Troping the Enemy: Metaphor, Culture, and the Big Data Black Boxes of National Security

This article considers how cultural understanding is being brought into the work of the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), through an analysis of its Metaphor program. It examines the type of social science underwriting this program, unpacks implications of the agency’s conception of metaphor for understanding so-called cultures of interest, and compares IARPA’s to competing accounts of how metaphor works to create cultural meaning. The article highlights some risks posed by key deficits in the Intelligence Community\u27s (IC) approach to culture, which relies on the cognitive linguistic theories of George Lakoff and colleagues. It also explores the problem of the opacity of these risks for analysts, even as such predictive cultural analytics are becoming a part of intelligence forecasting. This article examines the problem of information secrecy in two ways, by unpacking the opacity of “black box,” algorithm-based social science of culture for end users with little appreciation of their potential biases, and by evaluating the IC\u27s nontransparent approach to foreign cultures, as it underwrites national security assessments

Special Libraries, January 1966

Volume 57, Issue 1https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sla_sl_1966/1000/thumbnail.jp

Special Libraries, April 1962

Volume 53, Issue 4https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sla_sl_1962/1003/thumbnail.jp

Defense R&D and information technology in a long-term perspective la rd militaire et les technologies de l'information en longue période

Defense R&D is usually considered as an economic burden, implying an eviction effect on civilian R&D and perverting the national systems of innovation. If arms production benefits nowadays from advanced civilian R&D, the flow of technology was not always in the same direction–especially in the 1950s and 1960s. Moreover, since the beginning of the 1990s, some technologies, classified for a long time as purely defense ones (GaAs, GPS, computer networking, etc.), have found new civilian applications. Why technological opportunities created by defense R&D are not systematically seized by commercial firms? First, technology transfers come true only when a legal framework exists and allows commercial firms to get access to the « military technological fund ». Second, the global economic context appears as the greatest incentive to engage civilian firms in exploiting defense technologies, as an investment opportunity. In a long-term perspective, when specific conditions are set up or exist, defense R&D can become a means of strengthening the international competitiveness of national economies. La RD de défense est souvent considérée comme un fardeau pour l'économie, impliquant un effet d'éviction sur la RD civile et pervertissant le système national d'innovation. Si la production d'armements profite aujourd'hui des avancées de la RD civile, le flot de technologies n'a pas toujours été dans la même direction – tout particulièrement dans les années 1950 et 1960. De plus, depuis le début des années 1990, quelques technologies, longtemps classées comme purement militaires (GaAs, GPS, réseaux informatiques, etc.), ont trouvé de nouvelles applications civiles. Pour quelles raisons les opportunités technologiques créées par la R&D de défense ne sont-elles pas systématiquement saisies par les firmes commerciales ? Premièrement, les transferts de technologies se concrétisent seulement quand un cadre légal existe et autorise les firmes commerciales à avoir accès au « fonds technologique militaire ». Deuxièmement, le contexte économique global constitue une incitation importante pour engager les firmes civiles à exploiter les technologies de défense. Dans une perspective de longue période, quand les conditions idoines sont mises en place ou existent, la RD de défense peut ainsi devenir un moyen de renforcer la compétitivité internationale des économies nationales.Defense R&D, Information Technology, international Competitiveness, Global Positioning System, Networking

Multilateral security in the Mediterranean post-Cold War: NATO’s Mediterranean Dialogue and the EuroMed Partnership. Jean Monnet/Robert Schuman Paper Series Vol. 7 No. 10 May 2007

[From the introduction]. In this paper I will compare and contrast how the multilateral efforts in terms of NATO’s Mediterranean Dialogue (“Dialogue”) program, involving i.a. U.S. interests in the Mediterranean, and the European Union’s (“EU”) EuroMed Partnership as the EU’s European Neighborhood Policy’s main approach to its Mediterranean neighbors (3) have affected Mediterranean security post-Cold War. This study takes place at the system level of analysis, exploring both bilateral and regional issues and interactions, including those of institutional and non-governmental actors (NGOs) (Neak 2003, 12). This paper takes a constructivist approach and, although acknowledging aspects of realism inherent in it such as rational actors (4), by contrasting the hard power and soft power approaches in the institutional analysis (in order to understand the history, culture and institutional dynamics post-Cold War) of the EMP and the Dialogue. Klotz and Lynch (2007, 3) write: The end of the Cold War shattered stable antagonisms and alliances… This destabilization widened the political and intellectual spaces - and increased the need – for scholars to ask questions about the cultural bases of conflict, alternative conceptions of national identity, [and] the ethics of intervention… Individuals and groups are not only shaped by their world but can also change it. People can … set into motion new normative, cultural, economic, social, or political practices that alter conventional wisdoms and standard operating procedures

Special Libraries, February 1956

Volume 47, Issue 2https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sla_sl_1956/1001/thumbnail.jp

Special Libraries, July-August 1951

Volume 42, Issue 6https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sla_sl_1951/1005/thumbnail.jp