Save Your Ammo

Working Across Cultures for National Security

By: Louise Rasmussen, Winston Sieck

Narrated by: Tim Campbell

"He believed that eating my heart would transfer my abilities to him. I knew that once we started shooting, it would be a foregone conclusion."

When you work in foreign environments, it can seem like the principles for getting things done are blown out of the water. How do you accomplish your mission? And get home safe?

Save Your Ammo is a practical guide to working with people from other cultures. This plain-language resource shows you how to:

• Turn uncertain, potentially dangerous intercultural situations around using tact and clever decision-making
• Get past cultural complexity to spot real problems and find creative, win-win solutions
• How to trade the legacy of "the ugly American" for trusting relationships that let you realize goals you otherwise couldn't have

Cognitive psychologists Rasmussen and Sieck have distilled the advice in this book from interviews with more than 200 national security personnel. Seasoned professionals who have spent their careers interacting with foreign populations and partners all over the world.

Confront strange requests for assistance in Kyrgyzstan. Failures to follow protocol in Korea. A fight between Russians and Turks 5000 feet in the air over the Black Sea. An armed Liberian child soldier who wants to rip out your heart.

Could you see through the cultural fog and achieve success without firing a single shot?

©2019 Global Cognition (P)2020 Global Cognition

Great book for young young leaders

This is a great book that everyone in the military should read. I spent over 30 years in the US military in Special Forces and throughout my career every mission was multinational. The US military historically struggles with multinational operations and “Save Your Ammo” is great for service members because it gives them numerous examples through real world vignettes so the reader can relate to the examples. At some point the military has to spend more time and resources on ensuring our forces are culturally aware so they operate at a higher level when deployed - it is no longer something that is nice to have. Multinational operations are not going away so books like “Save Your Ammo” will inspire young leaders to learn more about the people they will be interacting with. Well Done!

Incredibly Insightful Cultural Masterpiece!!!

The authors made a complex topic SIMPLE and tapped in to the experiences of many cultural experts worldwide. Very well structured and easy to understand... this piece of literary work is good for just about anyone who wants to improve their cross cultural competence or even just connect better at work, home, or in relationships!

Vet skepticism

While the cultural awareness and advice was mostly good some of the stories were not fully believed by someone who has been to the named countries as a military member and tourist