Global Peace Index 2010

Vision of Humanity is out with their 2010 Global Peace Index, a rating of the "state of peace" in 249 nations around the world:



Each of 149 countries are ranked on a five-point scale for 23 indicators, including, e.g., number of homicides; access to weapons; political instability; deaths from conflict (internal); weapons exports; number of displaced people; and number of conflicts fought.

So what is the most peaceful nation in the world? Those honors go to plucky, placid New Zealand for the second year in a row. (Being small, wealthy, and surrounded by ocean would tend to keep the dander down, I'd imagine.) The rest of the top 10:

2. Iceland
3. Japan
4. Austria
5. Norway
6. Ireland
7. Denmark
8. Luxembourg
9. Finland
10. Sweden

All ten of the most peaceful nations in the world are also among the most wealthy; the top three are all island nations. And - do I even need to mention it? - the entirety of Scandinavia is represented here.

The bottom of the scale is a bit more eclectic:

140. Democratic Republic of the Congo
141. Chad
142. Georgia
143. Russia
144. Israel
145. Pakistan
146. Sudan
147. Afghanistan
148. Somalia
149. Iraq

A smattering of countries from the former USSR, Central/South Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Some very poor countries, others (Russia, Israel) middle-income or higher. Peace comes in just one flavor, it would seem; conflict comes in many.

Some other country rankings I choose to highlight for my own capricious reasons: Germany (16), UK (31), France (32), Botswana (33), Laos (34), Bhutan (36), Vietnam (38), Sierra Leone (53), China (80), US (85), Kazakhstan (95), Iran (104), Mexico (107), South Africa (121), Thailand (124), India (128), North Korea (139). The report notes the top five risers on the list since 2009 (Ethiopia, Mauritania, Hungary, Lebanon, and Haiti), as well as the five biggest fallers (Cyprus, Russia, Philippines, Georgia, and Syria). The complete list is here (pdf), along with regional analyses and discussions of the top and bottom 10. Inexplicably, and a bit annoyingly, the folks at VoH continue to leave the beautiful and glorious Kyrgyz Republic off their rankings, along with a handful of other countries.

You can play with their map, which has a slider showing their rankings back to 2007, and also view maps for each of the component indicators. One trend I notice: a slight but steady movement towards greater peace in Africa. Is this just a blip, or the beginning of a long-term trend? It would certainly be wonderful if it were the latter.

I discussed the 2009 version of the map here.

A Map Animation of the Atomic Age

Via Boing Boing and The New Yorker, a map animation that shows every detonation of a nuclear bomb until 1998, by Japanese artist Isao Hashimoto:



Says The New Yorker:

It is the sort of set of pictures that makes you want to read—to learn more, for example, about how it came to be that France exploded more than a tenth of those bombs (two hundred and ten); China blew up forty-five. Not that anyone was taking cover in Provence: if you don’t watch the icons above and below the map, you might think that Algeria, and not France, was the world’s fourth nuclear-armed power (and that Australia, not Britain, was the third). The Gerboise Bleue explosion, of a seventy-kiloton device, took place in 1960, in the Sahara desert, in the midst of the Algerian war; several others followed. (Later, after Algeria gained its independence, France’s tests moved to French Polynesia; its last one was in 1996.)

It's a wonder Nevada's even still habitable - though I guess you could make an argument that it's not, really...

Global Peace Index

Vision of Humanity has updated their Global Peace Index for 2009. The results:



Says Vision of Humanity:

The results of the Global Peace Index for 2009 suggest that the world has become slightly less peaceful in the past year, which appears to reflect the intensification of violent conflict in some countries and the effects of both the rapidly rising food and fuel prices early in 2008 and the dramatic global economic downturn in the final quarter of the year. Rapidly rising unemployment, pay freezes and falls in the value of house prices, savings and pensions is causing popular resentment in many countries, with political repercussions that have been registered by the GPI through various indicators measuring safety and security in society.

This is the third annual edition of the report which "is composed of 23 qualitative and quantitative indicators from respected sources, which combine internal and external factors ranging from a nation’s level of military expenditure to its relations with neighbouring countries and the level of respect for human rights." Three categories of criteria were used in calculating the index: "measures of ongoing domestic and international conflict, measures of safety and security in society and measures of militarization." Examples of measures of ongoing conflict include number of external and internal conflicts fought between 2002 and 2007, number of deaths from organized conflict, and relations with neighboring countries; examples of safety and security include political instability, levels of violent crime, and levels of disrespect for human rights; examples of militarization include military expenditure/GDP, volume of weapons shipments, and ease of access to small arms. You can get full details on the methodology here.

