Montgomery McFate

Montgomery McFate (born 8 January 1966) is a cultural anthropologist who works on defense and national security issues. Dr. McFate is currently the Senior Social Scientist for the US Army’s Human Terrain System.

Education and Career

McFate received a B.A. from University of California at Berkeley, a Ph.D in Anthropology from Yale University, and a J.D. (professional legal qualification) from Harvard Law School. Her Ph.D dissertation concerned British counterinsurgency in Northern Ireland. According to The New Yorker 'she spent living among supporters of the Irish Republican Army and then among British counterinsurgents,' where she discovered that 'insurgency runs in families and social networks, held together by persistent cultural narratives'.

Before being awarded a fellowship at the US Navy’s Office of Naval Research McFate worked as a social scientist in [[RAND Corporation|RAND’s] Intelligence Policy Center. She also took a clinical internship on the United States Attorney's Office Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Squad, a fellowship at Human Rights Watch, and experience as a litigation associate at the law firm of Baker & McKenzie in San Francisco.

In 2004 whilst at the Office of Naval Research McFate says she got a call from a science adviser to the Joint Chiefs of Staff who was asked to advise on Iraqi society and according to The New Yorker 'turned for help to one of the few anthropologists he could find in the Defense Department'.

Views

McFate is one of a number of figures within the US military establishment who advocate the use of cultural anthropology as a means of military domination (other notable figures include John Nagl and David Kilcullen). In 2006 The New Yorker wrote that: 'For five years, McFate...has been making it her “evangelical mission” to get the Department of Defense to understand the importance of “cultural knowledge.”'