Where to Cut Defense

There may actually be a part of the Pentagon’s budget that advocates of a strong defense want to cut. Naturally, it has precious little to do with taking up arms to defend America and a lot to do with feathering the already plush nests of universities.

“The DoD has launched a university-based social science initiative to support basic research in topic areas of importance to current and future U.S. national security,” a Defense Department release of July 16 reads. “The initiative, called Minerva, will support multi- and interdisciplinary and cross-institutional efforts addressing a range of social science topic areas.”

“It will bring together universities, research institutions and individual scholars into a partnership to tackle topics of interest to DoD. For example, DoD could pursue topics such as foriegn military and technology research, terrorism or cultural studies.”

“The initial funding is $10-20 million annually.” Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates elaborated on what DoD has in mind in a speech on April 14.

“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,” he said in a speech at the Association of American Universities. “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 challenges we face.”

“It has been a long time since religious issues have had to be addressed in a strategic context. A research program along these lines could be an important contribution to the intellectual foundation on which we base a national strategy in coming years and decades.”

Were it not for Gates’ impeccably patriotic pedigree, this assessment would seem remarkably similar to the “Why did they attack us?” analysis of many academics in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks upon the United States. Unfortunately, Minerva may empower them.

So far, academics are of two minds about the program. They are reluctant, as ever, to contribute to America’s national security but enthusiastic about the new grants.
“David Vine, an American University anthropologist, criticized the initiative, saying the research would be limited by the Pentagon’s worldview,” Maria Glod reported in The Washington Post on August 3. “Research about a potential conflict with China, I feel, may be part of a large self-fulfilling prophecy,” Vine told Glod. “That kind of research could lead up to an increasing escalation of military tensions and military preparations for war.”

Nevertheless, Vine intends to apply for a Minerva grant. Even allowing for Gates’ recent stewardship at Texas A & M, where he brought a realistic approach to minority recruitment that relied on promotion rather than mandates, academia has rarely been a source of wisdom on matters military.

For example, the push to apply the theory of unilateral disarmament to the practice of self-defense finds a natural home in the faculty lounge. “The final long-term step to put an end to life-threatening terrorism must also include the elimination of all weapons of mass destruction—nuclear, biological, and chemical,” University of Montana historian Bill Janus writes in the Spring 2008 issue of The Montana Professor. “The Bush Administration has done absolutely nothing on this front, and it is unpardonable.”

Malcolm A. Kline is the executive director of Accuracy in Academia.