Mathematics of War

[Larry Dunbar]

Not to jump to the defense, but the authors aren't trying to prove convergence.

I agree with you completely on this point. The author is not trying to prove convergence.

What I find disappointing is that Gourley essentially represented this research to people as a stepping stone to predicting when and where attacks may occur. That's not the case.

I didn't get the impression Gourley was representing this research in this way, but I agree that this is not the case. The insurgency will converge and fragment according to the force applied by the incumbent and the resilience of the insurgency (its ability to adapt). However, the direction of the slope (negative) doesn't change unless the structure of the insurgency changes, and I think that is what Gourley was getting at. The slope turned positive, which indicates a change in structure.

I think an insurgency naturally adapts as it moves up or down he slope, but it should not change in structure. Structure is the result of the horizontal and vertical forces inside the insurgency. Because the forces that create a structure involve people, they don't change easily. However, people adapt easily to an environment, and that is what changes as they converge or fragment, up or down, at the 2.5 slope in the negative direction.

Gourley asks what is changing in the structure of the insurgency, because the slope is becoming positive. My guess is the insurgency is changing as the incumbents change. As the US moves out of the cities the insurgency is changing in structure, to gain advantage over the new structure of the incumbents. The insurgents are not adapting to the force being applied, they are adapting to the new structure of the incumbents. I think the insurgency knows how to fight this new incumbency, and win. They are simply putting a new structure in place of the old, as the slope turns positive instead of negative.

War is usually between brothers as the weaker tries to negotiate from a position of strength.

“Between 1945 and 1999, about 3.33 million battle deaths occurred in the 25 interstate wars that killed at least 1000 and had at least 100 dead on each side. These wars involved just 25 states that suffered casualties of at least 1000, and had a median duration of not quite 3 months. By contrast, in the same period there were roughly 122 civil wars that killed at least 1000. A conservative estimate of the total dead as a direct result of these conflicts is 16.2 million, five times the interstate toll.”

Via: http://www.yale.edu/irspeakers/Fearon.pdf