national security – ZERO ANTHROPOLOGY

Trade War and the Nationalist Exchange: Trudeau Trails Trump

“These tariffs are totally unacceptable. For 150 years, Canada has been America’s most steadfast ally. Canadians have served alongside Americans in two world wars and in Korea. From the beaches of Normandy to the mountains of Afghanistan, we have fought and died together. Canadian personnel are serving alongside Americans at this very moment. We are […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

US Sovereignty and Economic Exceptionalism

The following is an extract from Karine Perron’s chapter, “The International Economic Sovereignty of the United States of America: Integrating the Exception to our Understanding of Empire,” published in Good Intentions: Norms and Practices of Imperial Humanitarianism (Montreal: Alert Press, 2014), pp. 105-120: Overview: Karine Perron addresses the scope of US capacity to influence and […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Which States? Which Secrets? Secrets from Whom?

From the journal of the World Policy Institute comes “The Big Question“ for its Fall issue on Secrecy and Security. I have maintained a research interest in the area of the anthropology of secrecy, and understandings of power in connection with secrecy in both anthropological theory and in the work of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks (more to come […]

by John Stanton

Second Decade of the New American Century: A Clockwork Orange Meets American Psycho

“The United States will protect its people and advance our prosperity irrespective of the actions of any other nation…” President Barak Obama in National Security Strategy of the United States, 2010 The American Empire is not in decline. It is rebooting for a new era of dominance. The American Empire’s success depends on successfully converting […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Ward Churchill v. “The Good Americans”: How Churchill’s Critics Made His Case

“I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed . . . without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government.” — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., April 1967, Riverside, California. While I am not prepared to predict the outcome of […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Islands of Shame and the World as a U.S. Military Base: A look at some of the work of David Vine

Dr. David Vine is a professor of anthropology at American University in Washington D.C. whose ethnographic research has focused on the impact of U.S. military bases and in particular the forced displacement of the Chagossian people from their home, the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. His new book, Island of Shame (Princeton […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Hugh Gusterson: “Minerva Controversy,” and the SSRC

The U.S. Social Science Research Council has launched a series of articles in a special section of its website devoted to what it calls the Minerva Controversy. Among them is Hugh Gusterson’s “Unveiling Minerva.” This is a list of some of the key points he makes in his article: (1) Gusterson persuasively likens Pentagon funding […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Preparing for Domestic War in the U.S.?

Every new day brings more grave news from the U.S. As the McCain-Palin campaign is now intent on whipping up the frenzy of the uninformed ever further, doggedly pursuing the line that the next President could himself be an enemy of the state; as McCain supporters shout “Off with his head!” about Obama at a […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

David Price: On the Costs of Serving Empire

David Price has an interesting exposé in: Price, David H. (2008). Payback time: The student who decided not to be a spook. Counterpunch, 15 (15), 1-15 September: 6-8. It involves the case of Nicolas Flattes, an anthropology student at the University of Hawai’i, who was awarded a Boren Scholarship from the National Security Education Program […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Imperializing Open Access and Militarizing Open Source: “What’s yours is ours. What’s ours is ours” (1.4)

“Intelligence does not have to be secret to be valuable!” — University of Military Intelligence, Open Source Resources ••••••• Stemming from a discussion initiated at Owen Wiltshire’s Another Anthro Blog, regarding a post by Owen titled, “Open Access and Anthropology — a free and easy interview,” I decided to develop my comments into a full […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

The McFarce Continues: Pravda publishes a second scathing article on the Human Terrain System; McFate feted by fliers

Two pieces of news here. The first is that a second article by John Stanton has just been published by Pravda titled, “US Army’s Human Terrain System: From Super Concept to Absolute Farce.” The second has to do with Montgomery McFate recently becoming a celebrity on city telephone poles. Continued. Read Part I of the […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Latest Minerva and National Science Foundation News

Thanks to David Glenn of The Chronicle of Higher Education for writing to indicate that what some hoped for would be leeway in undertaking funded research free of constraints and conditions imposed by the Department of Defense, has been significantly minimized. As David Glenn explained, the National Science Foundation released its Minerva-related solicitation on Wednesday, […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

National Security Research, Imperialist Emergencies and the Minerva Research Initiative: Some Further Consideration (1.1)

For this post I am once more referring to the contents of this document, just released by the U.S. Department of Defense, soliciting proposals for grants under the Minerva Research Initiative (MRI). The following is a series of topics of concern raised by this document. HOW TO MAKE IMPERIAL RESEARCH INSIDIOUS: On page 2 we […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

A White Woman’s Burden: Hillary Clinton, Imperialism, and Racism

The imperialist syndrome that has been institutionalized at least since 1492 in the Americas, with its familiar register of notions of superiority, a right to dominate, of the civilizing beneficence of Western rule, of force needed to tame wild creatures so that they can learn to take responsibility, with routinized actions and customary rituals, acting […]