Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Borat Cultural Learnings of America...
Totally off topic. See the updated post below for serious thoughts on war. I went to see the Borat movie on Sunday evening. It has gotten very good reviews and I was rather looking forward to it. I rather liked the Ali G clips I'd seen on YouTube. Actually I thought they were clever in an idiotic sort of way. I did not like Borat, however. The thing which impressed me foremost was how polite Americans are. The preparedness to endure the crassest offences is pathological. They need help. In any other country it would have been a short movie. He'd have been throttled ten minutes in.
Friday, November 24, 2006
War Amongst the People
Theo has a great post on Cultures of COIN on his blog. Go read it if you haven't already. Then have a listen to this BBC Radio 4 Analysis programme which aired last night but you can listen to here (scroll down). Lots of good interviews about NATO and the challenge of fighting Wars Amongst the People.
Update: I've been meaning all week to flesh out this post by explaining what it was I thought interesting about this programme. Towards the end Francois Heisbourg, formerly director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, proposes a solution to a fairly fundamental problem. The West produces too few infantry soldiers for high manpower, low-tech, security generation jobs like stabilization. That being the case why not outsource to armies like India or Pakistan? After all if IBM can outsource its back office why can't the military?
I really like bold ideas. And Heisbourg is a serious guy. But this strikes me as a phenomenally bad idea on so many levels, above all that this not the equivalent of the back office it's the store front, the main business. I haven't heard it proposed in quite this way before; I hope that the fact it's coming from as respected a figure as Heisbourg is not an indication of how seriously it is being taken.
Update: I've been meaning all week to flesh out this post by explaining what it was I thought interesting about this programme. Towards the end Francois Heisbourg, formerly director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, proposes a solution to a fairly fundamental problem. The West produces too few infantry soldiers for high manpower, low-tech, security generation jobs like stabilization. That being the case why not outsource to armies like India or Pakistan? After all if IBM can outsource its back office why can't the military?
I really like bold ideas. And Heisbourg is a serious guy. But this strikes me as a phenomenally bad idea on so many levels, above all that this not the equivalent of the back office it's the store front, the main business. I haven't heard it proposed in quite this way before; I hope that the fact it's coming from as respected a figure as Heisbourg is not an indication of how seriously it is being taken.
Mind mapping
I've been chatting with students about essay outlines recently. I always stress the same things:
1. start your research early
2. do not wait to begin writing until after you have finished researching; the two things should proceed in parallel
3. begin by interrogating the question: What is it getting at? What are its assumptions or embedded concepts?
4. answer the question as completely as you can in not more than two sentences. That's your thesis statement.
5. work to an outline
(Related earlier posts on the subject of essay writing and marking)
But many people find writing outlines difficult. Normally this is because they fail to resolve on a thesis before embarking on one which means as a result that the outline ends up more as a list of points related somehow to the question but not organized in a way which actually points to an answer. Personally, I tend to use a fairly linear list approach with my own outlines. However, non-linear mindmaps are frequently said to be a better way, although it takes some getting used to. On this site about mindmaps you'll find an on-line mind-mapping tool which looks potentially useful--though I wonder if doing it this way defeats the purpose of non-linear thinking, paper and pencil seems more appropriate. And there's also a tool for reordering lists if you prefer to go old school which looks very handy.
1. start your research early
2. do not wait to begin writing until after you have finished researching; the two things should proceed in parallel
3. begin by interrogating the question: What is it getting at? What are its assumptions or embedded concepts?
4. answer the question as completely as you can in not more than two sentences. That's your thesis statement.
5. work to an outline
(Related earlier posts on the subject of essay writing and marking)
But many people find writing outlines difficult. Normally this is because they fail to resolve on a thesis before embarking on one which means as a result that the outline ends up more as a list of points related somehow to the question but not organized in a way which actually points to an answer. Personally, I tend to use a fairly linear list approach with my own outlines. However, non-linear mindmaps are frequently said to be a better way, although it takes some getting used to. On this site about mindmaps you'll find an on-line mind-mapping tool which looks potentially useful--though I wonder if doing it this way defeats the purpose of non-linear thinking, paper and pencil seems more appropriate. And there's also a tool for reordering lists if you prefer to go old school which looks very handy.
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Pull out now!
The whole thing has been shoddily planned, launched on a false prospectus, and is going to cost us billions for nothing.
