FEATURED BOOKS


Soft Power
on Hard
Problems


Game Changers
Going Local to Defeat Violent Extremists


FEATURED
Completed Research Paper

The Pakistan-Afghan Borderland: Pashtun Tribes Descending into Extremism [Kindle Edition]

Completed Research Index

FORTHCOMING
The Private Journal of
Henry Francis Brooke

Board of Editors

Decisions regarding which materials the Tribal Analysis Center will post on its website, or publish, are made by a Board of Editors, consisting of the following:

David L. Phillips:   Founder of the Tribal Analysis Center, B.S. degree in Biology West Virginia Institute of Technology, M.A. in International Relations, University of Southern California, graduate of the U.S. Army War College.   He has conducted documentary research on the Afghan Pashtun tribes in United Kingdom archives, to include the British Library, the Bodleian Library at Oxford University, and the archive of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).    The results of this research can be seen in various publications posted on this website, to include:  Afghanistan: a History of Utilization of Tribal Auxiliaries, Pashtun Cultural Factors Limiting Warlord Development, The Panjpai Relationship with the Other Durranis, and The Hindustani Fanatics: Indian Pashtuns and Deobandism.    His vantage point on tribal peoples is not just from library research.   Serving in the US Special Forces during the Vietnam War, Phillips trained Sedang Montagnards and fought with them in their tribal territory along the Laotian border. 

Subsequently, Phillips worked in a variety of federal agencies until retirement in 1997.  He did not slow down at all in retirement, however.   He participated in an expedition featured in National Geographic to SE Tibet to undertake the first kayak descent of the Tsangpo River Gorge.   During this arduous trek into a remote wilderness rarely seen by outsiders, he had extensive interaction with Mompa tribesmen who served as the expedition guides and porters.   Today he is employed as an independent contractor at Courage Services, a consulting firm which specializes in tribal studies, mainly for government clients.  

Besides his work on behalf of the Tribal Analysis Center, Phillips also is an accomplished US Civil War historian, with 8 books on the Civil War published, some of them on sale at visitors’ centers at civil war battle sites.   These publications include, Maps of the Civil War: The Roads They Took,   War Diaries: The 1861 Kanawha Valley Campaign, Tiger John: The Rebel Who Burned Chambersburg, Daring Raiders and Crucial Land Battles of the Civil War.


Arturo G. Munoz: B.A in History and Spanish Literature,  Loyola University;  M.A. in Anthropology and Ph.D. in Latin American History,  Stanford University;  ABD in Anthropology,  UCLA.  As a graduate student, Munoz did field work with the Embera Indians in Panama’s Darien Province, and the Yanomamo in Venezuela’s Upper Orinoco.   He lobbied for the Sierra Club as a volunteer in Washington DC against US funding for the Pan-American Highway in the Darien Gap, arguing that completion of this road would have a devastating impact on the tropical forest environment,  as well as the Indians living in that region.    His comments were published in the 1976 US Department of Transportation Final Environmental Impact Statement:  Pan American Highway Darien Gap, Tocumen, Panama to Rio Leon, Colombia, and were summarized in the article, “Decision at Darien Gap” in the May 1976 Sierra Club Bulletin.   In 1980, Munoz joined the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), retiring in January of 2009.   During his long CIA career, he worked both in the Directorate of Operations (DO) and the Directorate of Intelligence (DI).  

As an analyst, he applied anthropology to intelligence analysis and wrote intelligence assessments on various Latin American issues.   At the other end of the spectrum, as a certified case officer overseas, he conducted counterterrorism, counterinsurgency and counternarcotics operations in diverse countries.   In February of 2009, Munoz joined the RAND Corporation as a Senior Political Scientist.   Working out of the Washington Office, he specializes in counterinsurgency and counterterrorism issues, focusing currently on Afghanistan.  He travelled in the Spring of 2009 to Afghanistan and Pakistan, meeting with a wide range of civilian and military officials, as well as Pashtun tribal leaders, tribal militia commanders, and former members of the Taliban.    He published his first book this year through the Tribal Analysis Center:  Amazigh:  the Berbers of Morocco, from Tribalism to Ethnic Nationalism.   Previously he had published an article on his field work,“Handling Hungry Spirits: Shamanic Healing Rituals of the Embera”, in the Fall 1996 issue of Shaman’s Drum.

