I came across this article on a blog written by a Special Forces operative who has just returned from Iraq. Excerpt here....

I have come to realize that we isolate our soldiers from the societies in which we operate. We airlift and sealift vacuum-sealed replicas of America to remote corners of the world; once there, we isolate ourselves from the very people we are trying to protect or win over. An Iraqi once told me, "How you treat us must be like how African-Americans felt." If you're an American soldier in Iraq working as an adviser, ask yourself this: Is the Iraqi I live and fight with not allowed to enter any American facility? If you are a military adviser or training to be an adviser, look around where you eat: Are the Americans on one side of the room and the Iraqis on the other? Do you even eat with Iraqis? Do you go out of your way to avoid eye contact and thus not greet the Iraqis you walk by? Do you try to learn their language or follow their customs? Do you habitually expect Iraqis to share intelligence and then not respond in kind? Do you distrust them?

Makes me think about how corporate customer relationships with American companies work. For two years I saw a very similar culture within an American company. That is one which is about command and control from a centralized headquarters where there is very little connection with the marketplace and the customer. Ultimately any brand, any product becomes a service. And it is no good to tell your customer that you actually know what is best for them, and they should do things the way you tell them. It is imperative to listen to the market and to socialize the product as a service that is specifically geared to their needs. Otherwise you may as well pull up sticks and go home, because your customer will come to resent you and will spend a good deal of his waking time figuring out the strategy to exit you.