Mystics & Statistics

President Obama’s Casualty Estimates

Well, looks like President Obama is giving out casualty estimates for a potential intervention.

That used to be our job.

His estimate was for “sending significant ground forces back to the Middle East”

The results were:

1. “…could conceivably result in the deaths of 100 American soldiers every month.”
2. “…could take up to $10 billion a month…”
3. “….and leave as many as 500 troops wounded every month in addition to those killed…”

“Mr. Obama explained that his refusal to redeploy large numbers of troops to the region was rooted in the grim assumption that the casualties and costs would rival the worst of the Iraq war. “

Clearly this was a worst case situation based upon some study or analysis done. Do not know who did the study and I not think the study is in the public domain.

This is clearly just applying the Iraq War model to the current situation. In the case of Iraq, we had over 100,000 troops deployed and were directly and often by ourselves engaged with a major insurgency. This was generating 100 deaths on some months. This is 1200 a year. We lost people at that rate for four years in Iraq (2004 = 849, 2005 = 846, 2006 – 823, 2007 – 904).

On the other hand, it appear that most people talking intervention in Syria and Iraq appear to be discussing training missions with some ground support. I do not think anyone is seriously talking about putting a 100,000 troops back in. I think most people are talking about 10,000 to 20,000 troops primarily as trainers for the Syrian insurgents, the Kurds and the Iraq government. This is in effect what we currently have in Afghanistan. Our post surge losses there are more like 100 a year (2013 = 127, 2014 = 55, 2015 = 16).

Needless to say, loss rates are tied to the force size. A force fully engaged of 20,000 is not going to suffer the same number of losses as a force fully engaged of 100,000. And, we are looking at missions that are primarily training and support, which should suffer losses less than forces that are fully engaged.

Of course, The Dupuy Institute did a casualty estimate for a peacekeeping force of 20,000 for Bosnia, and we have done a casualty estimate for major counterinsurgency force of 100,000+ for Iraq. An estimate for a training and support mission of 20,000 people would be much lower than our estimate for Iraq.

Welcome to Mystics & Statistics

Welcome all to the Mystics & Statistics blog. It is a blog intended to specifically look at quantitative historical analysis. While we have a strong interest in history, our interest it not just to record facts and figures, or to study history for history’s sake, but our interest is two-fold: 1) to be able quantify and analyze history so we can establish what we actually know and understand beyond dates and events, and 2) to be able to use that analysis to address present problems. In effect, we want to be able to use history, as opposed to just study it.

In many respects, this has always been the work that The Dupuy Institute and its predecessor organizations have been doing since 1962. But, because of the nature of our customers and the work we have done, it has always been narrowly defined to primarily addressing military and defense issues. While this will probably remain the focus of the blog due to backgrounds of the principal posters, we hope to actually expand this to some extent to be able the address other issues outside of defense. What we are interested in is quantitative historical analysis of any type. We do not think there is another blog that addresses this.

I will not attempt to define what quantitative historical analysis is. This is similar to econometrics, which relies heavily on historical trends to analyze economics. In fact, economics is the most quantified of the social sciences, and it has certainly helped make the discipline the most rigorous and useful of the social sciences. There is a discipline out there called “cliometrics” which is defined by Wikipedia as “systematic application of economic theory, econometric techniques, and other formal or mathematical methods to the study of history (especially, social and economic history). It is a quantitative (as opposed to qualitative or ethnographic) approach to economic history.” Our work is also related to operations research. In fact, the British operational research community recognizes a sub-discipline called “historical analysis.” There is a brief Wikipedia article on “quantitative history,” but they really do not describe what we do, and we have been doing it for decades. So what we are looking at historical work that is similar to economics, econometrics, cliometrics, operations research, historical analysis, quantitative history and quantitative social science.

Hopefully, with this blog we will be able to demonstrate some of the work we have been doing, some of the analysis we would like to pursue, and with the help of the guest bloggers, expand this examination past the parochial interest of the principal posters and perhaps lead this blog into areas of more general applicability and usefulness.

Sincerely,

Chris Lawrence

Christopher A. Lawrence
Executive Director and President
The Dupuy Institute