As The War On Terror Winds Down, The Pentagon Cuts Social Science – By Geoff Brumfiel (NPR) / March 16 2020
The fragile peace deal taking shape in Afghanistan could spell the end of an era of for the U.S. military, one marked by efforts at nation-building and winning hearts and minds.
It appears that the Pentagon is also intent on ending a research program from that era–to fund social science for the military.
The program, known as the Minerva Research Initiative, was controversial and never quite delivered, according to its critics. But it was also one of the few Pentagon initiatives that engaged outside researchers tackle big questions. Some worry that by eschewing outside academics in order to invest in weaponry, the Defense Department risks stumbling into a new arms race.
“The idea that you would need to eliminate a small program because you need to buy some small fraction of a new missile is short-sighted,” says Joshua Pollack, a scholar at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Washington, DC. “It’s penny wise and pound foolish.”
Minerva began in 2008 at a time when the U.S. was trying to bring the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan under control. The idea was to call on anthropologists and other social scientists to help make those missions more successful.
Continue to article: https://www.npr.org/2020/03/16/812869515/as-the-war-on-terror-winds-down-the-pentagon-cuts-social-science
