“Desperate People with Limited Skills”

[SWJED]

“Desperate People with Limited Skills” by LTC John Nagl at the SWJ Blog.

Writing and Employing the Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual

In the current issue of “Counterpunch”, anthropologist Dr. David Price continues his assault on social scientists assisting national efforts to succeed in Iraq and Afghanistan. This time he impugns the work of anthropologists who helped write Field Manual 3-24, the Counterinsurgency Field Manual that was published by the Army and Marine Corps in December 2006 and republished by the University of Chicago Press in July 2007.

Price’s essay is extensive, but the argument and the tone of the whole can be extrapolated from this paragraph on the first page:

I will attempt to explain the motivation for the project that led to the writing of the Field Manual as I observed it, provide a few words explaining the process of writing doctrine, and then discuss the effects of the Counterinsurgency Field Manual in the field and on the American military. This is not an official response to Price’s essay, and I do not speak on behalf of the Army, General Petraeus, or any of the other members of the team that produced the Counterinsurgency Field Manual, but only for myself...

Much more at the link...

[SWJED]

Army Response to Counterpunch

In response to a SWJ e-mail concerning Dr. David Price’s recent Counterpunch article U.S. Army spokesman Major Tom McCuin:

As Lieutenant Colonel John Nagl stated:

Military Field Manuals have their own grammar and their own logic. They are not doctoral dissertations, designed to be read by few and judged largely for the quality of their sourcing; instead, they are intended for applied use by Soldiers. Thus authors are not named, and those whose scholarship informs the manual are only credited if they are quoted extensively.
The essential point to be made is that the messages contained in the manual are valid, regardless of any discussion of academic standards. Any argument over missing citations should in no way diminish the manual's utility in the current counterinsurgency fight. The emphasis on cultural understanding and increased reliance on non-lethal forms of engagement to achieve military goals represents a giant leap forward in U.S. military doctrine.

Unfortunately, Dr. Price has chosen to focus his disagreement with current American foreign policy on the Human Terrain System. Rather than accept the Army's several offers to enter in a reasoned dialogue on the merits – or lack of merits - of the role anthropologists can play in helping to reduce the use of lethal force to achieve military and political objectives, Dr. Price has chosen to wage a public and increasingly personal media campaign to discredit HTS and the dedicated social scientists associated with it.

The Human Terrain System is recognition of the fact that academic study and applied social science has practical uses, and those who have chosen to devote their time and efforts to exploring non-lethal alternatives to combat are making a vital contribution to the nation's efforts to secure a peaceful, stable and secure future for the people of Iraq and Afghanistan.

The long term by-product of their heroic efforts will be better informed military decisions that minimize casualties and suffering, and ultimately, optimized policy decision making within government that is harmonized with the ethical principles social science values the most.

[SteveMetz]

Originally Posted by SWJED

Army Response to Counterpunch

In response to a SWJ e-mail concerning Dr. David Price’s recent Counterpunch article U.S. Army spokesman Major Tom McCuin:

I've vowed to stop paying attention to this whole thing. Dr. Price is an obscure and rather clueless academic at a third tier university who, unfortunately, has found a theme to address the fact that his normal work is largely ignored. I'm no longer going to play along.

[selil]

The obvious grammatical effluvia of academic discourse wrapped in the absent specter of Pericles pen shows the dishonesty of the academician. There is only shame for the academic hiding behind bellicose diatribes in obfuscation of honest discourse. An attack on grammar is the last gasp held in an attempt to impoverish intellectual discourse while toiling in the dung heap of “ad hominem” sophistry. In a culture of his vanity and imperiled ideas the social order of the academician is challenged by those who he can only engage in fallacious name calling with because his homilies will not withstand the test of daylight and logic. The academician mistakenly imperils his science while in a stupor of ill-considered ideas he lashes out with the sword of injustice only to be bitten by the poison of his politics.

Attacks on grammar and people is but one thread in the unraveling tapestry of scholarship. There is a presumptive arrogance in hiding behind imprecise and obfuscated language of academia. In attempting to be use $3 words for $1 concepts there is not much to be said other than they have ceded the high ground. English is a living language of emotion and ideas and those are what we should be talking about. Attempting to foil politics while holding up singularly ideas of scholarship baked in the ovens of Popper, Kuhn, Newton ignores that even science is a political process and subject to the scrutiny of the public. Hiding behind large words and citation is a travesty and failure of the academy in its primary role as service to society. It shows an ultimate hubris in the rampant paternalism found in the attacking of other peoples work.

[selil]

Originally Posted by SteveMetz

I've vowed to stop paying attention to this whole thing. Dr. Price is an obscure and rather clueless academic at a third tier university who, unfortunately, has found a theme to address the fact that his normal work is largely ignored. I'm no longer going to play along.

Hey! What do you have against third tier universities?! <pout> I like research and stuff too!

