| ID | 113109 |
| Title Proper | Challenges of measuring progress in Afghanistan using violence trends |
| Other Title Information | the effects of aggregation, military operations, seasonality, weather, and other causal factors |
| Language | ENG |
| Author | Gons, Eric ; Schroden, Jonathan ; McAlinden, Ryan ; Gaul, Marcus |
| Publication | 2012. |
| Summary / Abstract (Note) | Measuring nationwide progress of counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan using violence trends is difficult due to several factors: aggregation of data to the national level may obfuscate disparate local trends; the observed seasonality in violence makes comparisons difficult and may obscure progress; and short-term spikes or troughs - attributable to weather, military operations and tempo, or holiday periods - heavily influence simple averaging schemes. Despite these challenges, proper understanding of violence statistics is critical to estimating the effectiveness of military forces added during a surge or redeployed as part of transition. This article explores methods for analyzing observed violence trends to identify causal factors, to provide a comparable baseline, and to inform assessments at appropriate levels of aggregation. One methodology for seasonal adjustment of violence data is discussed and shown to provide a logical baseline for examining trends. An ordinary least squares regression model is developed and implemented using time-series violence data. |
| `In' analytical Note | Defense and Security Analysis Vol. 28, No.2; Jun 2012: p.100-113 |
| Journal Source | Defense and Security Analysis Vol. 28, No.2; Jun 2012: p.100-113 |
| Key Words | Campaign Assessment ; Counterinsurgency ; Metrics ; Afghanistan ; Trend Analysis ; Seasonality |