Avoiding Lobotomy - Again

As a junior officer in the US Army, and commonly spoken in the undercurrent among both Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs) and junior officers alike, is the “Field Officer lobotomy”(https://www.reddit.com/r/army/comments/v5taom/majors_whats_wrong_with_you/).  This is the thing that happens, somewhere in the development of an officer, typically when they are a Major, when they seemingly forget the basics of how the Army runs, and get lost into some rabbit hole while stuck in the long period between company command and battalion command.  It’s as if we just loose sense of what is “common sense” as well as being grounded in (and with) the very challenging realities of troops at the company level and below.  It’s as if all the staff and broadening “special assignments” time you spend puts you into some esoteric death spiral.  Sure you’re smart or capable, etc, but you’ve become this amorphous blob of uncertainty, indecision, and constant incapability because you’ve lost that command touch.  The vast majority of officers succumb at some point, as if they become “company men” or “women”, and accept the utter stupidity and core failings in the systems instead of seeking to work to challenge them and make for better systems or simply level with folks about the absurdity of it all.

In my military career, I worked really hard, I mean really hard, to not get/have said lobotomy.  Part of this was done by not taking the “normal path”, by eschewing just going with the flow from above as a way to get ahead.  Sure I didn’t run away from the core traditional command assignments (company and battalion command), but I found a way to do things that were impactful and as pragmatic as possible, in between.  That said, when it came to late 2016 and what I was going to do as I reached 20 years of service, I decided that micromanaging whether Johnny Joe or Jane soldier went to their dental appointment as a the way I was being measured as a commander in the Army Reserve, was ludicrous.  While it wasn’t the only reason to opt to decline a full command assignment (medical, career, and family reasons were more prominent), avoiding becoming lobotomized was also on the list.  Soldiers who served with me can tell you how successful or not I was at that task.  By summer 2017, however, I was heading to retirement, lest I succumbed.

So I am now on the cusp of yet another one of those “lobotomy” points.  In 2014 I went to the “dark side” in my career in the AEC (Architecture/Engineering/Construction) world:  I became a full time professor.  This said, I did so in a fashion that was atypical; I did not possess a doctorate.  In academia, these days, holding a PhD is normally the minimum prerequisite for such a role.  But instead I was hired to be a full time instructor and Director of the much more pragmatic Construction Engineering Management program at my alma mater, Clarkson.  If we look back at the history of engineering education, it was not until the 1970s that it became common that those serving as professors held doctorates.  Rather, it was more critical, nay the minimum prerequisite, that you had experience and knowledge that came from practice, demonstrated through licensure and robust professional credentials otherwise, rather than a having a background primarily as a researcher.  At Clarkson in particular, who’s motto is “a workman who needn’t not to be ashamed”, it was very common/valued that most faculty were consultants on the side and had a large portfolio of practical experience before and during their appointments.  Academia, for a variety of reasons, has turned to become research first, practical knowledge second, as the resume required in most settings.  And akin to the above undercurrent in the Army, it’s pretty much the unwritten rule that PhD means you have “pilled high and deep” a wall of theoretical knowledge that makes you lose the ability to have common sense or be grounded in the practical aspects of life.  And that stereotype is way too often more true than false, including a number of my colleagues in my department and beyond.

As I said, I am on the cusp of crossing that PhD line.  Not counting my chickens before they’re hatched, I still have to figure out how to get this last course done and finish the edits to my dissertation by the end of April, but the light outside that tunnel is very bright at this point.  So, if that happens, it’ll be Dr. Backus, fitting in with the crowd that is academia.  Now, strictly speaking, I did not have to pursue this.  I am a Professor of Practice at this point, something academia is finally realizing is needed; not, therefore, requiring a doctorate.  That said, there’s still a barrier to those without one to academic leadership (as was put by one person, “Erik doesn’t have a PhD so he can’t become chair, and shouldn’t remain as XO of the department”).  As I’ve seen time and time again, I’m more or less convinced that the fetish academia has with research, and the normal track for preparation and promotion for professors, is neither good nor healthy long term for the greater academy.  Running a lab, doing fundamental research, and publishing papers, does not prepare you well for become a leader of a department, school, college, etc.  And the things that are needed (eg organizational management & training, practical knowledge, leadership skills, etc.), are seen as almost anathema to gaining tenure and promotion (distractions, as one colleague put it).