The index ranks 144 countries, though they irritatingly omit Kyrgyzstan, along with Turkmenistan, Niger, and several other countries. The full rankings are here. Here are the most and least peaceful, along with a few other countries I semi-arbitrarily deem important:

1. New Zealand
2. Denmark
2. Norway
4. Iceland
5. Austria
6. Sweden
7. Japan
8. Canada
9. Finland
9. Slovenia
11. Czech Republic
12. Ireland
16. Germany
22. Netherlands
30. France
35. United Kingdom
40. Bhutan
74. China
83. United States
85. Brazil
99. Iran
108. Mexico
118. Thailand
122. India
129. Nigeria
136. Russia
137. Pakistan
138. Chad
139. Democratic Republic of the Congo
140. Sudan
141. Israel
142. Somalia
143. Afghanistan
144. Iraq

I don't think it will surprise anyone that the developed countries of Europe top this list or that a number of African countries rank rather low. I'm a little bit surprised at how low a few countries in Asia rank, especially India and Thailand, and at how high some of the countries in Africa rank, frankly. But overall the rankings here seem pretty intuitive.

Talibanarama in Pakistan

The BBC maps Taliban influence in Northwest Pakistan:



Says the BBC:

A map produced by the BBC suggests only 38% of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and surrounding areas is under full government control.

The map, compiled by the BBC's Urdu language service, was based on local research and correspondent reports as well as conversations with officials. It shows the Taleban strengthening their hold across the north-west.

They have fairly detailed descriptions of the situation in each of the provinces, like this one of North Waziristan:

North Waziristan, home to the Wazir and Dawar tribes, is administratively divided into three sub-divisions called Miranshah, Mir Ali and Razmak. The Wazirs make up 75% of the local population, while the remainder belong to the Dawar tribe.

The Taleban are in control of all three sub-divisions of North Waziristan. They mount regular daily patrols of town centres and hold informal summary courts, adjudicate in disputes and deliver verdicts from offices established in almost every part of the agency.

North Waziristan is controlled by Taleban commander Gul Bahadur, but Baitullah Mehsud is also reported to be in command of at least three Taleban camps. Two of these are located in Miranshah while the third is in Razmak. As in South Waziristan, there is a considerable proportion of Taleban in North Waziristan who are referred to as "Punjabi Taleban".

National sovereignty seems to be a pretty quaint notion around those parts.

Europe's Role in Afghanistan

The Center for American Progress has an interactive map of the role of European nations in Afghanistan.



According to CAP, here were the outcomes of a recent NATO summit:

Troop contributions:
* 5,000 troops total.
* 3,000 troops for Afghan elections (to be deployed temporarily through the August 20 Afghan election).
* 1,400 to 2,000 troops to train Afghan security forces.
* 300 paramilitary police trainers.

Specific country commitments:

* Spain: 600 soldiers.
* Germany: 600 soldiers.
* Poland: 600 soldiers.
* United Kingdom: 900 soldiers.
* Albania: 140.
* Italy: 200 military trainers, 100 paramilitary police trainers.
* Bulgaria, Estonia, Greece, Portugal, Turkey, Slovakia, and Belgium: military trainers.

European monetary commitments:

* $100 million to finance training the Afghan National Army.
* $500 million in civilian assistance/humanitarian aid.

Despite strategic consensus, it is unclear how effective these additional troop and monetary pledges will be. What is clear is that the European appetite for sending purely combat troops has diminished. The United States has discussed sending approximately 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan this year (including 900 civilians and 4,000 trainers and advisors to the Afghan army) compared to Europe’s 5,000. With regard to funding, U.S. military expenses are currently about $2 billion a month and increasing by about 60 percent this year. Europe’s commitment of an additional $600 million pales in comparison.

Now do they know what it is they're trying to accomplish with all those troops and dollars?

"Obama's War"

Kelso's Corner points to this graphic (pdf) from the Washington Post detailing what it calls "Obama's War": the conflict in Afghanistan and Pakistan to which Obama has committed to add troops, even as he moves to remove them from Iraq. Here's an inset:



The graphic, by Gene Thorp and Patterson Clark, has lots of graphs and charts which describe the all-around quagmirriffic situation there. It's striking how much worse the situation has gotten in Afghanistan over the years. Why, it's almost as if going to war in Iraq distracted the US from the fight against the actual people who were responsible for the September 11th attacks.

