Salient Features of India constitution especially power and functions
The Cost Of War: Thinking Critically About Conflict In The Middle East
1. The Cost of War: Thinking Critically about
Conflict in the Middle East
Nathan Tichy and Robert McClure
Department of Education, St. Olaf College
2. Purpose of the Study
• “Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper
meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with
our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may
prosper together.” –Eisenhower
The purpose of this study was to create a critical thinking exercise to
help students develop a deeper understanding of the actual costs
associated with war, particularly in the Middle East.
3. Background
• Eisenhower, 1960 speech on the military industrial complex:
(watch from the 6:50 minute time stamp to 11:28)
• Audio/Visual clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyBNmecVtdU
• Article found:
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/eisenhower001.asp
(This is the transcript of the speech).
4. SOFEX: The Business of War
• SOFEX (Special Operations Forces Exhibition and
Conference) Yeary 1996 to 2019
• https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-
itm-001&hsimp=yhs-
001&hspart=itm&p=sofex+vice#id=1&vid=66908d4d0
82bad45bcbc90c6a3a6f933&action=click 20 minute
video is excellent. Watch from beginning to at least 9
minute time stamp.
5. The Problem
• Fear expressed in 1960 by President Eisenhower has been
manifested through the current billion dollar industry that
has arisen and grown world-wide.
• The profits of conflict seem apparent, but how are these
profits calculated? What expenses are included in these
calculations? Are the corporations involved in this industry
responsible for all of the costs associated with war?
• Long term medical care?
• Infrastructure?
• Loss of human capital? Etc……
6. The Instructional Plan
• Divide class into teams of 2-3 students after watching the Eisenhower and
SOFEX videos
• Great Youtube clip on hidden cost of war (2 ½ min)
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OT5uw1Fb_0
• Have teams take a marker and find an open space on our classroom’s dry
erase, “write-on walls”. They are to brainstorm ideas associated with the
costs of war.
• Ideas from previous slide will help them get started
• After several minutes, stop brainstorming session and share-out ideas
with class
7. Team Task
• Team task is to create an algorithm for calculating the cost of war
and transfer that algorithm to an operational spreadsheet
• May use Excel, pages, etc
• Then, apply you algorithm to a past conflict in the Middle East
• Have a list available for teams to choose from (Six-Day War,
Syrian Conflict, War in Yemen, Iran-Iraq War, etc. See
Wikipedia for more selections).
• Teams create a poster to display during our next class session.
Teams will vote on the best algorithm. Top three teams win a
bag of Ghiradeli Chocolates.
8. Guide for Creating and Using an Excel Spreadsheet
• Good video for creating and using a basic spreadsheet
• https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-itm-
001&hsimp=yhs-
001&hspart=itm&p=youtube+video+on+creating+excel+spreadsheets
#id=1&vid=5bd26f2d8b2960eedd353909f8691816&action=click
9. Poster Components
• Name of conflict being investigated.
• A visual of their team’s algorithm, complete with categories and
costs.
• A summary statement describing the strengths and possible
weaknesses associated with their algorithm.
• A summary of the cost of the conflict chosen by the team.
• Post and 60 second oral presentation of their poster.
• Link to Team Poster Rubric (teams self assess):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bwm-
Ofk66y4ldlAyN2VIQlVta0lQdGlqby1OczdhSDJrS2o0/view?usp=shar
ing
10. Poster Competition
•Teams get 5 colored dots to vote for best
poster. Cannot vote for your own.
•Awards and discussion.
11. Supplementary Materials
• Supplementary materials are available through:
• Attached documents for this presentation from NSSA; or
• Email directly at mcclure@stolaf.edu
• Slides 14 and 15
• Supplementary materials include:
• A draft of the paper submitted to the NSSA for the Proceedings.
• Detailed instructional plans.
• Current resources on conflicts in the Middle East.
• The Critical Thinking Self-Assessment for the activity
12. Individual Assessment Activity
• ”What I can do in a group today, I can do by myself tomorrow”
(Personal communication with David Johnson from the University of
Minnesota (Cooperative Learning Institute))
• After the poster activity have individual students apply a revised
algorithm to project the possible costs associated with the current,
potential conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
• Assigned as homework.
• See resources provided to students in our resources supplementary
document and on slides 14 and 15
13. Summary of Activity
• Observations:
• Students seemed very engaged in the activity.
• 1-minute paper responses from each student regarding the activity indicated
that it was fun, relevant, and very engaging. Students indicated that they
learned a lot about conflicts in the Middle East and, also, the cost of conflicts
in general.
• We had 100% of the critical thinking assessments completed at a satisfactory
level (59 out of 59 students).
• We will do this again. Robert in upcoming Human Geography of the Middle
East, and Nathan in his future social studies classrooms.
• We were extremely pleased with student engagement and learning.