  
Dr. Khan Idris is a US-based Pashtun scholar who has authored numerous scholarly  works on Pashtun politics, leadership, society, culture, decision-making processes, tribal structure, and economics.

Born and raised in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province, Dr. Idris received his Bachelor of Arts and first Master’s degree in Political Science from the University of Peshawar, Pakistan. He went on to receive his Master’s in Sociology, with a focus on the Pashtun leadership, from the Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. Later, he earned his PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, completing his dissertation on the Pashtun decision-making process.

In the 1990s, Dr. Idris served as an adviser to the US Agency for International Development-funded North-West Frontier Province Agricultural University in Peshawar.  In addition to his published works, he has also managed numerous projects relating to poppy substitution and sustainable development. In addition, he has served as an assistant and adjunct professor at Northern Virginia Community College for a number of years and has worked for leading US research institutions, including Westat Inc. and Research Triangle Institute.  Dr. Idris is currently a member of the Editorial Board for the Tribal Analysis Center.


Charles G. Kisner: M.A. in American Studies and M.A. in Applied Linguistics, University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC); Ph.D. in American Studies, University of Maryland at College Park.

Beginning in 1980, he taught English and applied linguistics at UMBC and the Munich Campus, University of Maryland European Division. From 1994 to 1999, Dr. Kisner worked as a researcher at the CIA’s Center for the Advancement of Language Learning (CALL) in Arlington, Virginia. In 1997, he was awarded a Fulbright grant to travel and study in Poland, and in 1999 he consulted to the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language center (DLIFLC) in Monterey, California on issues related to second language acquisition and computer-assisted language learning. From 2000 until 2009, he worked as a researcher at the MITRE Corporation, a Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC) where he supported a variety of projects across the Department of Defense and the US Intelligence Community.

Dr. Kisner has traveled extensively throughout the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and the former Soviet Union. Currently, he is an adjunct professor at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida, and he consults to a variety of DoD and US Intelligence Community organizations on issues related to ethnic and tribal cultures. He specializes in Lebanon and Africa and is now researching the tribes and ethnic groups of Nigeria.

 

Graham Hall Turbiville, Jr:  Dr. Turbiville served 30 years in intelligence positions at the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Department of the Army. Much of his service has involved interaction with international military and security personnel abroad, and the establishment of working relationships and exchanges dealing with issues of common concern. Intelligence leadership positions held include director/chief of long-range and current intelligence offices and directorates as well as other assignments dealing with foreign military, security and special operations issues.

Following retirement from Federal service in 2003, he has served as a senior consultant for a number of Department of Defense Intelligence Community programs. Principal among these is a continuing program dealing with geographic and cultural intelligence in several areas of the world, producing history-based assessments of tribal/clan societies in contemporary war and conflict.  Since 2004, Dr. Turbiville has also been a Senior or Associate Fellow with the US Special Operations Command’s Joint Special Operations University (JSOU).  At JSOU, his work is centered on regional and transnational military and security issues.

Dr. Turbiville received a B.A. in Foreign Languages from Southern Illinois University, M.A. in Russian Studies from George Washington University, and Ph.D. in History from the University of Montana. He has authored many articles, monographs and studies for military, law enforcement, and intelligence venues. Recent monographs published under JSOU auspices include Guerrilla Counterintelligence (2009) and U.S. Military Engagement with Mexico: Uneasy Past and Challenging Future, forthcoming in winter 2010.

 

Dr Rob Johnson:  Rob Johnson is the History Lecturer in the History of War at Oxford University, England. He graduated from the University of Warwick in 1989 and gained his PhD, on British Intelligence in the Great Game, with the University of Exeter in 1999. Prior to his academic career, Rob served in the 1st Battalion, The Devonshire and Dorset Regiment of the British Army. He became a lecturer in the history of war at Warwick University and worked briefly in Politics and International Relations at the University of Bath. At Oxford, Rob is the Deputy Director of the Oxford Changing Character of Warfare research programme which brings together academic, political and professional armed services personnel in the study of contemporary conflict. Rob is the author of a number of publications including, A Region in Turmoil: South Asian Conflicts since 1947 (Reaction 2005); Oil, Islam and Conflict: Central Asia since 1945 (Reaktion, 2007) and The Iran-Iraq War (Palgrave, 2010). He acts as an advisor to both US and UK agencies on Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran.