The Weekly Darfur: Genocide and Statistics

The Coalition for Darfur has the post of the week up. Professor Matthew Krain releases a paper that reiterates what every father tells his son when the bully comes calling:

Genocide and Statistics

Last week, International Studies Quarterly published a study by Matthew Krain, an Associate Professor of Political Science at the College of Wooster, examining "the effectiveness of military action on the severity of ongoing instances of genocide and polititcide."

According to the press release

The study reveals that only overt military interventions that explicitly challenge the perpetrator appear to be effective in reducing the severity of the brutal policies. Military support for targets, or in opposition to the perpetrators, alters the almost complete vulnerability of unarmed civilian targets. And these interventions that directly target the perpetrators were not, on the whole, found to make matters worse for those being attacked ... He finds that even military intervention against the perpetrator by a single country or international organization has a measurable effect in the "typical" case.

When a single international actor challenges the aggressor, the probability that the killings will escalate drops while the probability that the killings will decrease jumps. Each additional intervention by another international actor raises the chance of saving lives.

In the introduction to the study, Krain notes

Policy makers faced with situations like those in Rwanda or Bosnia, Kosovo or Darfur, are forced to rely on past experience with interventions in other types of internal conflicts, often with disastrous results. This study is a step toward a better understanding of the effectiveness of potential responses by the international community to genocides and politicides.

Krain goes on to examine various intervention methods of dealing with on-going genocides and politicides (the "impartial intervention model," the "witness model," the "bystander model," etc...) and notes that not one of them is capable of reducing the severity of such situations.

After conducting a statistical analysis of the various models, Krain concludes

Policy maker concerns that intervention on the behalf of target populations will escalate the killing appear to be unfounded.

The only overt military interventions that appear to be effective in reducing the severity of genocides or politicides are those that explicitly challenge the perpetrator

He then discusses his finding as they relate to Darfur, writing

Intervention against the Sudanese government and the Janjaweed within the first year of the genocide would likely have had a measurable effect on the severity [2003] of state-sponsored mass murder in the following year.

Kraine does not claim that military intervention is the "only" option. In fact, he notes that "policy makers have a range of options available to them in the face of an ongoing genocide or politicide" and that his study "only examines one of those options."

Keeping that in mind, it is hard to argue with Kraine's basic conclusion

If actors wish to slow or stop the killing in an ongoing instance of state-sponsored mass murder, they are more likely to be effective if they oppose the perpetrators of the brutal policy.

That's right. When the bully comes running, punch him in the nose! Now, defenseless civilians can't defend themselves against armed aggressors backed up by their own country's military. That's why their defenseless.

Other nations of the world with armed forces are not.

Professor Krain's welcome analysis validates that opposition to persecution reduces persecution. International leaders concerned that military intervention would result in further loss of civilian life need to spend more time at playgrounds. No, not the pampered playgrounds of the trust-fund babies, but the playgrounds on Williamsbridge Road in the Bronx. The playgrounds at schools all across Mount Vernon. The playgrounds in Pelham and Suffern in Westchester and Rockland Counties, respectively.

The playgrounds where bullies show up. Then they can see what happens when bullies get beat-downs by fed-up kids. They could also see what happens when bullies don't. Get beatdowns, that is.

Being a veteran of many playgrounds, let me take a guess at what these leaders may see: The bullies that get beat get lost; The bullies that don't, stay.

Whether it's school-yard bullies or state-sponsered terrorists, the sum of diminishing returns rules. In other words, terrorists attack defenseless civilians because they're defenseless. Terrorists can more easily rape and kill them. Terrorists can drive civilians out of their own villages. They can win with little cost. If they face armed opposition by trained military personnel, they'll lose, or win at too high a cost. They'll not waist their time or effort. The objective has become too expensive.

The dying and dead of Darfur suffer and die because Civilization has done too little to help them. If the leaders of the West understood working-class playgrounds, they might have known enough to save the Darfuris. I pray to God, for all our sakes, that ignorance alone held back their saving hand. For God forgive us if a lack of will stayed it instead.