April 16, 2008

U.S. Defense Secretary Asks Universities for New Cooperation

Washington — Even as many academics impatiently await the end of the Bush administration, Robert M. Gates, the secretary of defense, is offering university presidents detailed proposals for closer ties between his agency and academe, in areas like studying terrorists and China’s military.

In a speech on Monday to the Association of American Universities, Mr. Gates offered warm and conciliatory words for academe, calling it “this pillar of American society.” He said his remarks had been shaped by his stint as president of Texas A&M University from 2002 to 2006.

Mr. Gates even invoked the words of the liberal historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., who said after Sputnik’s launch, in 1957, that the United States “must return to the acceptance of eggheads and ideas if it is to meet the Russian challenge.” The same is true today, Mr. Gates said, if America is to confront new threats.

He said his agency was developing a proposal to finance a new “Minerva Consortium,” named for the goddess of wisdom, of universities to carry out social-sciences research relevant to national security. Among the group’s tasks could be predicting the likely evolution of jihadist extremism, he said.

Mr. Gates promised that such a consortium would operate under “complete openness and rigid adherence to academic freedom and integrity,” and he said the department would accept criticism. Without mentioning the Iraq war, he said, “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.”

Of course, many academics are wary of closer ties to the military. Mr. Gates acknowledged that fact while defending the Human Terrain System, a controversial effort under which anthropologists have advised combat units in war zones.

Mr. Gates also said that some veterans in return view academe with suspicion because of a perceived lack of support for them and their service. Colleges should respond by, for example, offering veterans scholarships and online courses, Mr. Gates suggested. The mutual suspicion “is not good for our men and women in uniform, for our universities, or for our country.”

Mr. Gates also worked in a quip about his earlier stint, under President George H.W. Bush, as director of the Central Intelligence Agency: “When I was president of Texas A&M University, I used to wonder whether it was scarier to be responsible for a vast, global network of spies as I had been at CIA — or be responsible for some 45,000 students between the ages of 18 and 25.” —Jeffrey Brainard

Comments

1. Business as usual for Gates, who was instrumental in politicizing the gathering of intelligence, “cooking the books,” in the 1980s, then using academia to rewrite history to cover his failures. The recent intel fiascos are a Gates legacy. See “Losing the War for Reality,” By Robert Parry April 8, 2008 Consortiumnews.com http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/040708.html

   — Tony B    Apr 16, 11:38 AM    #

2. Why would Gates expect more from universities when he and his boss oppose Jim Webb’s new G.I. Bill?

   For Sen. Jim Webb, it’s a question of fairness: Why don’t veterans of today’s armed services get the same benefits the GI Bill provided “the greatest generation” after World War II?

   But the Virginia Democrat’s effort to remedy the perceived slight, which has gained support in Congress, runs afoul of how officials at the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs want to manage the all-volunteer military. Besides being too expensive and more administratively complex than the current GI Bill, they say it would make it more difficult to retain experienced troops beyond their first hitch.

   Webb’s bill, now backed by 51 senators of both parties, as well as most veterans’ organizations, would boost the education benefit for service members who have been on active duty since Sept. 11, 2001, including those in the National Guard and Reserves.

   “I see the educational benefits in this bill as crucial to a service member’s readjustment to civilian life and as a cost of war that should receive the same priority that funding the war has received the last five years,” Webb said.

   The benefit would cover tuition and fees for the most expensive public university in any state where the veteran resides and pay an allowance for books and housing.

   It also sets up a program so veterans could use the benefit to help pay tuition at more expensive private institutions. If the private school were willing to help the veteran with tuition cost, the government would match it dollar for dollar.

   A House version of the new GI Bill proposal has about 111 supporters.

   […]

   Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who used the GI Bill to get his doctorate at Georgetown University, also said at a recent Senate hearing that he was willing to “take a close look at the bill,” which the Pentagon is currently analyzing.

   Defense and VA officials argue that the current GI Bill is a tool they use to manage the current all-volunteer military force through recruitment and retention, unlike the World War II bill, which was primarily a readjustment benefit aimed at helping the country reabsorb 16 million war veterans. About 7.8 million World War II veterans took advantage of the education benefits.

   But defense officials say raising education benefits too much would provide too much of an incentive for service members to leave the military for school at the end of their first tour.

   “Attracting qualified recruits using large, across-the-board basic benefits incurs the risk that many who enter for the benefits will leave as soon as they can use them,” said Thomas L. Bush, acting deputy assistant secretary of defense.

   That could lower the number of experienced non-commissioned officer and petty officers available and put more pressure on recruiting to replace those that leave, Bush said.

   Bush also said the current GI Bill for active duty is “basically sound and serves its purpose.”

   “The department finds no need for the kind of sweeping and expensive changes offered,” Bush said.

   — veblen    Apr 16, 11:43 AM    #

3. As an A&M faculty member I have a lot of respect for Dr. Gates and miss his not being there as an assurer of fairness and promoter of integrity. I also respect his conservative views and his closeness to the President’s policies, although I find them hard to understand. Even harder it is to understand and accept his proposal to academia for a closer tie with his office. How can such a proposal not adversely affect academic freedom? Dr. Gates should consider, when he leaves office, raising private funds for the proposed forum from sources that are not connected to the DoD or military. I look forward to his serving the nation in a more pure form, as he was doing at A&M, without the burden of having to defend or rationalize failed policies.

   — Artie    Apr 16, 05:45 PM    #

4. “Leadership” at Tx A&M and VT can’t figure out how to build a bonfire or handle a double murder in the dorm & a kiler-at-large. You want these morons to work for US counter-terrorism? They can’t even fulfill their current positions.

   — debster    May 10, 04:32 PM    #

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