I confess that I absolutely loathe the Olympics. IOC officialdom is a mix of pomposity, and corruption. The opening ceremonies are dreadful. The whole thing reeks of hypocrisy and greed. I view the prospect of the Olympics being held in my city much as I would view the prospect of a root canal. We ought to pull out of the thing entirely.
A side benefit: Paris was second place. Presumably it would fall to them.
They won’t do it, of course; too many egos invested already, too much national machismo. Five billion pounds and rising . . . Where’s my wallet?I'm not talking about Iraq. I'm talking about the London 2012. OK, off topic, but read the article.
I confess that I absolutely loathe the Olympics. IOC officialdom is a mix of pomposity, and corruption. The opening ceremonies are dreadful. The whole thing reeks of hypocrisy and greed. I view the prospect of the Olympics being held in my city much as I would view the prospect of a root canal. We ought to pull out of the thing entirely.
A side benefit: Paris was second place. Presumably it would fall to them.
But can we really 'Go Big, Bold' in Afghanistan?
There's a good article in the Globe and Mail by retired Canadian General Lewis Mackenzie in which he argues that in order to get the job done we need to send another 30,000 troops to the country. That seems low to me if, as has been widely argued, the occupation of Iraq (pop. 26,783,383, land area 437,072 sq.km.) needed something like 350,000 to be done right. Afghanistan is more populous with 31,000,000 people and larger (land area 647,500 sq.km.). Why would a force of ca. 70,000 (now there are 30,000 NATO troops, including 12,000 Americans, there already plus 11,000 Americans not under NATO command) be up to the job? Is the situation that much more benign in Afghanistan? But I defer to Mackenzie on this since he as a retired Major General is no doubt a better judge of this than I am as a 'retired' Master Corporal.
The number's not the issue, however; we can all agree it should bea lot bigger than it is now. Mackenzie, in my opinion, hits the nail on the head when he says NATO's future is...
Feh. With that being the atmosphere amongst the allies I have low expectations.
The number's not the issue, however; we can all agree it should bea lot bigger than it is now. Mackenzie, in my opinion, hits the nail on the head when he says NATO's future is...
hanging in the balance, fence-sitting NATO partners have to be convinced, coerced, intimidated to live up to their end of the contract they signed when they joined during more peaceful times. Failure to do so will signal the end of a 57-year-old alliance that failed when faced with its first real test in the field.Too right. Sadly, I'm pessimistic about the chances of a greater contribution from the rest of Europe, either in quantity or quality. Will any of the EU 'core' France, Germany, Spain or Italy pony up more troops? Statements like this from the foreign affairs adviser to Socialist presidential candidate Segoline Royal make me very doubtful:
...the question the English have to answer is - do the English consider the English Channel to be wider than the Atlantic?Mackenzie accuses 'Old Europe', to use Don Rumsfeld's term, of fence sitting while 'Old Europe' reckons it's the British who are fence sitting and that the choice for Europe whether or not to be '...vassals of the United States, do we want to be a 51st state?'
We on the Continent have the right to deplore the fact that Great Britain appears to consider the Channel wider.
Feh. With that being the atmosphere amongst the allies I have low expectations.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Zinni and Batiste on Iraq
Retired Generals Anthony Zinni and John Batiste have been prominent critics of the conduct of the War in Iraq. In fact in Zinni's case he was against going in in the first place. Both, however, have come out against troop withdrawals from Iraq.
Zinni argues that argues that any substantial reduction of forces would accelerate the slide to civil war.
In fact, he argues for deploying more forces to 'regain momentum' in the effort of stabilizing Iraq, creating more jobs, fostering political reconciliation and developing more effective Iraqi security forces.
Batiste agrees, calling Congressional proposals for troop withdrawals 'terribly naïve.' Before considering withdrawal, the U.S. needs to take an array of steps, including alleviating unemployment in Iraq, securing its long and porous borders, enlisting more cooperation from tribal leaders, stepping up efforts to train Iraq's security forces, engaging Iraq's neighbors and weakening or destroying the militias. He also says we need to deploy more troops.
I don't disagree. I just wonder where these new troops are going to come from.
Update: Theo has a post on Sen Carl Levin's call for phased troop withdrawals which I believe is what Zinni and Batiste are referring to as naive.
Zinni argues that argues that any substantial reduction of forces would accelerate the slide to civil war.
