William Johnson

English

Scholars Commons

Canadian Military History
Volume 24 | Issue 2 Article 14
11-23-2015
"Armed with Expertise: The Militarization of
American Social Research During the Cold War
(Book Review)" by Joy Rohde
William Johnson
This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Canadian Military
History by an authorized administrator of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.
Recommended Citation
William Johnson (2015) ""Armed with Expertise: The Militarization of American Social Research During the Cold War (Book
Review)" by Joy Rohde," Canadian Military History: Vol. 24: Iss. 2, Article 14.
Available at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol24/iss2/14
2Q4 : Book Reviews
authors have made this subject to the reading audience. Scotland 
and Heys are outstanding medical historians and are to be 
commended for their work in this book.
MAJ. CHRIS BUCKHAM, ROYAL CANADIAN AIR FORCE
Armed with Expertise: The Militarization of American Social Research 
During the Cold War. Joy Rohde. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 
2013. Pp. 213.
The body of historical literature that attempts to define and describe 
the residual effects of the Cold War on American military thought 
and national policy is enormous. Within that congested environment, 
though, Joy Rohde’s Armed with Expertise is a welcomed contribution 
as a rigorous study of one of the threads of that period that remains 
alive today; the application of social science to military problems. 
Rohde constructs her thesis and analysis around a concept first 
articulated by President Dwight Eisenhower in his farewell address. 
Eisenhower observed: “The prospect of domination of the nation’s 
scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power 
of money is ever present— and is gravely to be regarded.”1 Rohde 
adopts a quasi-case study approach to examine the history of 
a narrow slice of that problem, a close study of the relationship 
between one academic entity, the Special Operations Research Office 
(s o r o ), and American University in the 1960s and 1970s.
Rohde frames her discussion with the observation that military 
use of social science is similar, but not identical, to the other applied 
sciences in that the output of the social scientists was always intended 
to support conceptual formation of military and diplomatic programs. 
The results were not intended to be used as a weapon, but instead 
to advance the exploration into how to influence and control other 
nations and cultures without undue force. Her argument begins with 
a broad discussion of the ongoing relationship between social science 
and government, the former having evolved as a means to create 
knowledge to solve problems attendant to industrialization in the 
early twentieth century.
1 Dwight Eisenhower, “Eisenhower’s Farewell Address to the Nation,” http:// 
nicadanis.posc.niu.edu/ike.htni, accessed on 5 May 2015.
1
: "Armed with Expertise: The Militarization of American Social Research During the Cold War (Book Review)" by Joy Rohde
Published by Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2015
C A N A D I A N  M I L I T A R Y  H I S T O R Y  : 295
Rohde succinctly delineates the tension at the boundary between 
the two: “ (Social science) is scientific: amoral, factual, and technical. 
But it can be normative, for its origins lie in moral commitment to 
social welfare, reform, and progress” (p. 30). The book continues 
with a brief history of military-funded social science research, and 
the author notes that in the post-Korea and pre-Vietnam years, 
during the Eisenhower presidency, there was a visible rise in the 
popular use of scholarly research to inform military ends, soro  was 
one of those hybrid fusions of academic capability and government 
need, and Rohde highlights the rise of soro  by summarizing the 
contributions of three specific soro  scientists (referred to as Sorons): 
Earl DeLong, Jeanne S. Mintz, and Robert Boguslaw. It was the 
collective professional reputation of these three and their peers that 
gave the soRo/American University tandem a degree of legitimacy. 
During that phase of the Cold War, the social sciences studied the 
prospect of ideological expansion as a threat to the United States. 
That threat compelled the military customer to remove the research 
from the pure “white” of open academic discussion and review, into 
the gray area somewhere between pure academia and the military 
establishment.
soro  sought to test various approaches to social change, with 
an eye to countering the rise of communism globally. One of the 
pillars in this research regarded communicating with non-literate 
populations; those theories and conclusions echo even today in the 
wider attempt to understand how to capture hearts and minds of a 
culture, region, or state. At the time, Rohde observes, the researchers 
likely did not view themselves as military contractors, but instead as 
scholars who could offer scientific solutions to social questions. The 
gray area gave private scholars, those who might not otherwise work 
for the Department of Defense, a sort of de-militarized zone in which 
they could work for both government and academia.
During and immediately after Vietnam, however, the gray area 
came under attack. Critics assailed the de-facto construct as the 
exploitation of scholarly expertise to both evade democracy and 
empower a more militarized state. The ensuing schism led to American 
University removing soro  from their campus. Unfortunately, for 
those well-intentioned and outraged administrators and faculty, the 
