The PSOTEW’s third working group, Transforming Ideas into
Operations: The Minerva Project on Operationalizing Social
Science Research for Defense Users, tackled the issue of confronting what may be the Joint Force’s most nettlesome challenge for years to come.
Due to an increasingly complex security environment, this
situation presents DoD and the Joint Force a need for greater
understanding of the social, cultural, behavioral, and political
forces that drive conflict and influence stability. The Center for
Complex Operations (CCO), on behalf of the U.S. Department
of Defense Minerva Grants Initiative is looking to identify,
develop, and map pathways that most effectively convey social science research insights to Joint and Service professional
military education (PME) and leader development. Through
a book and a related project, it is looking to address an often
misunderstood and misdiagnosed catalyst of de-stabilization:
illicit power structures.
The results will be published as a book titled, Impunity: Countering Illicit Structures in War and Transition, co –edited by
Michael Miklaucic, Director of Research and PRISM Editor
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at the NDU-CCO, who is also the Minerva project leader, and
Michelle Hughes, who is the Senior Analyst for the project.
The theory of the book is that international interventions are
directly undermined by the presence of criminal networks,
militias, and other illicit groups that enrich themselves through
trafficking, exploitation of national resources, and the capture
of state institutions. These groups perpetuate underlying drivers
of conflict and a culture of impunity. Ultimately, their presence and power precludes achievement of our national security
objectives. Experience has shown that unless we recognize and
address this complex threat as part of our collective response
to conflict and instability, prospects for sustainable peace and
conflict resolution are significantly diminished.
The Minerva Initiative is a DoD-sponsored, university-based
social science research initiative launched by the Secretary of
Defense in 2008 focusing on areas of strategic importance to
U.S. national security policy. The goal of the Minerva Initiative
is to improve DoD's basic understanding of the social, cultural,
behavioral, and political forces that shape regions of the world
of strategic importance to the U.S.