The logic of this is you put pressure on Maliki and force him to stand up to this. Well, you can't put pressure on a wounded guy. There is a premise that the Iraqis are not doing enough now, that there is a capability that they have not employed or used. I am not so sure they are capable of stopping sectarian violence.
In fact, he argues for deploying more forces to 'regain momentum' in the effort of stabilizing Iraq, creating more jobs, fostering political reconciliation and developing more effective Iraqi security forces.
Batiste agrees, calling Congressional proposals for troop withdrawals 'terribly naïve.' Before considering withdrawal, the U.S. needs to take an array of steps, including alleviating unemployment in Iraq, securing its long and porous borders, enlisting more cooperation from tribal leaders, stepping up efforts to train Iraq's security forces, engaging Iraq's neighbors and weakening or destroying the militias. He also says we need to deploy more troops.
I don't disagree. I just wonder where these new troops are going to come from.
Update: Theo has a post on Sen Carl Levin's call for phased troop withdrawals which I believe is what Zinni and Batiste are referring to as naive.
It's not an addiction, they pay me to be here!
Here's an interesting article on Internet addiction. I can appreciate how this might be a problem for some. For my part, however, while I certainly qualify as an Internet 'heavy user' I don't see the downside.
Of course I'm in the lucky position that being on-line actually is my work. Which means that I could make the argument that requiring me to come in to the College physically means I do less work. But it's more than that. My family and friends are spread all over the world yet I correspond with them on a regular basis via chat or Skype. For me it's all positive and no negative. Did I say I was lucky?
Resistance is futile, it is useless to resist
I think we're really at the very beginning of where the Internet is going to take us. For a glimpse of the future I highly recommend Charles Stross's novel Accelerando which is freely available online (despite being a best seller in hard copy--take a lesson publishers). In one scene, Manfred, the main character of the book which is set in the near future, is plunged into a crisis when he is mugged for his 'glasses' (actually the interface between his mind and the computers which he uses to connect to the web) and finds himself literally unable to think because so much of his 'mind', his knowledge and processing ability, actually exists outside his skull. I haven't gone that far obviously; but still there is an eerie resonance to this.
When I want to know something more often than not I hive off a mini-mind of sorts:
If it's a basic informational point I do a simple Internet search, which is to say I send out a little digital agent which collects all the information available, orders it in accordance with a certain logic set by me (usually the Google default), and presents it.
If it's a more complex thing I may search a bibliographic or other database such as IBSS.
And if it's really complex I might fire off a question on any one of a number of ongoing discussion forums or email rings which I'm a part of and see what comes back.
Essentially this is distributed thinking. Nothing new there you say. We did all those things, more or less, before the Internet. True, but now we do it faster, much faster. If you are connected then I can safely assume that if you do not know, say, the date of the Battle of Poltava, the size of the Chinese defence budget in purchasing power parity, or the basic outlines of the career of Field Marshal Slim, or whatever, then in a few minutes you will. Essentially, everyone is now that boring uncle who knew all the trivia about everything.
But there's more to it still: increasingly, I find myself using Google desktop search to find things on my computer which I myself have written or archived, which is to say I use it in a sense for processing my own thoughts.
Now clearly this is rudimentary stuff but the fact is that we're already mixing our consciousness with machines. At the present time the part of you, or me anyway, that works outside of my skull is a minuscule fraction of that which works inside. Yet given that computers are evolving many orders of magnitude faster than human beings, getting faster, more powerful, and more connected all the time, how much longer will it be before the 'meat-me' is the lesser quantity while the 'digital-me' does all the intellectual heavy-lifting? In other words, in a couple of decades we may be at a point where going offline will feel something like being thrust into a sensory deprivation chamber or having your head pounded with a rubber mallet.
Minus all the hardware (for rubber fetishists only, I reckon) I don't think I'd mind being this guy too much.
Bring it on, I say. Borg me.
Excessive Internet use should be defined not by the number of hours spent online but "in terms of losses," said Maressa Hecht Orzack, a Harvard University professor and director of Computer Addiction Services at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass., founded in 1995. "If it is a loss [where] you are not getting to work, and family relationships are breaking down as a result around it and this is something you can't handle, then it's too much."
Of course I'm in the lucky position that being on-line actually is my work. Which means that I could make the argument that requiring me to come in to the College physically means I do less work. But it's more than that. My family and friends are spread all over the world yet I correspond with them on a regular basis via chat or Skype. For me it's all positive and no negative. Did I say I was lucky?