So here am I, at that crossroads, about to become “one of them”, a “true academic”, with a doctorate and all to prove it.  I have no intent nor do I desire to work to gain tenure, expecting to remain a Professor of Practice through to retirement (although, I’d be very welcome, many years hence, to be considered for professor emeritus status, should that come about).  I made this pursuit, however, because it will open the doors to more senior leadership academically, given the current way things work, and it will alleviate my rather constant requirements to correct students from referring to me as “Doctor Backus” when I don’t have one.  I have always been a deep and big thinker.  I love learning, I remain ever curious and interested in expanding knowledge.  So I am not allergic to research (there’s parts of it I really like) and have been doing research even as far back as my Masters and in other roles in the military and when I was a practitioner in facilities organizations.  But I really think studying the ability to generate electrical power from lobsters (https://improbable.com/2013/02/06/renewable-power-source-search-lobsters/ ), while novel and cool, is utterly impractical and I am really not that interested in it.  I’m not saying that there isn’t a need for researching such things if they can lead to some real breakthrough, but it’s not my bag.  And to that, I hope it never becomes “my bag” as I stay rooted in the much more pragmatic, like making sure my students actually know how a toilet works, have had the experience of actually hammering a nail, as well as being able to do structural analysis, understand how to do concrete batch designs, size heating and cooling equipment, and build safer, better, and more resilient/sustainable infrastructure & buildings. I just do not want to be lobotomized away from what my experience and continuing practice allow me to do to bring value to my students, in the immediate sense, and through them, for the broader AEC community as a result.

I am going to say, hitting this milestone is something I remain sheepish and humble about.  The resume, so long as things finish as they should, will now list getting a PhD in 2023 (long removed from my Masters in 2004, so a late return to getting a terminal degree).  I will remain a bit of a unicorn, not fitting in exactly and pushing back against the consensus on what the broader academy needs to look like to remain relevant.  I do not believe one can be “over educated” as some seem to think happens here, when you’ve done a pursuit for a doctorate.  But I do get that we cannot and should not stare down our noses or exhibit the too often seen elitism that comes being in an academic ivory tower (evidenced just this week as senior academics poo-pooed the idea that a long-term decades-experienced, successful senior manager in the AEC world was not capable of teaching a masters level course in the “business of construction”, because he lacked an advance degree in business).  And I think engineering education, in particular, needs to return more to the practical, hands on, even trade skill training and education, that keeps us rooted.  I just don’t want to fit the moniker, I don’t want to be unable to relate to, empathize with, and understand the plumber, carpenter, iron worker in the field.  To me, being at the top of what I do means I help tomorrow’s construction (and, more broadly, AEC) leaders, grow in ways that brings better solutions than we come to today, working together and respectfully across backgrounds and experiences.  I just can’t succumb to a PhD lobotomy, in other words.  To that end, I hope those around me keep me grounded accordingly.

Recent Developments in Egypt (last post reprised)

Before I begin, I wish to offer a word of prayer and concern for someone that I know is in the midst of the strife in Egypt. Mohamad Elbardicy was an intern that worked for me (partially) at Facilities at George Mason University.  I ask that we all reflect and think about the real human of the situation in Egypt as well as several others in the world inclusive of Syria.

Offering this note, I want to put forward two posts that I recently made in response to a post by my good friend Brian Farenell on Facebook:

“El Baradei's being charged will get international attention and pressure. While I hate to admit agreeing with Chris Christie, being a voice yelling in the air isn't going to get you anywhere. The Egyptian liberals needed to tie their ship to one side or the other, and the Muslim Brotherhood was not the one to hitch on to. Sadly the military is turning from their normal moderating influence to one of autocratic rule. This indictment is a significant step that's going to get a lot of attention in the West, especially given El Baradai's notoriety and work in the IAEA."

“…, you propose that a third way was a practical option for the liberals in Egypt. Having spent some serious time in the Middle East, I can tell you that unless you have some strength of might, there is little chance that you can effect political outcomes. Simply put the liberals don't and didn't have a way to make a difference in the political situation of their own accord, so they needed to choose one side to latch onto. I too wish they were able to create a third center of gravity, but this is a very bi-polar situation.

As for the military, I did a post on this a few weeks ago on my blog. As I stated, so long as the military hewed to a course supporting the rule if law and just society, we needed to uphold our commitments. I stand by my comments, but the ElBaradei arrest and, now, the Mubarek release bespeak that the Military is not living up to its side of the bargain. It may now be time to re-evaluate our aide. So long as they act with impunity to the lessons we have taught them and the relationships we have built, we need to be serious about delaying if not cutting aide.

This all said, there is still the rub that there are scant possibilities we are going to see an Egypt that emerges as a liberal democracy in the near/long term. And beyond that there is probably little we can do to change that fact. If nothing else the great American neo-con experiment in Iraq proves that we can't wish our way to democracy in the Middle East.”

