SBIRs

• Working on paper. Currently listening to George Lucas (Not that George Lucas) talking about military ethics

• This also looks interesting: On Obedience
  • an in-depth and nuanced philosophical treatment of the virtue of obedience in the context of the professional military and the broader civilian political community, including the general citizenry. The nature and components of obedience are critical factors leading to further discussions of the moral obligations related to obedience, as well as the related practical issues and implications. Pauline Shanks Kaurin seeks to address the following questions: What is obedience? Is it a virtue, and if it is, why? What are the moral grounds of obedience? Why ought military members and citizens be obedient? Are there times that one ought not be obedient? Why? How should we think about obedience in contemporary political communities?
• Human Terrain System: was a United States Army, Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) support program employing personnel from the social science disciplines – such as anthropology, sociology, political science, regional studies, and linguistics – to provide military commanders and staff with an understanding of the local population (i.e. the “human terrain”) in the regions in which they are deployed.
  • The concept of HTS was first developed in a paper by Montgomery McFate and Andrea Jackson in 2005,^[6] which proposed a pilot version of the project as a response to “identified gaps in [US military] commanders’ and staffs’ understanding of the local population and culture”, such as became particularly visible during the US invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan.^[1][3][4] HTS was subsequently launched as a proof-of-concept program, run by the United States Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), in February 2007, with five HTS teams deployed between Iraq and Afghanistan.^[3][4] Since 2007, HTS has grown from a program with five deployed teams and a $20 million two-year budget to one with 31 deployed teams and a $150 million annual budget.^[3] HTS became a permanent US Army program in 2010.
  • Ever since its launch, HTS has been surrounded by controversy.^[4][7][8] While the program initially received positive coverage in the US media, it quickly became the subject of heavy criticism – particularly from anthropologists, but also from journalists, military officials and HTS personnel and former personnel.^[9] Most notably, on 31 October 2007, the Executive Board of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) published a statement opposing HTS as an “unacceptable application of anthropological expertise” that conflicted with the AAA’s Code of Ethics.^[10][11][12] Following the publication of a report on HTS by the Commission on Engagement of Anthropology with the US Security and Intelligence Services (CEAUSSIC) in 2009,^[13][14] the AAA released a further statement of disapproval, which they re-iterated in 2012 after rumours that the controversy had died down.

• Got together with Aaron for a couple of hours of writing