[SteveMetz]

I agree with you. But the question of whether Crane and Nagl are, in fact, "desperate people with limited skills” nonetheless remains open. Being friends of theirs, I can see where a reasonable case can be made on both sides of the argument.

[Rex Brynen]

I haven't weighed in on this yet, but I think we need to separate out several issues: (1) the plagiarism issue, (2) the quality of FM 3-24, and (3) the question of HTS (and academic anthropology).

On #2, I've always thought FM 3-24 was a major advance in COIN doctrine, and nothing in Price's critique substantively addresses that.

On #3, I've raised some of the moral and professional issues involved with HTS deployments of research anthropologists, so I won't revisit them here. Provided those issues are adequately addressed, I certainly no qualms with the the approach, however. Then again, they are not irrelevant issues.

On #1, I DO think plagiarism is an important thing, and while I recognize both the accidental and cultural elements of how it happened, it was nonetheless an easily avoided mistake. The Army's response, I think, is an ineffectual and even counterproductive one, lacking the absolutely essential "mistakes were made, we apologize, and we'll fix it in any future editions". Perhaps they're thinking ahead to civil suit liability (and yes, plagiarism can be grounds for a civil suit), but even then I think an "honest mistake" approach would be better. The official response also smacks somewhat of a "yes we left our left flank open, but then we often do that and its unfair of our opponents to exploit the opening..." which I find no more convincing in political damage-control or the debate over doctrine than I would on a battlefield.

Overall, its a shame that this will further contribute to a polarized debate along predictable institutional and ideological lines, rather than a useful one on the policy challenges and appropriate challenges to the spectrum of COIN/stability operations/PKOs (or, for that matter, on the equally important issue of academics, analysts, policymakers, and trigger-pullers).

[SteveMetz]

Originally Posted by Rex Brynen

I DO think plagiarism is an important thing, and while I recognize both the accidental and cultural elements of how it happened, it was nonetheless an easily avoided mistake. The Army's response, I think, is an ineffectual and even counterproductive one, lacking the absolutely essential "mistakes were made, we apologize, and we'll fix it in any future editions". Perhaps they're thinking ahead to civil suit liability (and yes, plagiarism can be grounds for a civil suit), but even then I think an "honest mistake" approach would be better. The official response also smacks somewhat of a "yes we left our left flank open, but then we often do that and its unfair of our opponents to exploit the opening..." which I find no more convincing in political damage-control or the debate over doctrine than I would on a battlefield.ss).

I disagree. I think plagiarism is a concept that applies to scholarly writing, not government documents. I believing critiquing military doctrine because it doesn't meet academic standards makes no more sense than critiquing an academic article because it doesn't include actionable policy recommendations. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's.

If a mistake was made, it was allowing the University of Chicago Press to reprint the thing. That opened the manual to charges that it should be judged by academic standards.

[SteveMetz]

Originally Posted by selil

Hey! What do you have against third tier universities?! <pout> I like research and stuff too!

You're right. I let my anger get the best of me. Strike that from the record. (At least I had enough restraint to keep myself from pointing out that Con Crane and John Nagl's Ph.D.s are from "better" programs than Price's).

[wm]

To paraphrase from LTC Nagl's title, desperate academics with limited skills are the kind of folks who produce low brow criticism focused on the form rather than the content of others' work. Unable to find significant areas on which to comment, charlatan scholars focus on trivialities like failure to cite sources properly. All that I might choose to say to David Price regarding his critique of the counterinsurgency field manual was best said by the Bard, William Shakespeare (or whoever wrote the works passed around under that author's name, works, by the way which themselves are rife with unacknowledged borrowings from classical authors like Plautus, who also lifted his work from other, earlier Greek comic playwrights). "a tale Told [sic] by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying [sic] nothing." (Macbeth, Act V Scene V, lines 26-28). As for Price himself, I might add this characterization from the same source, "a poor player, That [sic] struts and frets his hour upon the stage And [sic] then is heard no more" (op. cit., lines 24-26).

Were I to stoop to ad hominem attacks , I might choose to draw inferences from the following information about St. Martin’s University, a school with 1049 full time undergraduates at which Price is an associate professor. It has a 33% graduation rate within 4 years of matriculation and a less than 50% graduate rate 6 years after matriculation. 80% of its 2005 admittees were from the bottom half of their high school class, and the non-returning rate for the 2005 admittees in 2006 was 24%. All these data are drawn from the institution’s publicly posted common data set from 2007. Instead, I will let the readers make their own inferences.

I certainly hope I have met the appropriate documentation criteria.

[wm]

Originally Posted by selil

Hey! What do you have against third tier universities?! <pout> I like research and stuff too!

I think that the irony here is that the guy is on the faculty of St Martin U. Isn't St Martin the patron saint of soldiers? And isn't his feast day November 11--Veteran's Day, Armistice Day, Remembrance Day? And wasn't Saint Martin originally a Roman soldier?