I post these to my blog as a footnote to my previous post. As I articulated before, I felt and still feel those that were critical of America’s continuance of foreign aide to Egypt during the Morsi era were misplaced in their criticism. Here I am putting forth that we now need to make a re-evaluation. I am not saying that we ought to cut off aide now, but I am saying we need to seriously consider options as it relates to that aide. As I articulate above, the point of our aide and relationship has been to enable the military to be an agent to push forward Egyptian rule of law and democratic institutions. To the extent that they are not following that objective, we need to think about our support of the military. In doing this however, it needs to be surgical, as we need to recognize the larger geopolitical implications, especially with our other allies in the region. As has been implied in several venues, it may be that it is better that the US hitch its support to an oppressive autocratic regime rather than one that seeks the destruction of the US itself (two really bad choices, but sadly ones we may have to choose between). This isn’t going to be clean, and we need to think through this carefully, lest we create a larger problem than already exists or will exist in the future (e.g. we don’t want to create a Mussolini). That said, choosing sides, much like I comment about the Egyptian liberals needing to do, is part of the challenge of this situation.

So in conclusion, we all need to soul search on this. Lets not jump to quick answers, and instead enable time and space to help us make better decisions and policies going forward.

Thoughts on American Foreign Policy regarding Egypt in the last 12 months

Some months ago, when Mohammad Morsi was elected President of Egypt, I saw post after post on Facebook and other social media sites, heavily criticizing the Obama administration for its continued support of the Egyptian military in accordance with the Camp David Accords signed and supported by Republicans and Democrats since the late 1970s, and then implimented during the Regan administration during the 1980s.  Statements such as "Obama is selling warplanes to terrorists!" were prevalent in those days.  These statements easily come from a overtly simplistic analysis of events as they had occured.  The Egyptian military, having wrested power from President Hosni Mubarak, had guided a path toward and including "free and fair elections" for a Parliment and President.  The result was that the Muslim Brotherhood, a historic terrorist organization, and one that tended to Islamic extremism, was seated in power.  So, the aforementioned critics, seeing this, saw that now Egypt was in the hands of the Brotherhood, ergo the military was under the control of "terrorists"; not so fast, say I.

Events of the past weeks, with the Egyptian military staging, essentially, a coup of the Morsi government, show that the earlier analysis of these critics is ignorant of several critical elements, and, thus, their calls to unseat a long standing peace agreement that has kept peace between Egypt and Israel, were simply wrong.  What is clear to me is that these critics know little of Middle Eastern culture, history, and politics.  It is also clear that their criticism belies the fact that they speak from what is essentially an ethnocentric American point of view, not recognizing that the world operates very differently outside of the confines of the borders of the US of A.

Let me start with a quote from Thomas Friedman from this past Sunday on Meet the Press: "We are freaks".  First and foremost, we have a distinct version of democracy here in the USA that is abnormal to the rest of the world's experience.  We have now successfully transitioned power between various poles of the political spectrum, without a shot being fired, for just under 150 years (the Civil War representing the last time we could not resolve our differences peacefully).  And in an even more amazing stripe, we have made these transitions without having the winner use power to decimate the losing party overtly (surely redistricting and targeted campaign funding has been used in some cases, but we have yet to see round-ups of Democrats after Republicans controlled the Legislature and the White House).  So we don't just allow the winner to take power, we also respect the rights of the minority to exist and, more than that, we continue to power broker between the various poles of thought and politics, such that "extremes" rarely can do more than have voice, and simply can't run roughshod on the whole of government/our country.  It is clear that in the Middle East, this level of sophisticated power sharing and ebb/tide process of power exchange is beyond foreign (and for much of the world it is clearly foreign as well, excepting where a monarch/sovereign was the catalyst for such a system to develop).  In a strong sense, this kind of secular government is antithetical and will require strong guiding hands to develop over years if not decades/generations in order to take hold.

Next, we are freaks in that the military is really controlled by our civilian government.  Nothing about this is more iconic than the oil painting in the Pentagon of George Washington returning his sword, the sign of his authority and power, to Congress at the end of the Revolution.  When the President orders us, and when Congress approves the action, we march.  When they say stop, when they say retrograde, they say come home, we do.  We don't act independently of the civilian authority and we certainly cannot realistically even contemplate unseating the institutions of our republic through unified force of arms.  Not only this, but as my good battle buddy Ryan McDavitt reminds me, the concept of soldier that we have as Americans (an honorable, disciplined, servant of the people, called to arms, but also benevolent in action where called to be), is often unheard of elsewhere in the world.  Most of the world hears that soldiers are coming, and they tremble in fear; we walk outside for the parade.  In most of the world, Lincoln's premise that "right makes might" is turned completely around.  The military in many places stands either behind or along side civilian government as a separate "branch" of government, if you will.  In some societies, there is a distinct military class that stands apart, has different rights, and acts above and often is the arbiter/enforcer of any laws that effect all other classes of citizens.  So, those that were quick to judge negatively our continuance of the support of the Egyptian military after the election of the Muslim Brotherhood to civilian leadership of Egypt, for instance, greatly misjudge how that military operates within Egyptian society.

