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Page added on June 14, 2014
Pentagon preparing for mass civil breakdown
Social science is being militarised to develop ‘operational tools’ to target peaceful activists and protest movements
A US Department of Defense (DoD) research programme is funding universities to model the dynamics, risks and tipping points for large-scale civil unrest across the world, under the supervision of various US military agencies. The multi-million dollar programme is designed to develop immediate and long-term “warfighter-relevant insights” for senior officials and decision makers in “the defense policy community,” and to inform policy implemented by “combatant commands.”
Launched in 2008 – the year of the global banking crisis – the DoD ‘Minerva Research Initiative’ partners with universities “to improve DoD’s basic understanding of the social, cultural, behavioral, and political forces that shape regions of the world of strategic importance to the US.”
Among the projects awarded for the period 2014-2017 is a Cornell University-led study managed by the US Air Force Office of Scientific Research which aims to develop an empirical model “of the dynamics of social movement mobilisation and contagions.” The project will determine “the critical mass (tipping point)” of social contagians by studying their “digital traces” in the cases of “the 2011 Egyptian revolution, the 2011 Russian Duma elections, the 2012 Nigerian fuel subsidy crisis and the 2013 Gazi park protests in Turkey.”
Twitter posts and conversations will be examined “to identify individuals mobilised in a social contagion and when they become mobilised.”
Another project awarded this year to the University of Washington “seeks to uncover the conditions under which political movements aimed at large-scale political and economic change originate,” along with their “characteristics and consequences.” The project, managed by the US Army Research Office, focuses on “large-scale movements involving more than 1,000 participants in enduring activity,” and will cover 58 countries in total.
Last year, the DoD’s Minerva Initiative funded a project to determine ‘Who Does Not Become a Terrorist, and Why?’ which, however, conflates peaceful activists with “supporters of political violence” who are different from terrorists only in that they do not embark on “armed militancy” themselves. The project explicitly sets out to study non-violent activists:
“In every context we find many individuals who share the demographic, family, cultural, and/or socioeconomic background of those who decided to engage in terrorism, and yet refrained themselves from taking up armed militancy, even though they were sympathetic to the end goals of armed groups. The field of terrorism studies has not, until recently, attempted to look at this control group. This project is not about terrorists, but about supporters of political violence.”
The project’s 14 case studies each “involve extensive interviews with ten or more activists and militants in parties and NGOs who, though sympathetic to radical causes, have chosen a path of non-violence.”
I contacted the project’s principal investigator, Prof Maria Rasmussen of the US Naval Postgraduate School, asking why non-violent activists working for NGOs should be equated to supporters of political violence – and which “parties and NGOs” were being investigated – but received no response.
Similarly, Minerva programme staff refused to answer a series of similar questions I put to them, including asking how “radical causes” promoted by peaceful NGOs constituted a potential national security threat of interest to the DoD.
Among my questions, I asked:
“Does the US Department of Defense see protest movements and social activism in different parts of the world as a threat to US national security? If so, why? Does the US Department of Defense consider political movements aiming for large scale political and economic change as a national security matter? If so, why? Activism, protest, ‘political movements’ and of course NGOs are a vital element of a healthy civil society and democracy – why is it that the DoD is funding research to investigate such issues?”
Minerva’s programme director Dr Erin Fitzgerald said “I appreciate your concerns and am glad that you reached out to give us the opportunity to clarify” before promising a more detailed response. Instead, I received the following bland statement from the DoD’s press office:
“The Department of Defense takes seriously its role in the security of the United States, its citizens, and US allies and partners. While every security challenge does not cause conflict, and every conflict does not involve the US military, Minerva helps fund basic social science research that helps increase the Department of Defense’s understanding of what causes instability and insecurity around the world. By better understanding these conflicts and their causes beforehand, the Department of Defense can better prepare for the dynamic future security environment.”
In 2013, Minerva funded a University of Maryland project in collaboration with the US Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to gauge the risk of civil unrest due to climate change. The three-year $1.9 million project is developing models to anticipate what could happen to societies under a range of potential climate change scenarios.
From the outset, the Minerva programme was slated to provide over $75 million over five years for social and behavioural science research. This year alone it has been allocated a total budget of $17.8 million by US Congress.
An internal Minerva staff email communication referenced in a 2012 Masters dissertation reveals that the programme is geared toward producing quick results that are directly applicable to field operations. The dissertation was part of a Minerva-funded project on “counter-radical Muslim discourse” at Arizona State University.
