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2. The Human and Financial Costs of the Explosive Remnants of War in Afghanistan
- Author:
- Suzanne Fiederlein
- Publication Date:
- 09-2019
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
- Abstract:
- tries in the world, even after thirty years of clearance operations supported extensively by the United Nations and a number of major donors, including the United States. Long after armed conflicts are over, explosive remnants of war continue to cause harm to unsuspecting civilians and cost governments millions of dollars to clear and neutralize. Landmines can remain a threat that affects the population living around them for decades to come. When calculating the costs of waging war, the post-conflict clearance of leftover weapons scattered about the battlefields generally is not included. These costs can last for generations; Belgium, for instance, continues to remove large quantities of explosive shells from its World War I battlefield sites one hundred years after the end of that conflict.4 In the case of a country like Afghanistan, where armed conflict has continued for decades, adding additional explosive ordnance to the landscape on an ongoing basis, the clearance task becomes doubly challenging. The need to remove ordnance is crucial when attempting to provide a secure environment for war-weary civilians and returning refugees and to rebuild infrastructure and create opportunities for economic development – all essential ingredients for establishing and maintaining a stable and effective nation state.
- Topic:
- War, Weapons, Civilians, Casualties, and Landmines
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan, South Asia, and United States of America
3. The Effect of Civilian Casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq
- Author:
- Radha Iyengar, Luke N. Condra, Joseph Felter, and Jacob N. Shapiro
- Publication Date:
- 10-2010
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Empirical Studies of Conflict Project (ESOC)
- Abstract:
- A central question in intrastate conflicts is how insurgents are able to mobilize supporters to participate in violent and risky activities. A common explanation is that violence committed by counterinsurgent forces mobilizes certain segments of the population through a range of mechanisms. We study the effects of civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan to quantify the effect of such casualties on subsequent insurgent violence. By comparing uniquely detailed micro-data along temporal, spatial, and gender dimensions we can distinguish short-run 'information' and 'capacity' effects from the longer run 'propaganda' and 'revenge' effects. In Afghanistan we find strong evidence that local exposure to civilian casualties caused by international forces leads to increased insurgent violence over the long-run, what we term the 'revenge' effect. Matching districts with similar past trends in violence shows that counterinsurgent-generated civilian casualties from a typical incident are responsible for 1 additional violent incident in an average sized district in the following 6 weeks and lead to increased violence over the next 6 months. There is no evidence that out-of-area events—errant air strikes for example—lead to increased violence, nor is there evidence of short run effects, thus ruling out the propaganda, information, and capacity mechanisms. Critically, we find no evidence of a similar reaction to civilian casualties in Iraq, suggesting the constraints on insurgent production of violence may be quite conflict-specific. Our results imply that minimizing harm to civilians may indeed help counterinsurgent forces in Afghanistan to reduce insurgent recruitment.
- Topic:
- Conflict Resolution, War, Conflict, Violence, War on Terror, Civilians, and Casualties
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan, United States, Iraq, and Middle East