Coalition for Darfur: Genocide and Statistics

This week's Coalition for Darfur post discusses a study by Professor Matthew Krain examining "the effectiveness of military action on the severity of ongoing instances of genocide and polititcide." Some key conclusions:

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.

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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.

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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.

One of the standard arguments in support of the so-called war on terror, most recently reiterated by British Defense Secretary John Reid, is that one has to stand up to bullies. The same truth applies to genocide, not that anyone appears to have the desire to follow through on the logic.