The internal email from Prof Steve Corman, a principal investigator for the project, describes a meeting hosted by the DoD’s Human Social Cultural and Behavioural Modeling (HSCB) programme in which senior Pentagon officials said their priority was “to develop capabilities that are deliverable quickly” in the form of “models and tools that can be integrated with operations.”
Although Office of Naval Research supervisor Dr Harold Hawkins had assured the university researchers at the outset that the project was merely “a basic research effort, so we shouldn’t be concerned about doing applied stuff”, the meeting in fact showed that DoD is looking to “feed results” into “applications,” Corman said in the email. He advised his researchers to “think about shaping results, reports, etc., so they [DoD] can clearly see their application for tools that can be taken to the field.”
Many independent scholars are critical of what they see as the US government’s efforts to militarise social science in the service of war. In May 2008, the American Anthropological Association (AAA) wrote to the US government noting that the Pentagon lacks “the kind of infrastructure for evaluating anthropological [and other social science] research” in a way that involves “rigorous, balanced and objective peer review”, calling for such research to be managed instead by civilian agencies like the National Science Foundation (NSF).
The following month, the DoD signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the NSF to cooperate on the management of Minerva. In response, the AAA cautioned that although research proposals would now be evaluated by NSF’s merit-review panels. “Pentagon officials will have decision-making power in deciding who sits on the panels”:
“… there remain concerns within the discipline that research will only be funded when it supports the Pentagon’s agenda. Other critics of the programme, including the Network of Concerned Anthropologists, have raised concerns that the programme would discourage research in other important areas and undermine the role of the university as a place for independent discussion and critique of the military.”
According to Prof David Price, a cultural anthropologist at St Martin’s University in Washington DC and author of Weaponizing Anthropology: Social Science in Service of the Militarized State, “when you looked at the individual bits of many of these projects they sort of looked like normal social science, textual analysis, historical research, and so on, but when you added these bits up they all shared themes of legibility with all the distortions of over-simplification. Minerva is farming out the piece-work of empire in ways that can allow individuals to disassociate their individual contributions from the larger project.”
Prof Price has previously exposed how the Pentagon’s Human Terrain Systems (HTS) programme – designed to embed social scientists in military field operations – routinely conducted training scenarios set in regions “within the United States.”
Citing a summary critique of the programme sent to HTS directors by a former employee, Price reported that the HTS training scenarios “adapted COIN [counterinsurgency] for Afghanistan/Iraq” to domestic situations “in the USA where the local population was seen from the military perspective as threatening the established balance of power and influence, and challenging law and order.”
One war-game, said Price, involved environmental activists protesting pollution from a coal-fired plant near Missouri, some of whom were members of the well-known environmental NGO Sierra Club. Participants were tasked to “identify those who were ‘problem-solvers’ and those who were ‘problem-causers,’ and the rest of the population whom would be the target of the information operations to move their Center of Gravity toward that set of viewpoints and values which was the ‘desired end-state’ of the military’s strategy.”
Such war-games are consistent with a raft of Pentagon planning documents which suggest that National Security Agency (NSA) mass surveillance is partially motivated to prepare for the destabilising impact of coming environmental, energy and economic shocks.
James Petras, Bartle Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University in New York, concurs with Price’s concerns. Minerva-funded social scientists tied to Pentagon counterinsurgency operations are involved in the “study of emotions in stoking or quelling ideologically driven movements,” he said, including how “to counteract grassroots movements.”
Minerva is a prime example of the deeply narrow-minded and self-defeating nature of military ideology. Worse still, the unwillingness of DoD officials to answer the most basic questions is symptomatic of a simple fact – in their unswerving mission to defend an increasingly unpopular global system serving the interests of a tiny minority, security agencies have no qualms about painting the rest of us as potential terrorists.
27 Comments on "Pentagon preparing for mass civil breakdown"
J-Gav on Sat, 14th Jun 2014 10:21 am
“Such war games are consistent with a raft of Pentagon planning documents which suggest that NSA mass surveillance is partially motivated to prepare for the destabilizing impact of coming environmental, energy and economic shocks.”
This is the thrust of what I was trying to explain to Plant here in a recent exchange: i.e. preparations for a breakdown of social order, ‘collapse’, whatever you want to call it, have been underway for some time.
Of course I’d agree that some preparations regarding law and order are necessary but that doesn’t mean I condone throwing billions at militarizing the police, building gated communities and making us all potential terrorists to be monitored at every street corner.