action simply drove soro  even closer to the military sponsor, s o r o , 
and others, simply reintroduced themselves to the world under new 
identities, this time without university allegiance or oversight.
2
Canadian Military History, Vol. 24 [2015], Iss. 2, Art. 14
http://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol24/iss2/14
296 : Book Reviews
The final chapters of the book discuss the consequences of that 
evolved relationship between the scholar and the state. Without the 
leavening influence of the parent universities, and as research became 
increasingly classified by the military customer, the new think-tanks 
suffered from the separation from former academic peers. Absent 
open discussion and peer-review, their scholarship often devolved into 
a sort of group-think, self-affirming and without external criticism. 
That loss of transparency caused by the absence of contact between 
contracted researchers and their former academic peers left the former 
in what Rohde terms the dark area. The translucence of the gray area 
reduced to opaque in the dark of the classified military world.
Well written and extensively documented, this readable study 
is limited just to the so ro  story in the 1960s and 1970s. Beyond 
a few, minor exceptions, Rohde does not stray from that end, and 
her discipline sustains a keen focus on the chosen subject. Her use 
of a broad array of sources lends gravity to the book’s analysis and 
conclusion and strengthens her argument throughout. Rohde’s linkage 
of soro  and the military use of social science during the Cold War 
to the modern Human Terrain System and the collective counter­
insurgency tactics for military, forces winning hearts and minds of 
affected societies (e.g. Afghanistan) and gives the book contemporary 
relevance in the context of the modern history of conflict.
Even with these strengths, the book is not perfect. From a 
purely social-science perspective, there is an absence of granularity 
in the author’s use of broad and ill-defined terms like militarization, 
which may create some unintended arguments with particular 
readers. Additionally, the close study of soro  necessarily omits cross- 
comparison with other, similar institutions. It would have helped 
to place the soro  narrative into an integrated context, but using 
Rohde’s work as a primary part of departure this is fertile ground for 
future study and analysis.
Armed with Expertise is a refreshing and original look at the 
introduction and growth of social science research in a military 
context. The book alludes to the ethical complexities sometimes 
attendant with government contracting of private expertise, but is 
primarily concerned with telling the story of one priva.te/academic/ 
government relationship in the Cold War, and explaining how that 
story remains relevant. The story is instructive about conditions that 
existed in the 1960s, while also assisting the reader in understanding
3
: "Armed with Expertise: The Militarization of American Social Research During the Cold War (Book Review)" by Joy Rohde
Published by Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2015
C A N A D I A N  M I L I T A R Y  H I S T O R Y  : 297
the nuances and implications of such relationships today. Rohde’s book 
is a terrific contribution to the literature in both arenas.
WILLIAM H. JOHNSON, INDEPENDENT RESEARCHER
Canada in the Great Power Game: igi4-20i4. Gwynne Dyer. 
Toronto: Random House, 2014. Pp. 448.
Gwynne Dyer’s Canada in the Great Power Game: 1014-2014 is 
an examination of Canada’s place in the world as it interacted and 
reacted to the changing international system that governed the 
world’s great powers. While Canada was certainly not among the 
Great Powers, Dyer describes how Canadians made their views and 
influence known (or were ignored in some cases). It is a Canadian 
perspective on its place in the world, but as a historical work it 
sometimes suffers from that narrow lens.
In its opening pages, Dyer declares his goal to “recount the 
wars” of the last century and “account for them” (p. 1). He is aware 
of the nationalizing narratives that often sway Canadian histories 
of its wartime roles throughout the twentieth century. As such, he 
consciously takes a position between two extremes of glorifying 
the sacrifices Canadians have made abroad, or denouncing them 
wholeheartedly. Instead, he argues that the people running Canada 
were “intelligent [and] reasonably well-informed,” who learned from 
past experience as the Canadian position in the world evolved. 
Ultimately, Canadian leaders challenged “the very basis of the great- 
power game” and emerged as leaders in the attempt to change that 
system (p. 5). From a perfunctory role in the Boer War and the First 
World War, Canada helped fashion an international system after 
the Second World War that prevented future global conflicts. Even 
though it is not a perfect system, Dyer writes, organizations like the 
United Nations and NATO helped end the cycle of Great Power wars 
of the early nineteenth and twentieth century— at least so far.
Herein lies the crux of Dyer’s work, which repeats in various 
ways as he progresses through the twentieth century. Canada shaped 
the international system that prevents wars. In his final pages Dyer 
praises the “job we embarked on almost a hundred years ago” to 
restructuring the international system (p. 398). Yet few historians 
would argue that Canada had any major role in shaping those
4
Canadian Military History, Vol. 24 [2015], Iss. 2, Art. 14
http://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol24/iss2/14


