My Free Online Course is Ready and About to Launch!

Hello everyone. I haven't posted for a while, mainly because I've been completely swamped writing with creating my free online course  which launches on Monday.   The course is on exactly the sort of material I cover on the blog so if you're following the blog you should seriously consider signing up for the course.  It's …

Accounting for Death in War: Separating Fact from Fiction – Registration is now Open!

I will be teaching a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) and registration is now open! Here is the link Please sign up. I'll provide more information as the launch date nears.  

New Paper on Accounting for Civilian War Casualties

Hello everybody. The radio silence was much longer than intended but blog posts should start coming fast and furious now.  I've got a lot I want to get off my chest as soon as possible. Let's get the ball rolling with a new paper I have with Nicholas Jewell and Britta Jewell.  (Well, to be honest, …

Economics of Warfare – Lecture 1

This morning I gave my first lecture in my Economics of Warfare class. I plan to continue to post a lecture each week.  I don't plan to write an abstract for each lecture but you can get a sense of the material covered by looking at "categories" and "tags".

Targeting Terrorists and Near Certainty

The American Civil Liberties Union had a successful FOIA request that yielded a document explaining how the Obama Administration approves actions to kill suspected terrorists.  I learned about the release from this good article. What follows are just my personal angles, not a comprehensive treatment of the document. First, I don't know why these policies …

New B’Tselem Report on Operation Protective Edge…and a Critic who Fires Blanks at B’Tselem

B'Tselem is one of the finest casualty recording organisations in the world so the recent publication of its report on Operation Protective Edge (July 8 - August 26, 2014) is an important moment for the field.  The report is simultaneously very good and very brief so I urge everyone to have a look. There is a well-organised interactive …

Chilcot on Civilian Casualties: Part II

After posting yesterday on Chicot and civilian casualties I'm finding it no easier to pick my second subject from this rich, but frustrating, chapter. So I've spun my random selectometer again and landed on the attempt to assassinate "Chemical Ali" aka Ali Hassan al-Majid. The heading for this section in the report is "Case study of a bombing …

Chilcot on Civilian Casualties: Part 1

The chapter on civilian casualties in the Chilcot report is stuffed with interesting material to the point that I don't know where to start.  So I guess I'll make a somewhat random choice and start with the internal UK discussion on whether or not to compile and release data on civilian casualties in the Iraq …

The New US Policy on Civilian Casualties in Military Operations

I posted recently on the expected announcement from the Obama administration about civilians killed in US air attacks.  You can read a brief summary of this release here.  The best in-depth analysis I've seen is this article by Jack Serle. I'm still happy with my original post now that the announcement is out .  However, I wish …

A Step Towards Casualty Recording in US Drone Strikes

According to this story President Obama is expected to release an official number for civilians killed in US drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Africa.  I wouldn't go so far as to say that this glass is half full but it is better than nothing if you're really thirsty. What are the shortcomings of the predicted …