghan counterparts and U.S. advisors. Participants included 15 English-speaking Afghan soldiers, …