14. Cost of War General resources:
• Cost of War General resources:
• Afghanistan Open Data Project: http://afghanistandataproject.org/
• Afghanistan Ministry of Defense: https://mod.gov.af/en
• Council on Foreign Relations: Global Conflict Tracker.
https://www.cfr.org/interactive/global-conflict-
tracker/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI3OTonbe65QIVoP7jBx3zNgo0EAAYASAAEgJ0wfD_B
wE&category=us
• CIA: https://www.cia.gov/index.html
• Global Security.org: https://www.globalsecurity.org/index.html
• The Humanitarian Data Exchange: https://data.humdata.org/
• The International Crisis Group: https://www.crisisgroup.org/
• Iran Data Portal: https://twitter.com/irandataportal
15. Cost of War General resources continued:
• Iraq Displaced Communities Cluster: Great point of entry for related issues. https://data2.unhcr.org/en/situations/iraq_cccm
• Kurdish People Fast Facts: https://www.cnn.com/2014/08/18/world/kurdish-people-fast-facts/index.html
• Population pyramids: http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/world-population-pyramid
• Relief Web: https://reliefweb.int/countries
• Statista: https://www.statista.com/
• True Costs of War: https://www.veteransforpeace.org/our-work/true-costs-war
• UNICEF. https://www.unicef.org/sowc96/1cinwar.htm
• The United Nations Refugee Agency: https://www.unhcr.org/
• U.S. Veteran’s Affairs: https://www.va.gov/opa/publications/factsheets/fs_americas_wars.pdf
• War and Peace. https://ourworldindata.org/war-and-peace
• World Bank: https://data.worldbank.org/
• The World Health Organization: https://www.who.int/
• World Population Review: http://worldpopulationreview.com/
•
16. Questions?
•If you have any questions or requests please
contact:
•Robert McClure: mcclure@stolaf.edu
•Nathan Tichy: tichy1@stolaf.edu
Editor's Notes
Slide #1: Welcome to our to our presentation on “The Cost of War: Thinking Critically about Conflict in the Middle East” On behalf of Nathan and I, are intention is to provide those interested with a dynamic and easy to implement, tested curriculum (learning segment) for teaching costs associated with war and conflict from a Middle Eastern, human geography perspective. We believe, with some modification, that this 2-5 day learning segment can be easily adapted to middle school through college level classrooms.
Slide #2: Nathan and I became interested in doing something in our Middle East human geography course during September of 2019. News around the topic of the conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran was escalating. On September 14th Several Saudi oil refineries were bombed by drones, believed to be by the Iranians. Tensions were high.
Another topic that began to have traction in the news was the cost of the Afghanistan conflict. Figures ranged from 1 trillion USD to over 7 trillion. Why the large range in costs? How were these costs from different sources calculated?
These costs, juxtaposed against the “business of war” created an interesting conundrum, which provided direction for the development of our learning segment: to help our Middle East human geography students develop a deeper understanding of the costs associated with war.
Slide #3: Shows links to the video of President Eisenhower’s speech from 1960 warning Americans of the growing power of our military industrial complex. The article link is a transcript of the speech. Some say this is an eerie prophecy. If you have time I encourage you to watch all or part of this video. The references to the military industrial complex, time stamped 6:50 to 11:28 on the video is particularly relevant to our topic.
Slide #5: The Problem: We have seen the profits of war in the videos, and the warning to global citizens about how profits could influence our behavior. But what about the costs? How are costs of war/conflicts calculated? Obviously there are different ways of calculating these costs (see costs of the Afghanistan war/conflict)
Slide #6: Read off the instructional plan. We encourage you to watch the great YouTube clip on the hidden cost of war. This helps students to start thinking about possible costs associated with war/conflict.
Slide #7: Read off Team task. Working in groups of 2-4 teams are presented with their task/challenge. You could have students self select (helps with them meeting for outside of class work), OR you can randomly assign teams of 3-4 (have them create a Google Doc and share it with professor/teacher)
Team challenge, poster presentation, and prizes. Helps build positive interdependence among team members. And fun.
Slide #8: This slide provides 2 good resources for how to use a basic excel spreadsheet. Model one for the class on a non-ME conflict so they can see how the their algorithm transfers to the spreadsheet AND how we determined input for our cost of war algorithm
Slide #9: Poster components. See attached Team Poster self-assessment for the team poster due by next class time (With younger students we would add an in-class work day for guided/independent research and poster development).
Slide #10: Poster competition. After posters are displayed, students provide a 60 overview of their poster to the whole class. Teams are given 5 colored dots to vote with. Teams determine how they will vote for the best posters using their dots. Cannot vote for your own poster. May distribute the dot votes as they determine.
Slide #11: Supplemental material are either attached if possible, OR available through the NSSA, OR you can email me or Nathan and we will send you everything we have to help you with this project OR slides 14 and 15
Slide #12: Great quote from a past acquaintance of mine, Dave Johnson from the cooperative learning center at the U. of Minnesota Read it.
Individual assessment: Apply their team’s, or slightly revised, algorithm to the current, potential conflict between Saudi Arabia. Assign as a homework (college) or in-class (secondary classes) activity. Provide students with resources to help them get started. See resource list