[SteveMetz]

Originally Posted by wm

I think that the irony here is that the guy is on the faculty of St Martin U. Isn't St Martin the patron saint of soldiers? And isn't his feast day November 11--Veteran's Day, Armistice Day, Remembrance Day? And wasn't Saint Martin originally a Roman soldier?

Oh, heck, as long as we're doing this, how about the fight song of Dr. Price's undergraduate alma mater:

Go, Geoducks, go!
Through the mud and the sand let's go!
Siphon high, squirt it out, swivel all about.
Let it all hang out!

Go, Geoducks, go!
Stretch your necks when the tide is low!
Siphon high, squirt it out, swivel all about.
Let it all hang out!

[skiguy]

What I like about LTC Nagl's writing is he makes it simple enough for us common folk to understand....yet it still remains effective. I also like that he doesn't attack any person, school, or organization. He just tells it like it is.
I particularly like this:

I am sincerely hopeful that the broader and deeper understanding of other societies that anthropologists like Drs. Kilcullen and McFate bring to the table will diminish not just the casualties in the wars we are fighting today, but also make future wars less likely.

It sort of plays to the emotions of the Left-leaning crowd, yet it's completely accurate and true and what we all want.

Good job as always and thank you, sir.


Oh yeah, here's the citation to what I quoted, just in case anyone complains.

Nagl, John, Desperate People with Limited Skills, Small Wars Journal Blog, 1 Nov 2007, <http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2007/11/desperate-people-with-limited/>.

[CR6]

Originally Posted by wm

I think that the irony here is that the guy is on the faculty of St Martin U. Isn't St Martin the patron saint of soldiers? And isn't his feast day November 11--Veteran's Day, Armistice Day, Remembrance Day? And wasn't Saint Martin originally a Roman soldier?

Saint Martin also refused to bear arms after his baptism into the catholic faith at the age of 18, and was briefly jailed for his beliefs. Maybe it's not quite so ironic.

[Ken White]

wasn't he?

Then, he didn't really want to bear arms in the first place...

"He was still an unbaptized catechumen when he was forced to join the army at 15. The Roman army apparently had a law that required sons of veterans to serve in the military. Still, Martin found this so far removed from his desire to be a Christian monk that he had to be held in chains before taking the military oath. Once the oath was administered he felt bound to obey..."

LINK

Different strokes...

[CR6]

Originally Posted by Ken White

wasn't he?

Then, he didn't really want to bear arms in the first place...

LINK

Different strokes...

Not to take the thread too far afield, I find his story to be a good example of a young man choosing what he perceives as the harder right over the easier wrong.

[Stan]

Originally Posted by SteveMetz

Oh, heck, as long as we're doing this, how about the fight song of Dr. Price's undergraduate alma mater:

Go, Geoducks, go!
Through the mud and the sand let's go!
Siphon high, squirt it out, swivel all about.
Let it all hang out!

Go, Geoducks, go!
Stretch your necks when the tide is low!
Siphon high, squirt it out, swivel all about.
Let it all hang out!

I think you really got this one dead to rights !

The most impressive clam in the Pacific Northwest is the geoduck (Panopea abrupta). The world's largest burrowing clam...

[wm]

Originally Posted by CR6

Not to take the thread too far afield, I find his story to be a good example of a young man choosing what he perceives as the harder right over the easier wrong.

I agree completely, which brings me back to my original claim of irony. Our anthropological commentator seems to have chosen the easy road of criticism--disputing form--rather than the harder one--counter arguments on content.

[selil]

Originally Posted by Stan

I think you really got this one dead to rights !

The most impressive clam in the Pacific Northwest is the geoduck (Panopea abrupta). The world's largest burrowing clam...

As a young teenager living with my parents on our sailboat in the Pacific Northwest and being fully dive qualified I made the impressive sum of $12.50 an hour harvesting the geoduck off the bottom of Puget Sound. Not to be outdone I also harvested the wondrous Sea Cucumber a nasty animal that spills it's guts upon the bottom of the sea and then runs away. Much like some ivory tower academics I imagine.

[Brian Hanley]

An effective way to protest would be to get a fax, letter and email campaign going to two parties:

The provost and Chancellor of St. Martins.

Academia is a pretty top-down organization, and it's captained by men and women that mostly haven't got a lot of backbone. Those men and women in the top positions know their jobs are political and they like the money they make and their personal parking spots on campus. I can tell you that if they think they are sitting on a publicity bomb that they will make Dr. Price's life quite unpleasant. Seriously. In practice, I think that there is more freedom of speech in the Army than on campus.

Academics make a big show of how courageous they are politically, but in most cases it's just a show. Price is probably no exception.

You could request also that Nagl be allowed to have his response printed in the same academic journals that Price frequents.

If you want to be effective as opposed to complaining.