It's interesting to see that as of the time I'm writing this, half the top-level comments in this thread are being downvoted.<p>I am NOT writing in support of the current slash-and-burn approach to government, but I suspect that the downvoted half are addressing a significant deficiency in this article -- it doesn't mention what has been meaningfully accomplished by the Minerva Initiative in 17 years, given that the program had a fairly discrete set of objectives. Did they prevent any terrorist attacks? Did they forestall any destabilizing uprisings in significant countries? Did they develop a real and actionable understanding of radicalization or similar movements?<p>This is not to say that those accomplishments don't exist (I wouldn't know, I'd never heard of the program before), but it's extraordinarily lazy writing by a supposedly-premier science publication for these not to be identified and highlighted, if they exist.<p>Edit: clarity.