Science 6.03.2020

SCIENCE sciencemag.org 6 MARCH 2020 • VOL 367 ISSUE 6482 1065

PHOTO: REUTERS/PARWIZ/TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

T

he U.S. Department of Defense (DOD)

wants to kill a unique social science

research program meant to help it

understand nontraditional threats

to national security, from the rapid

growth of China’s technological prow-

ess to radical Islamic terrorism.

The $20 million Minerva Research Initia-

tive is in jeopardy after Defense Secretary

Mark Esper ordered a review that identified

some $5 billion worth of programs deemed

less essential to DOD’s mission. Michael

Griffin, DOD undersecretary for research

and engineering, has made developing hy-

personic weapons a top priority, and DOD

watchers say Minerva doesn’t meet

Griffin’s definition of what his of-

fice, which controls a $16.1 billion

research budget, should fund. In its

2021 budget request, DOD proposed

cuts that could lead to the program’s

demise, but Congress could save it.

“The current undersecretary

doesn’t believe that Minerva is sci-

ence,” says a Democratic congressio-

nal staffer. “He thinks it’s soft, and

his priorities are elsewhere.”

The Minerva program began un-

der former President George W.

Bush. “Too many mistakes have

been made over the years because

our government and military did

not understand—or even seek to

understand—the countries or cultures

we were dealing with,” then–Defense

Secretary Robert Gates said in an April 2008

speech announcing the program.

Gates envisioned a role for researchers in

promoting “soft power—the elements of na-

tional power beyond guns and steel.” He also

hoped that Minerva would improve what

he called the often “hostile” relationship be-

tween DOD and social scientists.

A 2019 evaluation by the U.S. National

Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and

Medicine found that Minerva has met

both those goals over the past decade. Its

111 grants—which now average $1.5 million

over 3 years—“have produced a substantial

body of research in a variety of areas of im-

portance to national security ... [and have]

had a positive impact on the amount of dia-

logue between DOD and the social science

community.” But the findings from Minerva

projects, it added, have been slow to reach the

intended audience of policymakers within

the Pentagon and commanders in the field.

Although Minerva projects represent a

tiny fraction of DOD’s $2.6 billion invest-

ment in basic research, they have gotten out-

size media attention. One example is work

conducted by researchers including cultural

anthropologist Scott Atran of the University

of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and the University

of Oxford. It probes the psychology of sui-

cide bombers, for example, by using brain

scans to track how people react to perceived

threats to their deeply held values.

Economist Eli Berman of the Univer-

sity of California, San Diego, has worked

on Minerva projects that embedded social

scientists with U.S. military leaders in Af-

ghanistan to seek ways to strengthen local

institutions and combat insurgency move-

ments. “The goal was always to be useful

right away,” Berman says.

As social scientists, Minerva grantees

focus on promoting understanding and

preventing conflicts, often through inter-

disciplinary teams. For example, one proj-

ect sent anthropologists to do ethnographic

studies of Indonesian communities, allowed

sociologists to conduct attitudinal surveys

in West Africa, and funded computer scien-

tists to analyze online data related to social

movements in several regions of the world.

The result was a web-based tool, called

LookingGlass, that allows authorities to

track emerging threats by displaying infor-

mation about these movements in real time.

That approach contrasts with the Penta-

gon’s traditional emphasis on tapping basic

research to improve its chances of winning

battles. “Minerva is not going to support

the science needed to develop the tools for

projects that the undersecretary considers a

priority, like hypersonic weapons,” says Erin

Fitzgerald, who directed Minerva for 5 years

and is now a research administrator at the

University of Maryland, College Park. “But

it might help us avoid the need to deploy

those weapons.” As Atran puts it: “If supe-

rior machines and hardware were the way

to win wars, we’d have been out of Afghani-

stan in 2002 and Iraq in 2003. But it’s peo-

ple. And we still don’t understand them.”

Griffin declined comment, but a DOD

spokesperson says Esper’s review al-

lowed Griffin’s office to “scrutinize

and revector our fiscal year 2021 bud-

get request to align more directly with

the department’s modernization pri-

orities.” Asked specifically about the

value of Minerva, the spokesperson

said, “The question was not, ‘Is this

a good effort?’ but rather, ‘Is a dollar

spent on this effort more important to

our military capability than spending

that same dollar on” a priority area?

DOD’s proposed budget would

put Minerva on a path to a rapid

demise. It would eliminate the

$11 million contribution from the

basic research office, leaving Mi-

nerva with some $4 million that

Congress has recently earmarked

for research on how other govern-

ment are using social media to undermine

U.S. institutions and sway public opinion

and to examine the threat posed by China,

Russia, North Korea, and Iran.

The Navy and Air Force could continue to

fund projects they think are useful, although

observers say they are likely to bow out once

money from the basic research office disap-

pears. (The Navy has proposed spending

$3 million in FY2021; the Air Force doesn’t

break out Minerva but has invested roughly

$2 million annually in recent years.)

Minerva backers are hoping its track

record will persuade Congress to protect

the program. “Our biggest concern is to

make sure that the research doesn’t stop,”

the Democratic staffer says. “We think that

Minerva is so important in helping DOD

achieve its mission.” j

Afghan security forces trained by the U.S. military inspect travelers

at a checkpoint near the Pakistani border.

By Jeffrey Mervis

U.S. RESEARCH FUNDING

Pentagon’s social science research faces threat

Minerva initiative falls out of favor in latest DOD review of spending priorities

NEWS | IN DEPTH

Published by AAAS