Armed with Expertise: The Militarization of American Social Research During the Cold War (Book Review)  by Joy Rohde

Wilfrid Laurier University

Canadian Military HistoryVolume 24 | Issue 2 Article 1411-23-2015"Armed with Expertise: The Militarization ofAmerican Social Research During the Cold War(Book Review)" by Joy RohdeWilliam JohnsonThis Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Canadian MilitaryHistory by an authorized administrator of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.Recommended CitationWilliam Johnson (2015) ""Armed with Expertise: The Militarization of American Social Research During the Cold War (BookReview)" by Joy Rohde," Canadian Military History: Vol. 24: Iss. 2, Article 14.Available at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol24/iss2/142Q4 : Book Reviewsauthors have made this subject to the reading audience. Scotland and Heys are outstanding medical historians and are to be commended for their work in this book.MAJ. CHRIS BUCKHAM, ROYAL CANADIAN AIR FORCEArmed with Expertise: The Militarization of American Social Research During the Cold War. Joy Rohde. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013. Pp. 213.The body of historical literature that attempts to define and describe the residual effects of the Cold War on American military thought and national policy is enormous. Within that congested environment, though, Joy Rohde’s Armed with Expertise is a welcomed contribution as a rigorous study of one of the threads of that period that remains alive today; the application of social science to military problems. Rohde constructs her thesis and analysis around a concept first articulated by President Dwight Eisenhower in his farewell address. Eisenhower observed: “The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present— and is gravely to be regarded.”1 Rohde adopts a quasi-case study approach to examine the history of a narrow slice of that problem, a close study of the relationship between one academic entity, the Special Operations Research Office (s o r o ), and American University in the 1960s and 1970s.Rohde frames her discussion with the observation that military use of social science is similar, but not identical, to the other applied sciences in that the output of the social scientists was always intended to support conceptual formation of military and diplomatic programs. The results were not intended to be used as a weapon, but instead to advance the exploration into how to influence and control other nations and cultures without undue force. Her argument begins with a broad discussion of the ongoing relationship between social science and government, the former having evolved as a means to create knowledge to solve problems attendant to industrialization in the early twentieth century.1 Dwight Eisenhower, “Eisenhower’s Farewell Address to the Nation,” http:// nicadanis.posc.niu.edu/ike.htni, accessed on 5 May 2015.1: "Armed with Expertise: The Militarization of American Social Research During the Cold War (Book Review)" by Joy RohdePublished by Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2015C A N A D I A N  M I L I T A R Y  H I S T O R Y  : 295Rohde succinctly delineates the tension at the boundary between the two: “ (Social science) is scientific: amoral, factual, and technical. But it can be normative, for its origins lie in moral commitment to social welfare, reform, and progress” (p. 30). The book continues with a brief history of military-funded social science research, and the author notes that in the post-Korea and pre-Vietnam years, during the Eisenhower presidency, there was a visible rise in the popular use of scholarly research to inform military ends, soro  was one of those hybrid fusions of academic capability and government need, and Rohde highlights the rise of soro  by summarizing the contributions of three specific soro  scientists (referred to as Sorons): Earl DeLong, Jeanne S. Mintz, and Robert Boguslaw. It was the collective professional reputation of these three and their peers that gave the soRo/American University tandem a degree of legitimacy. During that phase of the Cold War, the social sciences studied the prospect of ideological expansion as a threat to the United States. That threat compelled the military customer to remove the research from the pure “white” of open academic discussion and review, into the gray area somewhere between pure academia and the military establishment.soro  sought to test various approaches to social change, with an eye to countering the rise of communism globally. One of the pillars in this research regarded communicating with non-literate populations; those theories and conclusions echo even today in the wider attempt to understand how to capture hearts and minds of a culture, region, or state. At the time, Rohde observes, the researchers likely did not view themselves as military contractors, but instead as scholars who could offer scientific solutions to social questions. The gray area gave private scholars, those who might not otherwise work for the Department of Defense, a sort of de-militarized zone in which they could work for both government and academia.During and immediately after Vietnam, however, the gray area came under attack. Critics assailed the de-facto construct as the exploitation of scholarly expertise to both evade democracy and empower a more militarized state. The ensuing schism led to American University removing soro  from their campus. Unfortunately, for those well-intentioned and outraged administrators and faculty, the action simply drove soro  even closer to the military sponsor, s o r o , and others, simply