Best Defense

Thomas E. Ricks' daily take on national security.

Sean Gourley checks in

Remember when I sent up a flare asking for help in understanding physicist Sean Gourley’s claim that he has found a mathematical pattern of violence in different wars? We seem to have a better class of reader than even I thought. Professor Gourley himself responds with this note, which I am publishing with his permission: ...

583629_090707_goruley2.jpg
583629_090707_goruley2.jpg

Remember when I sent up a flare asking for help in understanding physicist Sean Gourley’s claim that he has found a mathematical pattern of violence in different wars?

We seem to have a better class of reader than even I thought. Professor Gourley himself responds with this note, which I am publishing with his permission:

With this new approach we can do several important things that were not possible before. We can understand the underlying structure of an insurgency i.e. how an insurgency ‘decides’ to distribute its forces (weapons, people, money etc). Further, we can explain why this kind of insurgent structure emerges in multiple different conflict zones around the world. We can estimate the number of autonomous insurgent groups operating within a theatre of war. We can monitor and track a conflict through time to see how either sides strategies are affecting the state of the war. Finally we can compare the mathematical patterns of current ongoing wars with past wars to estimate how close they are to ending.”

This is a pretty sweeping set of assertions. I still don’t see it. But that may be my fault. Smart, statistically-comfortable readers: Do you see support for these claims?

whiteafrican/Flickr

Thomas E. Ricks covered the U.S. military from 1991 to 2008 for the Wall Street Journal and then the Washington Post. He can be reached at ricksblogcomment@gmail.com. Twitter: @tomricks1

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