But it's far from obvious that throwing more troops at Afghanistan will be enough to resolve the problems there. It seems likely to me - and bear in mind that I'm a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and also the editor of Foreign Policy - that in the long run, the war in Afghanistan is as unwinnable as the one in Iraq. The US and NATO have a moral responsibility to limit the suffering and ensure the maximum freedom of the people there, as well as a profound security interest in seeing that Al Qaeda is kept in check. But delivering actual long-term security and stability in the region, with democratic, pro-western governments in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, may be a bridge too far. What, then, should the goals be? I'm not really sure, but hopefully Obama et al. are acting on some pretty clear and concrete conception of what they want the outcome to be. Otherwise Afghanistan could degenerate into Iraq II. And that would be awful for about thirty billion different reasons.

Thank you for joining me for another edition of "pontificating on subjects I know next to nothing about."



By the way, there's been very little military action in the area around Parachinar, Pakistan. Don't they know that that's where bin Laden is hiding?

Biogeographers Find Osama bin Laden

He's right here - in Parachinar, Pakistan:



Now, admittedly, they only found him in theory - island biogeographic and distance-decay theories, in fact. John Tierney discusses it all here. The finding is described in a paper (pdf) by some UCLA geography professors. Tierney quotes the paper's explanation of the relevance of geographical theory:

Distance-decay theory states that as one goes further away from a precise location, there is an exponential decline in the turnover of species and a lower probability of finding the same composition of species. The theory of island biogeography states that large and close islands will have higher immigration rates and support more species with lower extinction rates than small isolated islands.

These theories can be applied over varying spatial scales to posit bin Laden’s current location based on his last reputed geographic location. Distance-decay theory would predict that he is closest to the point where he was last reported and, by extension, within a region that has a similar physical environment and cultural composition (that is, similar religious and political beliefs).

Basically, it's more likely for a species (or an individual) to be found close to where they were previously found, and more likely to be found in a more closely connected and regionally integrated location.

A doubt comes to mind - a thought that this biogeographic method might not be the most translatable to the situation of an internationally-wanted terrorist and political icon. After all, bird species on islands generally aren't trying to hide from NATO military forces. But the researchers argue that bin Laden needs decent access to resources, including electricity for his dialysis machine, so a town is a more likely hiding place. (It's true that a house or a barn is as good as a cave for hiding from satellites and drone aircraft.) And they expect that it would be a larger town "rather than a smaller and more isolated town where the extinction rate would be higher." They use the distance-decay model to narrow it down further:

When we applied a distance-decay model to his last known location from 2001, the FATA – or Federally Administered Tribal Area – of Kurram had the highest probability of hosting bin Laden (98%) (Figure 3). There were 26 city islands within a 20-km radius of his last known location in northwestern Kurram. Parachinar figured as the largest and the fourth-least isolated city (Figure 4). Nightlight imagery also shows that Parachinar is the closest city to his last known location and by far the brightest city by nightlight intensity in Kurram

You can see Parachinar here - it's that little dab of light just south of the red dot marking the last place bin Laden was known to have been.

The geographers even go on to suggest specific buildings based on bin Laden's "life characteristics" - he's tall (needs high ceilings), needs a dialysis machine (electricity), prefers high walls (bit of an agoraphobe), needs several rooms (bodyguards), and likes shady trees (satellites, you know). The most likely candidate turns out to be:


See, CIA? That wasn't so hard.

Destruction in Gaza

The BBC published this map of the recent conflict between Israel and Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. During the fighting, 13 Israelis were killed by rocket attacks, while more than a thousand Palestinians died in the Israeli response. The red squares mark destroyed buildings.

Конфликт

"Conflict," a cool old Soviet short film about borders.



Found at the evidently defunct Central Asian Borders blog.

Nuclear Armageddon and You

Well, here's a useful tool!



It's a Google Maps Mashup that lets you see the damage radius of nuclear strikes on given locations. It also lets you select by size of weapon - from Hiroshima's "Little Boy" to the 50-megaton "Tsar Bomba" of lore, the most powerful nuke ever detonated.

Yrs. truly would be a sure goner if anything above about 100 kilotons made a direct hit on my local downtown. That's actually a little better than I would have expected to do - I'm not far from downtown, and I would have thought any sort of nuclear direct hit would vaporize me instantly. It makes me wonder, actually, if the post-War move towards suburbanization in the U.S. was actually motivated by nuclear fear to a greater degree than I'd realized. I had sort of assumed that if you lived in a major metro area, any sort of large-scale nuclear war would do you in. But this makes it look like even your inner-ring suburbanites would have at least a fighting chance - especially if they'd made prudent investments in those backyard bomb shelters that were all the rage back then.

Here's a Wired write-up of the "mapplet."