Word: pentagonal
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Anthropologists have traditionally had a pretty wonkish reputation, earnestly taking field notes while interviewing a tribal chief or lecturing in some college classroom about the intricacies of indigenous clan-systems. If the Pentagon has its way, though, more anthropologists will exchange their tweed for military fatigues and leave the halls of academe for the front lines. For the past two years, the U.S. military has embedded anthropologists and other social scientists with American troops in order to improve the Army's cultural IQ. But last week the American Anthropological Association (AAA) released a report coming out strongly against the program...
...Since 2007, the Pentagon's Human Terrain System (HTS) has been placing social scientists in every Army combat brigade, regiment and Marine Corps regimental combat team. There are now more than 500 people employed by HTS, a number that is increasing rapidly. On the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, their job is to gather information and provide commanders with a greater understanding of the local population, reducing the need for lethal force by helping the Army determine the needs of the community, according to Steve Fondacaro, the project manager at HTS. Secretary of State Robert Gates has publicly praised...
...anthropologists don't have full control over the information they gather and that commanders can use it to kill. "The real fault with Human Terrain is that it doesn't even try to protect the people being studied," says Price. "I don't think it's accidental that [the Pentagon] didn't come up with ethical guidelines...
...authors of the AAA report, in fact, work closely with the military. But McFate's larger point stands: for the past few decades, anthropologists have had little influence in military or foreign policy circles. As American troops adopt a counterinsurgency strategy, cultural knowledge has become a foremost Pentagon concern. They know historically the record for winning a short-term counterinsurgency is not good, so they've once again sought out cultural expertise. The discipline's checkered history, however, has made many anthropologists sensitive to the parallels between HTS and the colonial era. "Anthropology was used in much the same...
...much the extra troops would cost is in dispute. Orszag pegs it at $1 million per soldier per year, which works out to an additional $30 billion a year for 30,000 more troops. The Pentagon says it's half that. But a new study by consulting firm Deloitte makes clear that fighting inside a landlocked country where the Taliban has shut down much of the meager road network has drastically inflated even routine costs. The average U.S. trooper in Afghanistan requires 22 gal. (83 L) of fuel a day--but the cost of buying a gallon of fuel...