reintroduced themselves to the world under new identities, this time without university allegiance or oversight.2Canadian Military History, Vol. 24 [2015], Iss. 2, Art. 14http://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol24/iss2/14296 : Book ReviewsThe final chapters of the book discuss the consequences of that evolved relationship between the scholar and the state. Without the leavening influence of the parent universities, and as research became increasingly classified by the military customer, the new think-tanks suffered from the separation from former academic peers. Absent open discussion and peer-review, their scholarship often devolved into a sort of group-think, self-affirming and without external criticism. That loss of transparency caused by the absence of contact between contracted researchers and their former academic peers left the former in what Rohde terms the dark area. The translucence of the gray area reduced to opaque in the dark of the classified military world.Well written and extensively documented, this readable study is limited just to the so ro  story in the 1960s and 1970s. Beyond a few, minor exceptions, Rohde does not stray from that end, and her discipline sustains a keen focus on the chosen subject. Her use of a broad array of sources lends gravity to the book’s analysis and conclusion and strengthens her argument throughout. Rohde’s linkage of soro  and the military use of social science during the Cold War to the modern Human Terrain System and the collective counter­insurgency tactics for military, forces winning hearts and minds of affected societies (e.g. Afghanistan) and gives the book contemporary relevance in the context of the modern history of conflict.Even with these strengths, the book is not perfect. From a purely social-science perspective, there is an absence of granularity in the author’s use of broad and ill-defined terms like militarization, which may create some unintended arguments with particular readers. Additionally, the close study of soro  necessarily omits cross- comparison with other, similar institutions. It would have helped to place the soro  narrative into an integrated context, but using Rohde’s work as a primary part of departure this is fertile ground for future study and analysis.Armed with Expertise is a refreshing and original look at the introduction and growth of social science research in a military context. The book alludes to the ethical complexities sometimes attendant with government contracting of private expertise, but is primarily concerned with telling the story of one priva.te/academic/ government relationship in the Cold War, and explaining how that story remains relevant. The story is instructive about conditions that existed in the 1960s, while also assisting the reader in understanding3: "Armed with Expertise: The Militarization of American Social Research During the Cold War (Book Review)" by Joy RohdePublished by Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2015C A N A D I A N  M I L I T A R Y  H I S T O R Y  : 297the nuances and implications of such relationships today. Rohde’s book is a terrific contribution to the literature in both arenas.WILLIAM H. JOHNSON, INDEPENDENT RESEARCHERCanada in the Great Power Game: igi4-20i4. Gwynne Dyer. Toronto: Random House, 2014. Pp. 448.Gwynne Dyer’s Canada in the Great Power Game: 1014-2014 is an examination of Canada’s place in the world as it interacted and reacted to the changing international system that governed the world’s great powers. While Canada was certainly not among the Great Powers, Dyer describes how Canadians made their views and influence known (or were ignored in some cases). It is a Canadian perspective on its place in the world, but as a historical work it sometimes suffers from that narrow lens.In its opening pages, Dyer declares his goal to “recount the wars” of the last century and “account for them” (p. 1). He is aware of the nationalizing narratives that often sway Canadian histories of its wartime roles throughout the twentieth century. As such, he consciously takes a position between two extremes of glorifying the sacrifices Canadians have made abroad, or denouncing them wholeheartedly. Instead, he argues that the people running Canada were “intelligent [and] reasonably well-informed,” who learned from past experience as the Canadian position in the world evolved. Ultimately, Canadian leaders challenged “the very basis of the great- power game” and emerged as leaders in the attempt to change that system (p. 5). From a perfunctory role in the Boer War and the First World War, Canada helped fashion an international system after the Second World War that prevented future global conflicts. Even though it is not a perfect system, Dyer writes, organizations like the United Nations and NATO helped end the cycle of Great Power wars of the early nineteenth and twentieth century— at least so far.Herein lies the crux of Dyer’s work, which repeats in various ways as he progresses through the twentieth century. Canada shaped the international system that prevents wars. In his final pages Dyer praises the “job we embarked on almost a hundred years ago” to restructuring the international system (p. 398). Yet few historians would argue that Canada had any major role in shaping those4Canadian Military History, Vol. 24 [2015], Iss. 2, Art. 14http://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol24/iss2/14

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Armed with Expertise: The Militarization of American Social Research During the Cold War (Book Review) by Joy Rohde

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