There are saner, less paranoid and less socially destructive ways of preparing for ‘unpleasantness.’ For example, why not use some of those military/police/surveillance $billions to empower, encourage and jumpstart community efforts to ensure their own physical safety, food safety, democratic functions, etc?
I suppose the answer to my question is simple – some powerful people would lose leverage and at least some of their ability to collect rents …
shortonoil on Sat, 14th Jun 2014 11:28 am
The ironic part of this is that there is a very good chance that they will no longer exists if/when a breakdown occurs. A complete collapse of the monetary system is the most likely scenario leading to civil unrest. Ninety days after that the entire Federal apparatus will be gone.
Davy, Hermann, MO on Sat, 14th Jun 2014 12:46 pm
Gav/Short, my view is we have plenty of militarization of police, prisons, surveillance and control structures in place. We should not be naïve to think this will not be needed because nothing functions in a vacuum. Yet, without other measures mentioned by Gav these control efforts by the Top will be half baked. Gav, is mentioning the bottom up efforts or more precisely the soft efforts at sustainability, resilience, and mitigation of decent. Short brings up a good point often expressed by Kunstler in that the “Top’s” apparatus of command, control, and support will be subject to very quick and significant decay as the basic vital structures of our hyper complex global system collapses. We know that it is anathema to the “Top” to throw money at the “bottom”. I guess this is from a deep seated uncomfortable feeling for the top of the concept of “Welfare”. The Top fails to see the seeds of stability and sources of resilience that could be created for them with properly invested bottom efforts. Down the road when much of the unsustainable non-resilient BAU structures evaporate in a whoosh of entropic wind what will be left are these bottom lead efforts that survive the storm of collapse. It is my hope that a significant crisis may develop to injure BAU to the point where the Top has no other choice but to embrace efforts that will benefit the bottom and local. The bottom/local is where the most cost effective lifeboat efforts can be made. The Top will be under so much pressure if a crisis occurs that does not destroy social fabric they will be forced to act in support of the people. If a crisis occurs where extreme measures are not needed the Top will lack the moral authority to deny the people their will. In a situation of crisis with a functioning social fabric the top will have to yield to the people and the corruption, manipulation, and disregard for the rule of law will be exposed for what it is a pillage of the commons, our constitution, and our social contracts. If this beneficial scenario happens we will have a few short years to prepare for the next decent that will be most likely much worse and dangerous.
paulo1 on Sat, 14th Jun 2014 1:17 pm
How’s that working out for you in Iraq this week? Did ketchup Kerry know about this study?
Beery on Sat, 14th Jun 2014 2:45 pm
I would hope that the military has had some sort of plan for societal breakdown since the late 1700s, otherwise it’s not much of a military. I know from personal experience that plans have existed since 1992, when I saw National Guard troops patrolling outside just about every store in Los Angeles.
Don on Sat, 14th Jun 2014 2:55 pm
Every one should understand that the military is always looking at potential problems, Having established plans in place prior to needing them is good. Just because the “radicals” think they are being targeted (environmentalists) simply makes sense. Prior to 9-11 I attended an FBI course on domestic terrorism. At that time the biggest internal threat was from the left, centered in Eugene (OR), Olympia (WA) and Madison (WI) from EFL-ALF. “Peaceful radicals” were the real threat at that time. Fortunately, they were small in number and many were jailed.
Everyone must understand that within a few days of a disaster, there will be issues that will require a militarized response. Even if it means simply bringing in food, shelter and medical aid. No group can do it as well as the military.
Don’t get too worked up. We have always had planning, even for invading Canada.
Meld on Sat, 14th Jun 2014 3:07 pm
If collapse happens, you haven’t prepared and you want to eat, you’ll have to join the army. They will be the last place collapse will touch because they are the only thing standing between the elite and a serious spanking from the proletariat.
Alice Quirky on Sat, 14th Jun 2014 4:37 pm
Oh, and let’s all remember how great a job the military did following Katrina.
J-Gav on Sat, 14th Jun 2014 5:21 pm
Hey Alice! Welcome and good point! The pretense of efficiency which still holds sway in the economy at large – even as we sink to ever lower levels of social well-being – does indeed extend to the military (see Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Ukraine for recent examples).
I hope I’m wrong but doubt we’ll ever see a fair hearing given to the Mannings, Snowdens, Assanges, Binneys, Bergdahls etc in the U.S. But there is a sense that people are tired of our outsized militarization (of everything), wholly disregarding George Washington’s admonition that it would be best to avoid “attachments and entanglements in foreign affairs” to the extent possible.