Basically, it was and remains ignorant to think that Egypt's military is subservient to and directed by, the civilian government.  A more astute understanding is that the military is a partner organization to the civilian leadership.  The partnership formed is one of mutual support, in the sense of establishing stable political will and meeting mutually agreed upon foreign policy objectives.  When the relationship becomes such that one side or the other is out of kilter, the civilian government is changed or the military sees a leadership rehash.  This happened with Nasser post the 1967 war (with a major retooling of the military), it happened to install Sadat (remember he was an Army officer), it happened to remove Mubarak, and it has happened again, now, with Morsi.  American policy, through several administrations, has been to develop, wisely, a strong relationship with the Egyptian military, mainly to enable stability, restraint in extreme politics, and as a hedge against threats to our other regional allies, especially Israel.  And, I note, this relationship between our military forces isn't just about sharing how to use their aircraft and preferential sales and how to shoot your rifle better, its also about how a military operates in a civil society, what human rights are all about, and what a functioning democracy looks like.  Not being a pure expert in all of this, I will tell you this is partially why the situation in Egypt has yet to spiral out of control and go into utter chaos; it also is why the military has consistently worked to turn control of the civilian government back over to a group of civilians as fast as possible.  This has worked, partially because, if you look back in history, it has worked in Turkey.

Turkey, what about Turkey?  Lets reflect on the last 100 years in Asia Minor.  If we look back to 1913, the Ottoman Empire was on its last legs, and 6 years and the end of the Great War brought its end.  With the rise of the Young Turks and Ataturk came the rise of a modern, secular Turkey (remember that the Ottoman Sultan's power derived from his holding and preserving the holy places of Islam and the titular role of Caliph), came a nascent democracy.  While America retrenched in many ways after WW I, there was a Turkish exception.  While it is probably overstating it, there developed some key relationships that developed before the German's swallowed Ankara into its sphere of influence (although Turkey remained officially neutral, it signed a non-agresion pact with Nazi Germany in 1941 and when Axis destruction was assured, then declared war on Germany in early 1945).  Once WW II was settled, and British and French influence sunk in the Middle East region, America made it a mission to reinvigorate our relationships with Turkey and made it a mission to join ourselves at the hip with the Turkish military (mainly as a hedge against Soviet influence in the Middle East).  When you look at, then how the government post Ataturk developed, was consistent democratic elections, then corrected by military coup when the parliament/civilian leadership went too far in one extreme or another, then returned to civilian leadership, and so on.  In the 1980s, this cycle more or less closed, and dedication to secular democratic government has been the hallmark of the rise of Turkey in the greater Middle East.  While the Turkish military still stands along side the civilian leadership (rather than under it), the relationship continues to grow closer to a western European/American model, even with the rise of some more Islamic parties in Turkey.

So in writing this entry, I am trying to point to the fact that when it comes to foreign affairs, especially the further you go from western European/American cultural backgrounds, one has to first understand the context, culture, history and societal make-up before commenting on how we approach going forward.  The current Egyptian example proves this point perfectly, in that if you live only in a fairly ignorant American construct of how a military and its government inter-relate, you will miss how we ought to pursue our national objectives in other countries, cultures, and regions.  I can't speak to the full rational of those critics that were so vocal about abruptly ending our military support to Egypt when Morsi and the Brotherhood rose to civilian leadership, but I can say that to have listened to them and acted as they desired, would have been a critical failure.  While I am not happy that a democratically elected government was overthrown, I can say that the Egyptian military keenly understood that the government that was going forward was not just and was not serving the interests of the people of Egypt, at least from their point of view.  Without question, democracy is a good thing as a government form, but it first requires a society that respects rule of law, plurality, and equal rights for those in power as well as out, in order for it to truly work.  Saying this another way, one has to ask is a good thing to have an elected government that terrorizes its own citizens (e.g. Charles Taylor of Liberia) or is it better to have an un-elected government that lives by the rule of law (e.g. King Abdullah II of Jordan)?  Really you want one that is elected and lives by the rule of law, but that is not always possible nor present in any given society.  That said, it requires a culture that has developed that can understand, and make sacred these values, and it may not work in all places at all times.  Clearly, the military in Egypt recognized that the civilian government was not getting them to this goal, but going the opposite direction.  It heard the people and acted.  If we didn't support the military, there wouldn't have been this agent to modulate and guide Egypt to its much brighter future.  When it no longer is that agent, I will concur with the earlier critics, but I will do so knowingly and aware of the context on the ground.  I only pray this helps us all take time to pause and think, before we spout off on the challenging task of guiding American foreign policy generally, but especially in Egypt.