Resistance is futile, it is useless to resist
I think we're really at the very beginning of where the Internet is going to take us. For a glimpse of the future I highly recommend Charles Stross's novel Accelerando which is freely available online (despite being a best seller in hard copy--take a lesson publishers). In one scene, Manfred, the main character of the book which is set in the near future, is plunged into a crisis when he is mugged for his 'glasses' (actually the interface between his mind and the computers which he uses to connect to the web) and finds himself literally unable to think because so much of his 'mind', his knowledge and processing ability, actually exists outside his skull. I haven't gone that far obviously; but still there is an eerie resonance to this.
When I want to know something more often than not I hive off a mini-mind of sorts:
If it's a basic informational point I do a simple Internet search, which is to say I send out a little digital agent which collects all the information available, orders it in accordance with a certain logic set by me (usually the Google default), and presents it.
If it's a more complex thing I may search a bibliographic or other database such as IBSS.
And if it's really complex I might fire off a question on any one of a number of ongoing discussion forums or email rings which I'm a part of and see what comes back.
Essentially this is distributed thinking. Nothing new there you say. We did all those things, more or less, before the Internet. True, but now we do it faster, much faster. If you are connected then I can safely assume that if you do not know, say, the date of the Battle of Poltava, the size of the Chinese defence budget in purchasing power parity, or the basic outlines of the career of Field Marshal Slim, or whatever, then in a few minutes you will. Essentially, everyone is now that boring uncle who knew all the trivia about everything.
But there's more to it still: increasingly, I find myself using Google desktop search to find things on my computer which I myself have written or archived, which is to say I use it in a sense for processing my own thoughts.
Now clearly this is rudimentary stuff but the fact is that we're already mixing our consciousness with machines. At the present time the part of you, or me anyway, that works outside of my skull is a minuscule fraction of that which works inside. Yet given that computers are evolving many orders of magnitude faster than human beings, getting faster, more powerful, and more connected all the time, how much longer will it be before the 'meat-me' is the lesser quantity while the 'digital-me' does all the intellectual heavy-lifting? In other words, in a couple of decades we may be at a point where going offline will feel something like being thrust into a sensory deprivation chamber or having your head pounded with a rubber mallet.
Minus all the hardware (for rubber fetishists only, I reckon) I don't think I'd mind being this guy too much.
Bring it on, I say. Borg me.
Friday, November 10, 2006
That didn't take long...
Why am I not surprised by this? I think it was right for Rumsfeld to go. He should have been fired long ago. But I've got to say stuff like this Donald Rumsfeld: The War Crimes Case makes my blood boil. What I'd really like to hear now is some clear thinking about how to turn things around in Iraq or, in lieu of that, how to get out. What we don't need is some kind of revenge of the granola-gobblers taking over public life until the next presidential election.
I wonder how often this happened?
I hope they made it back. One always hears of bombers limping back minus chunks of wing or fuselage. Imagine being the tail gunnner. As if AAA and enemy fighters weren't bad enough, your own guys try to waste you with a 500 pound bomb.
Screw the headline just give me the footnote
Consider the following. A poll is conducted of Afghans concerning their attitudes towards 'democracy, security, poppy cultivation, and the 2005 parliamentary elections -- as well as attitudes towards governing institutions, the role of women and Islam in society, and the impact of media.'
The New York Times reports:
Afghans Losing Faith in Nation’s Path, Poll Shows
The Daily Times reports: Afghan optimism falls sharply, poll shows
Malaysia Sun reports: Poll says more Afghans becoming negative
Canada.com reports: U.S.-funded survey: Afghans losing confidence in their country's direction
But USA Today reports: Poll: Afghans express confidence in country's direction, security
So what are we to believe? Answer: none of them! Be your own reporter. Read the survey yourself. Make up your own mind. This is the reason why I can't watch the news without my laptop up and running anymore. In the information age 'fact-checking the media's ass' is basic self-defence.
The New York Times reports:
Afghans Losing Faith in Nation’s Path, Poll Shows
The Daily Times reports: Afghan optimism falls sharply, poll shows
Malaysia Sun reports: Poll says more Afghans becoming negative
Canada.com reports: U.S.-funded survey: Afghans losing confidence in their country's direction
But USA Today reports: Poll: Afghans express confidence in country's direction, security
So what are we to believe? Answer: none of them! Be your own reporter. Read the survey yourself. Make up your own mind. This is the reason why I can't watch the news without my laptop up and running anymore. In the information age 'fact-checking the media's ass' is basic self-defence.
