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from my experiences british force protection doctrine is based on two pillars: you can't protect yourself if you don't know whats going on - therefore talking to people and building a rapor is utterly essential, and not offending local sensebilities unneccesarily, no one likes the indignity of having foreign armies on their soil, so don't make that humiliation worse than it has to be.
from Bosnia (IFOR1) i recall a very clear divide between US and UK practice, the US mech platoon would drive through a village and thats it, they had 'patrolled' it. they utterly dominated it for the minute they were there, but five minutes later they might as well not have bothered. a UK mech platoon would dismount outside the village, use the warrior AFV's to secure the surrounding 1km or so, and the platoon would then patrol in four-man fire teams through the village. they would speak to everyone they met, especially the local head-boy, drink coffee in peoples homes (or what remained of them), chat and generally become part of the village for the hour they were there. we would also ensure that the same units patrolled the same villages so that a rapor between villagers and individual soldiers could be established.
it then gave the battalion int cell a vast amount of information about what was happening on the ground.
i imagine US int report for the same patrol would say 'its still there'.
short-term its undeniable that the US method is 'safer', but long-term the UK method produces results.
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before criticizing someone, walk a mile in their shoes.................... then when you do criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes.
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