January 11, 2008 9:32:31 AM
Categories: Human Terrain
Courtesy Of: Wired.com
The Pentagon chief acquisition official has asked the Defense Science Board to organize a "Task Force on Understanding Adversaries."
The Defense Science Board, an advisory group to Office of the Secretary of Defense, has been around 50 years and is known for their high-quality (and, frankly, well written) reports on a variety of science and technology issues.
The request is not surprising, considering that the Defense Science Board spent a fair amount of time discussing "human terrain" issues in its four volume "Strategic Technology Vectors" report from 2006.
When I interviewed the head of the Defense Science Board last year, he told me the group was thinking about recruiting social scientists to join what has typically been a hard science-heavy organization.
The interesting issue here is how science and technology experts approach issues outside their primary field, and in this case, the social sciences.
During the Vietnam War, another national security advisory body, JASON, also considered recruiting social scientists and getting involved in the softer side of science. The results were, well, not so great (a good description of this episode can be found in Ann Finkbeiner's book on the JASONS).
Then again, if the Pentagon is really serious about gaining expertise in the social sciences, why not have a Defense "Social Science" Board, i.e. experts in the social sciences who perform periodic studies for the Pentagon?
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