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
This is a good thing
Rumsfeld replaced after poll loss
This is good too: Conn. Sen. Joe Lieberman wins re-election
Sadly, Lieberman would have been my choice to replace Rumsfeld.
This is good too: Conn. Sen. Joe Lieberman wins re-election
Sadly, Lieberman would have been my choice to replace Rumsfeld.
This sucks!
In the spirit of a recent series of posts on Nick Dymond's blog about approaches of various arms and services to planning I offer this informed contribution to debate:
Blast from the past: How to spot a communist
Those of you studying the early days of the Cold War right now might find this interesting.
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Iraq war games
You are all very familiar with the National Security Archives from your work on the Cold War in Module 2. If you haven't beeen back there lately have a look at the new addition to the collection: Post Saddam Iraq: The War Game
Excerpt from an article about it:
Excerpt from an article about it:
WASHINGTON - The U.S. government conducted a series of secret war games in 1999 that anticipated an invasion of Iraq would require 400,000 troops, and even then chaos might ensue.
In its "Desert Crossing" games, 70 military, diplomatic and intelligence officials assumed the high troop levels would be needed to keep order, seal borders and take care of other security needs.
The documents came to light Saturday through a Freedom of Information Act request by the George Washington University's National Security Archive, an independent research institute and library.
"The conventional wisdom is the U.S. mistake in Iraq was not enough troops," said Thomas Blanton, the archive's director. "But the Desert Crossing war game in 1999 suggests we would have ended up with a failed state even with 400,000 troops on the ground."
Thinking is research too, Part 2
In comments on my previous post on this subject Theo commented:
Which is absolutely true. It's funny, I just pulled my copy of Leo Strauss's History of Political Philosophy off the shelf in order to look up something on John Stuart Mill. Each chapter of the book is dedicated to a particularly significant political philosopher and they are presented in chronological order as follows:
Thucydides
Plato
Xenophon
Aristotle
Marcus Tullius Cicero
St Augustine
Alfarabi
Moses Maimonides
St Thomas Aquinas
Marsilius of Padua
Niccolo Machiavelli
...
Let's stop there and consider that the printing press was only invented in 1440 so by the time Machiavelli died in 1527 there weren't that many books around to be read--and certainly not much on political philosophy. Therefore, I'm confident that I've read more about the subject than Machiavelli. In fact, I think I've possibly read more about it than everyone on that list combined--and political philiosophy is not my field. I think that this is a nice illustration that sometimes quantity does not have a quality of its own--indeed sheer quantity of reading is a poor measure of the quality of understanding. Don't get me wrong, there's a link between the two, but having read more than Machiavelli does not make me a shrewder political thinker! Professor Mats Berdal, a colleague here in the ddepartment told me once that his approach to teaching international relations to undergraduates was to get them to read one good book on the subject deeply, in that case The Anarchical Society by Hedley Bull. This has got me thinking, if I had to assign one book for a course on modern warfare what would it be? Hmmm... I haven't got a good answer for that. Any suggestions?
True also for academics. How can you finish that paper, when you've not read that possibly crucial/probably irrelevant book on X!
Which is absolutely true. It's funny, I just pulled my copy of Leo Strauss's History of Political Philosophy off the shelf in order to look up something on John Stuart Mill. Each chapter of the book is dedicated to a particularly significant political philosopher and they are presented in chronological order as follows:
Thucydides
Plato
Xenophon
Aristotle
Marcus Tullius Cicero
St Augustine
Alfarabi
Moses Maimonides
St Thomas Aquinas
Marsilius of Padua
Niccolo Machiavelli
...
Let's stop there and consider that the printing press was only invented in 1440 so by the time Machiavelli died in 1527 there weren't that many books around to be read--and certainly not much on political philosophy. Therefore, I'm confident that I've read more about the subject than Machiavelli. In fact, I think I've possibly read more about it than everyone on that list combined--and political philiosophy is not my field. I think that this is a nice illustration that sometimes quantity does not have a quality of its own--indeed sheer quantity of reading is a poor measure of the quality of understanding. Don't get me wrong, there's a link between the two, but having read more than Machiavelli does not make me a shrewder political thinker! Professor Mats Berdal, a colleague here in the ddepartment told me once that his approach to teaching international relations to undergraduates was to get them to read one good book on the subject deeply, in that case The Anarchical Society by Hedley Bull. This has got me thinking, if I had to assign one book for a course on modern warfare what would it be? Hmmm... I haven't got a good answer for that. Any suggestions?
