My favorite United Nations entity, UNOSAT, impresses us again. This time they have a great map of pirate and hijacking activity off the Somali coast from January to December 2007. Click any image to view the full map.
Canadian forces in Afghanistan have a new weapon: a GPS guided artillery shell called Excalibur. The shell is made by defense mega-contractor Raytheon and costs $150,000CA per shell. Ordinary high explosive shells cost $2,000CA.
Why use shells costing many times more than an average infantryman’s salary? Accuracy, argues Lt.-Col. Jim Willis, “It lands exactly where you want it to land”. The shells are accurate within 10 meters, current shells are only accurate to within 50 meters. The increased accuracy means one “smart-shell” can do the job of whole barrages with current shells.
The new shells might counter a trend civilian casualties in the Afghan campaign for three reasons. First, the GPS guided shells turn artillery batteries into low (relatively) cost precision airstrikes, capable of collapsing a single structure on demand rather than carpeting the area with impacts. Second, less rounds fired reduces the risk of introducing exploded unexploded ordinances into an area. Third, the shells reduce the need to use massive airborne ordinances. In instances when precision strikes are required the primary option currently available to Coalition forces is an airstrike. However, precision airstrikes typically use ordinances with hundreds of pounds of high explosives, much more than is often needed to eliminate the threat. The “overkill” of these large bombs increases the risk of civilian casualties. The Excalibur shells are smaller and carry less high explosives, reducing the risk of civilian deaths.
However, counterintuitively, there is a risk the new shells will increase danger to civilians. Currently using artillery against insurgents in dense population centers is not an option, since the barrage would likely flatten the entire population center. Commanders with access to the new shells might have more confidence in striking the target and thus be more willing to fire into population centers.
Hypotheticals aside, I (and I think everyone) prefer more accurate to less, fewer required to more, and smaller boom to larger. If those are our guidelines the Excalibur seems well worth the price to our pocketbooks.
Michael Odenwald and colleagues interviewed 8,723 Somali combatants to assess their use of khat and other drugs [4]. In total, 36.4% (99% confidence interval, 19.3%–57.7%) of respondents reported khat use in the week before the interview.
From: Bhui, Kamaldeep, and Nasir Warfa. 2007. “Drug Consumption in Conflict Zones in Somalia.” PLoS Medicine 4(12):e354 EP -.
Oops! Looks like some intern forgot to renew the domain name and now the Iraqi Ministry of Health website is owned by a domain squatter. H3r8?/\L V1AG4A ne1?
Sigh.
Hat Tip: FP Passport
When I started as a research assistant, my advisor offered three simple pieces of advice: “Get the data, get the data, get the data”. For all the advances in the technique and popularity of quantitative research methods, obtaining the actual data remains haphazard. Some seemingly public data have an almost mythical ability to avoid being accessed. Often the only way to obtain the data used in a published work is to email the author and beg. However, things are looking up, at least at the UN:
The new UN data access system will improve the dissemination of statistics by UNSD to the widest possible audience. An easy to use data access system was developed that meets UNSD’s vision of providing an integrated information resource with current, relevant and reliable statistics free of charge to the global community.
The new site offers a google-ish interface to explore the UN’s vast datasets and will be a welcome tool for quantitative researchers.
Hat Tip: FlowingData
Matt Armstrong (AKA MountainRunner) has been publishing a blogging tour de force during the last few weeks and has established himself as the most prominent voice on public diplomacy in the blogosphere. If you are not reading his blog yet, here are four posts that will convince you otherwise:
AFRICOM: DOA or in Need of Better Marketing? No and Yes.
Like Mark Twain’s “death” in 1897 (he died in 1910), reports of AFRICOM’s demise may be exaggerated. Concerns that AFRICOM hasn’t been thought out or is unnecessary aren’t supported by the actions and statements of those charged with building this entity. However, based on the poor marketing of AFRICOM, these concerns are not surprising.
I attended USC’s AFRICOM conference earlier this month and between panel discussions and offline conversations, I came away with a new appreciation (and hope) for the newest, and very different, command. …
Measuring “Public Diplomacy”?
What “nine annual and long-term outcomes” would you use to measure America’s public diplomacy apparatus? State has apparently found them.
The American concept of “public diplomacy” is a strange one. As Americans, we seek a return on our investments. It’s in our blood. If there is no clear payback, then there’s no clear value and there’s no reason to continue. Public diplomacy is no different as we, unique to perhaps the rest of the world, view it as discrete cylinder of excellence that must be measured to prove its worth. Numerous reports as well as historic and recent prominent officials have noted, public diplomacy is presented as something that lacks a domestic constituency and thus support for its programs must be somehow explained. …
Not Afraid to Talk: our adversaries aren’t, why are we?
To begin with, we must accept that the romantic days of the United States Information Agency are gone. So many confuse the USIA and the other information services, such as Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, of recent decades with the USIA that was engaged in the active psychological struggle that largely ended with détente and the finalizing of the European partition. It was only after this aggressive period ended was “public diplomacy” coined, twelve years after USIA was created.
Unlike half a century ago, the U.S. military has a clear voice and is arguably our dominant public diplomat. Therefore, simply resurrecting “USIA” without reorganizing our national information capabilities across civilian and military lines would turn it into just another voice struggling to be heard over America’s military commanders, spokespersons, and warfighters. …
Synchronizing Information: The Importance of New Media in Conflict
The effectiveness of information campaigns today will more often dictate a victory than how well bullets and bombs are put on a target. Putting information on target is more important when dealing with an asymmetric adversary that cannot – and does not need to – match the military or economic power of the United States and her allies.
Insurgents and terrorists increasingly leverage New Media to shape perceptions around the globe to be attractive to some and intimidating to others. New Media collapses traditional concepts of time and space as information moves around the world in an instant. Unlike traditional media, search engines and the web in general, enable information, factual or not, to be quickly and easily accessed long after it was created.
The result is a shift in the purpose of physical engagement to increasingly incorporate the information effect of words and deeds. Thus, the purpose of improvised explosive devices, for example, is not to kill or maim Americans but to replay images of David sticking it to Goliath. …
As readers, publishers, and proponents of “new media”, we need to push blogging as a platform for intelligent, quality content and discussion relevant to professionals in our field. Not simply a place to post about our pets. I am glad to see the conflict/IR blogosphere making steady progress in that direction.
I am continuously impressed with UNOSAT’s ability to use satellite imagery in creative ways. On February 27th, UNOSAT released a satellite-derived estimation of the number of civilians leaving the Chadian capital of N’Djamena and heading towards the Cameroonian border. The satellite photos are simply stunning. This is the first set of images I have seen capturing the epic scale of refugee flows. Each point on the photo is an individual and each yellow box a vehicle. The UN estimates that one photo contains 10,200 pedestrians and 80 vehicles.
Recently IRIN reported that the main office of the Palestinian Medical Relief Society (PMRS) was damaged in an Israeli airstrike. PMRS has photos of the damage on their website. The strike was in retaliation for more than 70 Palestinian rockets fired into Israel, one of which landed on the grounds of a local Israeli hospital. Neither the Palestinian nor Israeli attacks was officially targeting health facilities.
Why am I showing you this? Because damage to the health infrastructure is a primary cause of indirect morbidity and mortality during wartime. Despite myths to the contrary, dead bodies are not the catalysts of epidemics. Rather, it is the loss of health infrastructures (hospitals, clinics, etc…). When a region loses its health infrastructure it is unable to combat diseases endemic in the area, which quickly flare up. That is, in peacetime local health infrastructures keep local diseases in check through treatment and public health programs. When that infrastructure is destroyed, this check is removed and diseases spread rapidly.