We’ve gone 180° in the other direction. Ah, the folly of imperial designs!
Northwest Resident on Sat, 14th Jun 2014 6:35 pm
In a global economic collapse and end of BAU scenario, I am counting on the US Military to suppress and prevent riot, to aid civilian law enforcement as needed, to detect and neutralize any form of violent rebellion, to aid and to facilitate local community efforts in organizing, caring for people, producing and distributing food, assisting in emergency medical needs, and a lot more. If they don’t have plans to do all of that, and if they don’t get it done, then I’ll be severely disappointed.
Makati1 on Sat, 14th Jun 2014 9:19 pm
First, it is not those ‘at the top’. It is the real powers and they will NOT even be in the US when the SHTF. Remember, the Bush family owns thousands of acres in a South American country. Ditto for all of the other power families that run the world. You don’t think they are going to live in a gated community a few miles from the millions of armed unwashed do you? LOL
Second, they are making huge profits from the preparations and want them to continue. They don’t care if 99% of us die in the first year. After all, they only need a few million serfs after the smoke clears.
Third, you already live in a Police State run by a dictator who ignores the Constitution, Bill of Rights and any international law that gets in his way. Puppet he may be, but he is an efficient/effective one as far as the powers are concerned. And, if there is an ‘election’ in 2016 (which I doubt) the new dictator is already chosen. Think about “O’s” opposition in the last two races. Worthless airbags that they knew could not win. It will be the same in 2016, if it happens. Wait and see.
Cloud9 on Sat, 14th Jun 2014 9:41 pm
I have spent a good deal of time discussing the possibility of systemic collapse with Army and Air Force Colonels. Colonels draw up the plans. The one thing that is ingrained in all of them is that they must at all costs maintain the integrity of their command.
All of us may run out of medical supplies, food and fuel. The command will simply take what it needs to sustain it operations. Think about what that means.
clueless on Sat, 14th Jun 2014 9:58 pm
America is going down sooner than anyone thinks, and it’s going down alone, while the rest of the world is watching…then we move on.
I’ve already sold my properties in SanFo and LA. Goodbye USA. Good riddance!!!
Davy, Hermann, MO on Sat, 14th Jun 2014 10:14 pm
Goodbye Clue, and don’t write home please.
Makati1 on Sat, 14th Jun 2014 11:22 pm
Clue, good thinking! I might suggest the Philippines if you want a nice place to live away from the US but enjoy English speaking, polite, ambitious people. No welfare here, just work for a living, even if it is selling candy and cigarettes on the street. (They make as much as the laborers do that work in the construction industry.) The people here work for a living. The government gives basic medical aid and a free education. Even college is less than $1,000.00 per year. Doctors and hospitals are as good as any in the States and at about 1/3 the cost. Same for meds. They even have a retirement visa program for Expats like me and you that allows you to work and live here permanently if you want. There are already over 200,000 Americans living here, and many thousands of Europeans and people from other areas of the world.
No matter where you decide to go, you are smart for getting out and getting your wealth out now, while you still can.
Norm on Sun, 15th Jun 2014 5:33 am
i cant get out, so i will be stuck here when it goes to hell. hey everybody take a look at this:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jd9tIEerQ4o/TVZj6jGhfvI/AAAAAAAAHrs/No9TgYdP1-s/s1600/AngryMob.jpg
Pops on Sun, 15th Jun 2014 6:38 am
The operational point is the line:
“Twitter posts and conversations will be examined “to identify individuals …””
If you think surveillance is just a subject of study you should think again. Your computer has a name and your internet connection has an address and Uncle can track you down in an instant and add your name to this list or that. Just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean that if you give authority a hammer everyone won’t look like a nail.
I usually try to increase the amount of conversation here but you should know that you are in no way anonymous here, anywhere on the ‘net or increasingly in RL as well. Facebook uses facial recognition as a matter of course, police cruisers scan every license plate in sight, your every online and CC purchase goes into an unknown number of databases. FISA and the “Patriot” Act make it legal and many many people think Jack Bauer is some kind of hero.
Somewhere along the line we forgot about innocent until proven guilty.