Monday, November 06, 2006
Exploring the Language of Post-Sept. 11 U.S. Policy
Here's quite a good series of interviews exploring the meaning of some terms which have come into common usage since 911: Jihad, Islamofascism, War on Terror, Imperialism and Democracy.
ED 209
Korean scientists have developed an armed robot. There're quite a few such projects in the works. I expect that we will see rather a lot more such developments in relatively near future.
Great Britons
Nick Dymond has a great idea:
Morgan Stanley are running one of their Great Britons Awards this year. As is usual it will probably be won by some 'celebrity' or other. However, the word on the UK Defence net is 'what if we get together and pull a team effort voting thing to get someone worthwhile nominated?', 'what if we all vote for that chap/chappess who routinely puts it all on the line in some of the most dangerous places on earth for seemingly little in return?'.
I am referring to the British Soldier of course. If you agree that the British Soldier deserves a bit of recognition, go to the Great Britons 06 website (link) and vote for 'Tommy Atkins' under the 'public life' section.
Wikepedia - 'Tommy Atkins'
Go vote!
Morgan Stanley are running one of their Great Britons Awards this year. As is usual it will probably be won by some 'celebrity' or other. However, the word on the UK Defence net is 'what if we get together and pull a team effort voting thing to get someone worthwhile nominated?', 'what if we all vote for that chap/chappess who routinely puts it all on the line in some of the most dangerous places on earth for seemingly little in return?'.
I am referring to the British Soldier of course. If you agree that the British Soldier deserves a bit of recognition, go to the Great Britons 06 website (link) and vote for 'Tommy Atkins' under the 'public life' section.
Wikepedia - 'Tommy Atkins'
Go vote!
Thinking is research too
Over on his blog Pip has a post about keeping up with all the reading and discussions. Have a look. My advice: take a walk. Seriously. It's easy to get so caught up in trying to keep up with everything that has been written that you don't stop to think about what it all means. That's not right. In your essays I always urge you when faced with a choice between depth and breadth to go for depth. Similarly when you are researching bear in mind that thinking is research too. The classic graduate student procrastination according to Mat Groening's classic 'Life is Hell' strip:
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Statistics
Disraeli is reputed to have said 'There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.' And Andrew Lang wrote 'He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts-for support rather than illumination.'
I like these quotes, probably because I am instinctively sceptical of the sort of social scientists who claim special significance for their research on the basis of it being quantitative. I am a qualitative analysis man. It takes good technique and skill to measure something but the real genius is picking what's worth measuring and figuring out what it means. Still, it's good to be conversant with stats and very handy to be able to generate rough comparative measures with the click of a mouse.
Looking for a rough indicator measure of militarization? Try generating a table of armed forces personnel per capita using NationMaster, 'a massive central data source and a handy way to graphically compare nations.'
For more specific searches and comparisons try the Facts on International Relations and Security Trends database which is provided free on the phenomenally useful website of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
Update:
Strange, the first thing I looked at after writing this post was this New York Times article 'Military Charts Movement of Conflict in Iraq Toward Chaos'. I've no quarrel with the veracity of the claim that Iraq is moving towards chaos. I just wonder how one quantifies 'hostile rhetoric' or 'problems with ineffective police'. And does assigning these things a number make the analysis more scientific?
I like these quotes, probably because I am instinctively sceptical of the sort of social scientists who claim special significance for their research on the basis of it being quantitative. I am a qualitative analysis man. It takes good technique and skill to measure something but the real genius is picking what's worth measuring and figuring out what it means. Still, it's good to be conversant with stats and very handy to be able to generate rough comparative measures with the click of a mouse.
Looking for a rough indicator measure of militarization? Try generating a table of armed forces personnel per capita using NationMaster, 'a massive central data source and a handy way to graphically compare nations.'
For more specific searches and comparisons try the Facts on International Relations and Security Trends database which is provided free on the phenomenally useful website of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
Update:
Strange, the first thing I looked at after writing this post was this New York Times article 'Military Charts Movement of Conflict in Iraq Toward Chaos'. I've no quarrel with the veracity of the claim that Iraq is moving towards chaos. I just wonder how one quantifies 'hostile rhetoric' or 'problems with ineffective police'. And does assigning these things a number make the analysis more scientific?
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