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Can Statistics Predict the Outcome of a War?
StatisticallyDeadGuy writes "A University of Georgia scientist has developed a statistical system that can, she claims, predict the outcome of wars with an accuracy of 80 percent. Her approach, applied retrospectively, says the US chance of victory in the first Gulf War was 93%, while the poor Soviets only had a 7% chance in Afghanistan (if only they'd known; failure maybe triggered the collapse of the USSR). As for the current Iraq conflict: the US started off with a 70% chance of a successful regime change, which was duly achieved — but extending the mission past this to support a weak government has dropped the probability of ultimate success to 26%. Full elaboration of the forecasting methodology is laid out in a new paper (subscription required — link goes to the abstract). Some details can be gleaned from her 2006 draft (PDF)."
It's 0% if you play "Global Thermonuclear War". The only winning strategy is not to play.
Sounds like fun. Let's test this theory =)
Life is not for the lazy.
Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital.
As in all projects, when you let the scope blow out, then the costs blow out proportionately. In Operation Iraqi Freedom, the initial scope was to topple Saddam Hussein. Scope then changed to include installation of democracy.
Nobody wrote up a scope change request, let alone getting it signed off...
That's nothing! I can predict the outcome of a war with 100% accuracy when applied retrospectively.
...as opposed to Cryonuclear?
Whatever dude. I'd like to date a woman like this. We could argue about Prussian foreign policy in the 19th Century, then fuck like mink, then maybe write some code. Then argue about US Foreign policy, then watch some documentary on strategic bombing where I'd play devil's advocate to conventional wisdom, then argue a bit more and have great make up sex.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
That 74% of war historians think that 26% of war historians have less than 10% of a clue clue about more than 90% of what they are talking about, when it comes to statistics. This assessment of course is subject to adjustment depending on perceived public opinion and verified by use of the retrospectoscope.
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
I was going to write a post here arguing about establishing a Reference Behavior Pattern, determining relationships and causality, and the difference between verifying and validating models...
But I like your way of thinking better...
Actually, with her model hindsight is only 16/20.
Yes they can; but only 50% of the time.
Dude, Condi Rice called and wants your phone number.
No, just an ass.