Davy, Hermann, MO on Sun, 15th Jun 2014 6:54 am
Mak, spare me the nausea of your wonderful Philippians. It is a country that any person with education of overshoot can readily see as heading toward social ecological collapse. It will be a short time before the P’s will not have imports as the global economy declines. What can the P’s export for trade imports. I know of no significant export other than people. Mak, how is the P’s going to get food and energy to support a population in massive overshoot? The environment is in a state of collapse. The oceans are dead around the P’s. The soil is eroding into the ocean from deforestation and the increase in deadly storms. Mak, of all the people who comment here you are the most in a world of your own creation. This world is a fantasy world. It is a world of a mentally ill individual who needs meds.
Kenz300 on Sun, 15th Jun 2014 7:06 am
Climate Change is real and will impact all of us….
Years of Living Dangerously Premiere Full Episode – YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brvhCnYvxQQ
Davy, Hermann, MO on Sun, 15th Jun 2014 7:09 am
Pops, I agree with what you say. I often wonder when TSHTF if someone will be knocking at my door. I am open about who I am and where I stand. Personally I see those who try to be anonymous and hide as those most likely to be under surveillance. I am not advocating social revolt nor do I believe in violence as a tool of change. The system will follow its path with or without these revolutionaries. The global system has become so complex it is beyond control. There are far too many people for the NSA to track. When the complexity vanishes with the global decent these NSA folks will find it hard to keep their massive computer networks going and for what??? Many people will not have functioning connection anyhow. I am fully ready to cease and desist if asked to. I have a farm I am building a lifeboat on I can easily disconnect and go offline. I can settle down to cattle, chickens, garden of subsistence living. I am preaching this for as many as can be supported. I am on here now because the end is near and I am looking for shared support of other likeminded individuals. I am looking for info that will better show me when a possible collapse might occur. It is our duty as citizens to have open and free discourse as our founding fathers advocated. If I am put on a list and blackballed so be it. I can tell my kids I face tyranny like a man unafraid of the consequences. I am just not naïve to think violence and revolution can do anything other than get oneself in trouble. TPTB own the system now, yet, for how long is debatable. I am not going to fight their control but I am not going to be silent of the abuses, corruption, and manipulations. To be silent of these actions is to be truly un-American in the sense of what the founding fathers advocated. I personally find the originals values found in the US Constitution and Bill of Rights as worthy of my support.
Pops on Sun, 15th Jun 2014 7:45 am
That’s the thing Davy, it isn’t about tshtf or “collapse” or “tyranny” it’s about some sheriff with a NSA toy and no oversight
“Richland County (S.C) Sheriff Leon Lott ordered four cell-data dumps from two towers in a 2011 investigation into a rash of car break-ins near Columbia, including the theft of collection of guns and rifles from his police-issued SUV, parked at his home.”
The local Sheriff isn’t just getting mil surplus MRAPS and M-16s.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/12/08/cellphone-data-spying-nsa-police/3902809/
Davy, Hermann, MO on Sun, 15th Jun 2014 7:55 am
Yea, Pops, we have an out of control paramilitary police force in many areas. I am in good with my local law enforcement. At the moment in the Ozarks of Missouri things are quiet. But I am not naive to think that could change at any moment.
tommy on Sun, 15th Jun 2014 8:23 pm
the NWO is hounding our government and DOD was wants civil unrest SASP,thing is they wont it intact not destroyed by nuclear engagement with the other 2 eastern countrys.so how you think this is going to happen?our leadership gov will EMP our country and kill all media devices,with no one reporting news by tv nor radio our country can be handed over to another operating system and we that live here wont no anything about it until it to late and you get a knock at you door,get informed get heavy shield container like a large suit case by batterys and all that where you can hear whats going on AFTER this event will last about 24 hours and high voltage microwave will kill all electronic devices,radio,phones,tv and your CAR just to say the least,so you want be going to work,bible sez they’ll come a day when no man can work this is it.
what on Sun, 15th Jun 2014 10:32 pm
What happened to the military not bearing arms against citizens?
Skip Plummer on Mon, 16th Jun 2014 12:30 am
Pops and Davy, I am pretty well in agreement with the both of you and Davy, I live in the northeastern California mountains and in the middle nowhere. There are other things to consider here as well, though.
History shows us that no European government has avoided falling, on the average of once every 200 years. Our country is just now slightly over that 200 year mark.
If anyone in the U.S. would choose to think that we are somehow immune to that very thing happening right here, I would say that they are very “Evian” (naive).
Davy, Hermann, MO on Mon, 16th Jun 2014 7:10 am
Skip, civilization does not have an impressive track record and you hit the nail with the naivete of the “children of BAU”
Old Cutter on Thu, 19th Jun 2014 12:15 am
We Are All Terrorists Until Proven Innocent …