ARTICLE
BY JOHN KIRBOW
I am amemberof the U.S.Army Special Operations community and Defense Department, with time spent in Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Europe, as well as time at U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM). When I returned home from a tour of duty in the Afghanistan warzone several years ago and saw how deeply divided and viscerally polarized this country had become, it was heartbreaking. Over there, our team could sit down with tribal leaders and sometimes even the Taliban, and occasionally find productive ways to discuss problems in spite of enormous barriers. Returning to the states, however, I saw how many Americans would not even talk to their neighbors, especially if they were of a different political persuasion. This political polarization, and the deep distrust and hostility that I saw it produces, was often more jarring than the tribal infighting I had become so accustomed to dealing with in the Middle East and Central Asia. In a way, I felt as if my own backyard had become a tribal warzone. The situation on many of our college campuses seems to be one of the most acute strains of the problem. This observation led me to think about how skepticism and behavioral science, combined with some of my experiences in a warzone, could possibly lead to solutions to our divisiveness. Here are a few ideas on how a new roadmap might be realizable.