No doubt high-tech, precision air strikes reduce civilian casualties. However, no technology is perfect and no human operator is error-proof. In mid July a US air strike hit an Afghan wedding convoy, mistaking it for a Taliban force. 47 civilians died in the air strike, 39 were women and children.
The issue of civilian casualties is an emotive one in Afghanistan, feeding a common perception international forces do not take enough care when launching air strikes, and undermining support for their continued presence in the country.
When the battle is over minds and wills, this kind of scene [video] must be an anomaly, not a trend.
How many Iraqi insurgent attacks will occur next year causing 1 casualty? 10 casualties? 200 casualties? How many FARC attacks will occur next year causing 30 casualties? How many Tamil Tiger attacks will occur next year causing 500 casualties? One very interesting research paper just released argues it knows the answers, and finding them requires a simple number: 2.5.
The paper by Neil Johnson, Mike Spagat, Jorge Restrepo, Oscar Becerra, Juan Bohorquez, Nicolas Suarez, Elvira Restrepo, and Roberto Zarama argues modern insurgent attacks all obey the same power law. In plain english: in all modern insurgent conflict, attacks causing many casualties will occur with the same relative frequency to attacks causing few casualties. Simply by knowing the average number of attacks per year, the authors argue it is possible to predict the number of future attacks causing a certain number casualties in a future year.
Want to calculate your own predictions? It is easy: First, take the average number of attacks per year for the conflict. Second, select a level of attack deadliness (number of casualties) you want to predict. Third, plug them into the formula below.
For example, imagine a conflict with an average of 1000 insurgent attacks per year and we want to calculate how many attacks will cause 10 casualties in a future year:
The model predicts slightly over 3 attacks causing 10 casualties will occur in a one year period.
Are the authors correct? I have no idea, but it is a very interesting approach to an important question. If you want to know more, check out this Physorg article containing a link to the original paper (might be gated).
Update: Check out Drew at Zero Intelligence Agents for a more informed discussion of the paper.
Benini, Aldo A, and Lawrence H Moulton. 2004. “Civilian Victims in an Asymmetrical Conflict: Operation Enduring Freedom, Afghanistan.” Journal of Peace Research 41(4):403-422. [Download Data Here]
This dataset on Afghan towns and villages exposed to hostilities after 11 September 2001 is the by-product of a landmine and UXO contamination assessment. The assessment, with a view to creating an inventory of freshly contaminated sites for rapid clearance purposes, was done by the Afghan NGO Mine Clearance Planning Agency (MCPA) with the help of the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation (VVAF), an advocacy and victim assistance organization in humanitarian mine action (Benini & Donahue, 2003).
In spring and early summer 2002, MCPA interviewer teams visited all communities suspected to have been subject to airstrikes or ground operations during Operation Enduring Freedom. These communities - villages or urban neighborhoods - had been nominated by provincial administrations and by neighboring communities; moreover, MCPA had access to coalition airstrike imprints. The teams visited 747 suspect communities, among which exactly 600 were determined to have had at least one airstrike or ground operation. These affected communities were scattered in 102 districts in 25 of the 32 provinces.
In each community confirmed exposed to post-9/11 hostilities, a team would conduct an interview, using a modular questionnaire, with a small group of local key informants. These groups, variable in size and composition, would share information on dates and types of hostilities, prewar and current population, old and new contaminated areas and broad types of munitions, types and numbers of property damaged or destroyed, and finally, victims. Victim numbers were elicited, broken down in several dimensions - by age and sex, cause (direct violence vs. landmine and unexploded ordnance strikes), outcome (deaths and injuries) - as well as two periods of time. Counts were requested of all who had come to harm between 11 September 2001 and the date of survey - a 9-month period on average. Retrospective counts were requested for the period of 12 months prior to 9/11. No attempt was made to attribute the violence that caused these victims to any specific parties to the conflict. Before leaving the community, teams took GPS (Global Positioning System) measurements of the coordinates of a central location such as its mosque.