Civilian casualties in Afghanistan is a hot topic these days. After years of civilian airstrike deaths hurting Afghan public opinion of NATO and its forces, commanders have reined in their use. Killing civilians is particularly damaging in NATO’s new strategy, specifically focused on winning over the trust of the population. To prove the point, earlier this week International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) Commander Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal made a public apology for the killing of 27 civilians during a US airstrike.
Previously on Conflict Health, I discussed a 2008 Madelyn Hsiao-Rei Hicks and Michael Spagat article proposing the brilliantly named “Dirty War Index” as a quantitative means of measuring “particularly undesirable or prohibited, i.e., ‘dirty,’ outcomes inflicted on populations during war (e.g., civilian death, child injury, or torture)”. The Dirty War Index is calculated as follows: (“Dirty” Events / Total Events)*100. It is a quick and umm… dirty measurement of a conflict’s impact on non-combatants. Friend of the site Drew Conway, has discussed DWI at length.
It turns out that since October 2009 a derivative of the Dirty War Index is reportedly being used by NATO to measure operations in Southern Afghanistan. The less brilliantly titled “Civilian Battle Damage Assessment Ratio (CBDAR)” is
“…a method for assessing and tracking proportional patterns of civilian casualties from combat. CBDARs can be applied by both military forces and humanitarian organisations towards the common goal of minimising the civilian impact of conflict. These ratios complement absolute numbers on casualties, are easily integrated into existing assessment systems, and can track proportions of civilians, women, or children among casualties. The ratios can be used for monitoring, and to make comparisons between time periods, geographic areas, combatant forces, and between weapons, tactics or rules of engagement”.
The developers of CBDAR have a new article in the British Army Review discussing the method. The journal is normally closed to the public, but because the authors are awesome (and Conflict Health readers), they convinced the-powers-that-be to allow the article to be available for download. You can do so here.
Have a good weekend!
Sources
Cameron E, Spagat M, Hicks MH (2009) ‘Tracking Civilian Casualties in Combat Zones using Civilian Battle Damage Assessment Ratios’. British Army Review, 147: 87-93.
Hicks, Madelyn Hsiao-Rei, and Michael Spagat. 2008. “The Dirty War Index: A Public Health and Human Rights Tool for Examining and Monitoring Armed Conflict Outcomes.” PLoS Medicine 5(12): e243 EP -.
Christopher R. Albon is a political science Ph.D. specializing in armed conflict, public health, human security, and health diplomacy.
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