Pete Turner on “Collecting Instability”

June 12th, 2015 by zen

We are fans of Rich. He’s a warrior, professor, surfer, hunter, all-around brilliant, rugged dude. His current gig is working as a Poli Sci professor at Troy University in Troy Alabama. Rich and I worked together in Afghanistan studying how effective or “affective” our work was as US assets helping Afghans. It’s not common for Poli Sci professors to get so close to the ground truth, and then to be able to test our policy and strategic programs as they implemented at the lowest level. This experience, we believe, is fascinating and applies directly to the real world.

Listen to the interview here on The Break it Down Show.

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Posted in 21st century, 4GW, academia, Afghanistan, Break it Down Show, COIN, counterinsurgency, cultural intelligence, DIME, expertise, Failed State, government, ideas, insurgency, intellectuals, intelligence, interdisciplinary, military, military intelligence, non-state actors, Perception, Podcast, politics, population, reform, social networks, social science, social services, society, soft power, Taliban | 1 comment

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  1. Nathaniel T. Lauterbach:

    June 14th, 2015 at 12:35 pm

    Reminds me of a old phrase out of some book: “Development in a Box”.
    .
    No doubt that poor Army Major was being led by somebody who was thinking that the Army was for “Systems Administration”, rather than their ancient job of killing and breaking.
    .
    My problem with all this is that, as usual, the military and government are left holding the bag whenever some insane idea dreamt up by some academic or think-tank policy wonk with no skin in the game manages to convince us that this is a good idea. Com artists.