With several observation projects in the works for the coming months - fingers, they should be crossed - I wanted to offer the first draft of primer on the scholarly basis for this form of intellectual investigation and the role it plays in my analysis. Adventurous Research is the term around which I want to codify the practice, even as I have named it otherwise throughout my career. As you will see, however, this particular name fully covers the spirit of the endeavor.
Sometimes I credit Eliot Cohen’s Strategic Studies Department and the trip to the Marine base in 29 Palms, CA, as the inspiration of my scholarly inclination to include ‘smart observation’ as part of my research repertoire. But in fact the real roots are in the year previous, my first at SAIS, when in Bologna I encountered the experience of war with Paul Fussell’s The Great War and Modern Memory. His work on ‘the Matter of Flanders and Picardy’ introduced and laid bare the perspective of practice, not so much to understand the great moments of decision but to reckon the meaning of accumulated details or acute side-glances of life at war. It awakened an interest in the human element of military history and what could be learned by seeing from that view.
Manifesting that new interest in its infancy, and based on earlier legal work I had done on an asylum case for a Serbo-Croatian Bosnian, I dragooned a friend into a summer in Croatia. An alumni from UNHCR had given a talk, and we leveraged that into a self-directed volunteer internship with the organization. The opportunity to trade work with the refugees and displaced persons from the civil wars afflicting the former Yugoslavia for research and learning access was one we could not let pass. And so it began. Throughout my time in military history and affairs, I have made Adventurous Research a part of my work, with dozens of major and minor events and excursions.
Why ‘Adventurous’ Research?
First, the name. I have used various terms at points to describe the activity, but I now settle upon Adventurous Research. I’m stealing this terminological and conceptual framework from a practice of the British armed forces. An idea of “heroic imagination” - a virtue of increasing importance in this era of ersatz wisdom - Adventurous Training is an opportunity afforded service members that is part activity, part campaign planning, part project management.
In theory, a service member can pursue the boldest - or simply the most curious to them - physical escapade, but they must manage the funding, the training, and the execution by their own capabilities and diligence. It is a rather extraordinary opportunity for growth and development along a number of skills. While I have often thought about how to expand the practice in military terms - for example, to codify such activities as Major Evans Carlson’s ad hoc review of the Chinese at war in 1937 during a year of travel away from regular USMC duties - I have also always pursued this course - with this ethos - for myself as a military historian. And here, I want to set out the terms of the method in anticipation of future content in that area.
I have organized the practice around three major pillars. There is no requirement to include all three, but at least one of them must figure prominently. This being a first draft on the concept, I reserve all rights to modify the terms.
Access to Practice and Proximity to the Realities of Practice
What is your subject of inquiry? If you are me, it might be military logistics planning. Then it might pay for you to talk your way into defense level conference on the status of issues related to current operations. Listening in on those discussions - even as you won’t be able to use the details - provides invaluable generalized insights to how things work. Are you an analyst of public order policing in the UK? You might talk your way into the training grounds at Gravesend, or perhaps the operational command center for the policing of a political party conference. If you are quite intrepid, you might take yourself out at moments of protest to observe the policing on the streets as it copes with disorder. There are not always specific research goals, such as when I did three days aboard HMS Enterprise (thread below) - it had no identified research purpose, but the knowledge gained has informed various conceptual works.
Access to ‘Primary Sources’
What do I mean by “primary source” here? Generally it refers either to the space or platform in which an event occurred, or with those who were part of the event. As for the first, of course, most of you are familiar with staff rides (US)/battlefield tours (UK), though I do think the framework woefully under-utilized in other areas. Being witness to the space deepens one’s understanding of events. I would love, for example, to do a Staff Ride of the first night on Tottenham High Road during the 2011 London Riots, as it would demonstrate the flaws in many critiques of the police and understanding of events that evening.
On the second, the distinction between this activity and an interview is that you, the scholar, do not control the interaction. That is, you are among these characters in a space, celebration, remembrance, etc., of their design. For example, as part of my research on the Korean War and the Chosin Campaign, I secured an invitation to the 49th Reunion of the surviving members of 1st Battalion/7th Marines, the storied unit who undertook an overland march overnight to secure the attack in the other direction and led by Medal of Honor recipient Raymond G. Davis. I sat and listened, I watched them interact, I saw the enduring affectionate respect for their former commander. Or that time I accepted a speaking slot at a conference of SERE (Survival Evasion Resistance Escape) trainers because it was going to be tales of exploits among a sea of operators. But wait, there was more - I would get a tour of the training facilities! If you are curious and interested enough, being among such groups offers limitless scholarly opportunities.
Access to Culture and Tradition
How institutions or individuals of an endeavor celebrate and mark noted dates upon the calendar, or how daily practice is defined by broad social and specific organizational culture are revelatory. Trooping the Color is a parade, but as a short course on the British Army, it is, in fact, a deep study of the institution. For my work, the most iconic of these are any form of military dining event. The liturgy of the Marine Corps Birthday Ball, the points of history and identity the celebration highlight, is a window to the values and traits that define the Corps. If you sup comparatively across the services of different countries, dining will reveal how military cultures converge in shared martial tradition and diverge with individual national identity. Even within a national culture, for example, how the Royal Navy and the British Army toast is defined by the differing historical political roles. When you are among all of these influences, you understand the subject of your analysis in intangible ways that enrich the analysis.
So What?
Why do all of this? On the one hand, there is literally no requirement. However, as an extreme outsider in my field, I began this practice as a means to overcome the gap between my experience and that of my subject. But I would argue that even those with experience can benefit from the reorientation to another’s perspective. Moreover, digging into a tangible aspect of one’s research often forces the recognition of limits and challenges that do not read across a page or narrative. And until you see certain activities in operation, it can be hard to understand how much time or many people are required and why. Of course, it is also as interesting a way to supplement learning as I have found to date. Most of all, for me, in a field like military history, connecting to the human element is a necessary corrective to the din of technology and technique.
Coda: Anchors Aweigh!
As an example of what one of my trips looked like, here is a thread of my voyage aboard the Enterprise. It was a phenomenal three days that I return to still for insights, maritime and beyond. While this trip did not figure in any piece of scholarship itself, the tangible understanding of the operation of a ship at sea defines naval capabilities in a broad range of littoral operations. I have a logistics-led urban warfare concept that could be easily led and implemented by naval forces. But at the time, it was enough to exist within the ship, observe and listen to the crew, and try not to fall overboard. Enjoy!