Fri 9 May 2008
Minerva money: “…we’re probably not talking tens of millions…”
Posted by Strong under Anthropology at warVia Danger Room, news that the Minerva Project (or Consortium) may not be quite the cash cow for social science research some might have imagined. There was a ‘blogger roundtable’ with Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy Planning, Thomas Mahnken, on Wednesday. (Bloggers were from Kings of War, Blackfive.net, Mountainrunner, COMOPS Journal, and others I gather. So much for the ‘olive branch’: I wonder why weren’t we invited? Transcript of the roundtable here; it is well worth a look for those tracking this issue.) Mahnken fleshed out some numbers in relation to the money question:
And on funding, I mean, I think we’re—you know, we are talking millions of dollars. You know, we’re probably not talking tens of million dollars but, you know, one of the virtues of social science research as opposed to, you know, the physical science research is it’s relatively inexpensive… And certainly the—you know, the program I would anticipate growing over time, and I think it will be—you know, the funding will be driven by the—you know, the number of quality proposals we receive in—you know, in each area. This is—I mean, this is an area where, you know, 2 (million dollars) or $3 million actually goes a long way.
A few of the participants explicitly asked about ‘pushback’ from anthropologists. Mahnken responded by saying that AAA does not represent the entire community of anthropologists while also acknowledging the vexed history of anthropologist / military relations. I sensed in his response to these questions that DoD thinks that younger scholars (the “9/11 generation”) might not have the same qualms about the idea of Minerva (and related programs like HTS) as do those who hold offices within the various relevant professional societies. Some other information came out: Minerva will fund multi-year consortia and they seek to get this going by the end of 2008 (so, prior to the change in US administration). Also, Mahnken specifically refers to Hussein-era archival materials apparently in the hands of DoD as a possible resource for those working in Minerva connected consortia. I don’t know anything about this, but am wondering if the Pentagon is holding archival and historical materials related to Iraq, and who these are open to and under what conditions. This gets right into freedom of inquiry questions that Oneman was asking. There are also some comments about why the Defense Department is doing this when similar State Department or Department of Education programs may overlap.
Gregory Starrett says:
From the Chronicle of Higher Education:
May 9, 2008
Social Scientist in Army’s ‘Human Terrain’ Program Dies in Afghanistan
Michael V. Bhatia, a graduate student in political science who was serving as a civilian employee of the U.S. Army’s Human Terrain program, died on Wednesday in Afghanistan.
Mr. Bhatia graduated from Brown University in 1999 and was pursuing a doctorate in political science and international relations at the University of Oxford. Since late last year, he had been working with the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division as part of the Human Terrain program, a controversial effort in which scholars advise military personnel about local social structures.
The program has prompted widespread criticism, but Mr. Bhatia strongly supported it, according to a memorial notice that was posted on Thursday by Brown’s Watson Institute for International Studies.
The institute quoted a November 2007 letter in which Mr. Bhatia wrote, “The program has a real chance of reducing both the Afghan and American lives lost, as well as ensuring that the US/NATO/ISAF strategy becomes better attuned to the population’s concerns, views, criticisms, and interests and better supports the Government of Afghanistan.”
The Watson Institute’s notice does not describe the circumstances of Mr. Bhatia’s death, but an e-mail message circulated on Thursday said that he had been killed by a roadside bomb near Khost, an eastern city near the Pakistan border, perhaps in an incident reported by the Voice of America. Two NATO soldiers died in that same attack.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Defense declined to comment on Thursday, citing a policy that forbids public discussion of casualties until at least 24 hours after the next of kin have been notified.
After graduating from Brown, Mr. Bhatia worked for several nongovernmental organizations and conducted research in East Timor and Kosovo. He was an author of two books, one of which was published just last month.
In a 2004 paper, Mr. Bhatia and two colleagues criticized the management of the NATO-led intervention in Afghanistan, arguing that U.S. and NATO troops relied too heavily on local militias and warlords and had done too little to help ordinary citizens feel secure. —David Glenn
Posted on Friday May 9, 2008 | Permalink |
Strong says:
On Michael Bhatia, see also:
http://sethresler.wordpress.com/2008/05/09/michael-bhatia/
includes comprehensive list of links, including:
http://humanterrainsystem.army.mil/In%20Memoriam.htm
http://easterncampaign.wordpress.com/2008/05/09/michael-bhatia-killed-in-khost/
oneman says:
No, Mahnken, we don’t know!
It was pretty clear that Minerva was meant to be rolled out by the end of the year, since it’s part of the plan to put a number of systems and procedures in place before the Bush administration loses power and is replaced by, most likely, a Democrat. Since bureaucratic institutions tend to carry a lot of intertia, it will be very hard for the next President’s administration to shift the direction of Minerva once it’s under way.
We’re still talking about a lot of money, here. Wenner-Gren gave under a million dollars in grants and research support last year; their operating budget (as close as I can make out) is about $3 million.
I wonder if the generational theory is true?
Here’s something itneresting: the grad students I talked with a U of Chicago said thayt they and everyone they knew had gotten recruiting emails from HTS, generally offering $150,000 plus bonuses. But, they said, they’ve also all gotten far more messages from corporate recruiters! I don’t think HTS is competing with academia for anthropologists; I think they’re competing with Microsoft.
Nabil says:
“Also, Mahnken specifically refers to Hussein-era archival materials apparently in the hands of DoD as a possible resource for those working in Minerva connected consortia. I don’t know anything about this, but am wondering if the Pentagon is holding archival and historical materials related to Iraq, and who these are open to and under what conditions.”
This collection should refer to a cache of millions of pages of documents collected by DOD and stored in Qatar. I too would be very interested in knowing whether such documents will ever be repatriated to Iraq, and whether they are available for open research access.