Pentagon's Project Minerva Sparks New Anthro Concerns

The Pentagon's expanding interest in anthropology has sparked a passionate debate about what role, if any, social scientists should have with the military. The Defense Department's Human Terrain Teams, which involves sending social scientists to work directly with the military in the field, has proved the most controversial program. But that's actually just one effort, even if it is the highest profile one. As the Defense Department expands into other parts of academia, there's bound to be more questions raised.

Recently, Defense Secretary Gates announced a new project named after Minerva, the goddess of wisdom and war. Minerva, which so far has received little media attention, is an ambitious Pentagon initiative that seeks to involve universities in the global war on terror:

With the Minerva initiative, we envision a consortia of universities that will promote research in specific areas. These consortia could also be repositories of open-source documentary archives. The Department of Defense, perhaps in conjunction with other government agencies, could provide the funding for these projects. To give a better idea of what we have in mind, and some of the mechanics that need to be worked out, let me discuss a few of the projects the Department might be able to support.

• First, Chinese Military and Technology Studies. The Chinese government publishes a tremendous amount of information about military and technological developments on an open-source basis. However, it is often inconvenient, if not impossible, for American researchers to get access to this material since it is often available only in China. A real – or virtual – archive of documents acquired by researchers and others abroad would help us track Chinese military and technological developments. Faculty members at the Naval War College have already instituted a smaller version of this idea focusing on the Chinese Navy. If other colleges and universities were to specialize in other areas, then a consortium – with a common “card catalogue” and interlibrary loan – would allow scholars and schools to pool resources. Further, by holding conferences and sponsoring research, such a consortium would make a very real contribution to our understanding of the intentions of an important world power and military power– an understanding that would have real impact on public policy.
• Second, the Iraqi and Terrorist Perspectives Projects. The Institute for Defense Analyses, a federally-funded DOD research center, has produced a number of volumes using primary sources that have been captured in recent years – official government documents in Iraq as well as a large collection of documents related to the workings of terrorist networks. To date, only a small number of documents have been exploited. In its breadth and potential value, this collection can only be compared to the Smolensk archives on which Soviet scholars like Merle Fainsod based much of their work. Further research could yield unprecedented insight into the workings of dictatorial third-world regimes. A few documents have some immediate tactical value and would be kept within government channels. But most items, however, contain strategic, ideological, and practical considerations – and day-to-day debate – that I think would be of great interest to scholars. We cannot realize the full value of these resources unless we find some way of making them widely available. Currently we are funding an effort to open a Conflict Records Research Center at the National Defense University. We would, however, prefer that the center’s permanent home be a consortium of universities. We welcome any thoughts on how best to accomplish this goal.
• *Third, Religious and Ideological Studies. There is little doubt that eventual success in the conflict against jihadist extremism will depend less on the results of individual military engagements and more on the overall ideological climate within the world of Islam. Understanding how this climate is likely to evolve over time, and what factors – including U.S. actions – will affect it thus becomes one of the most significant intellectual challenge we face. *

In the meantime, the Network of Concerned Anthropologists, the group that has been active in protesting the Human Terrain Teams, is expanding their criticism to this broad initiative. Here is one of several issues they have with Gates' plans (you can read their full letter here):

1. *The US university system is already highly militarized, that is, many universities take in a large proportion of their research funding from military sources. This is problematic for four reasons: *
2. *The fields so supported are distorted by focus on issues of utility to warmaking. Whole fields of study hypertrophy and others shrink or are never developed as researchers are drawn from one field into the other, Pentagon-desired ones. Nuclear and other weapons research related areas grow, at the expense of environmental research, for example. Moreover, theory, methodology, and research goals in such fields as physics, computer science, and engineering after decades of military funding now operate on assumptions that knowledge about force is paramount. *
3. *These research foci begin to structure what gets taught to students and what research projects students themselves see as the best options for their own work. A brain drain from other research directions occurs. *
4. *The dependence on single sources of funding with their own agenda tends to reduce intellectual autonomy in ways that go beyond the selection of subject matter for research. *
5. *The University becomes an instrument rather than a critic of war-making, and spaces for critical discussion of militarism within the university shrink. *

Will Minerva go the way of the Vietnam-era Project Camelot? I'm not so sure.

[Image: Library of Congress]

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