The Quantitative Peace

Military Capabilities

Phil Arena has a very cool post up wherein he explores a potential alternative to the ubiquitous CINC score for measuring military capabilities. This strikes me as something that is long overdue.  And there are a couple of things that I like about the measure just from taking a quick glance at it. First, given that China just launched its first aircraft carrier, which is actually a refurbished Soviet carrier if I recall correctly, I think the notion that China has already surpassed the US in terms of military capabilities is a big pill to swallow. Second, just glancing at his figures for European powers during the late 19th century, Phil's measure looks more noisy, which in truth is kind of what I'd actually expect to see. The CINC measure makes there appear to be a lot more stability than I would expect to come along with a period where many of these European powers are vying for access to colonial possessions, foreign markets, etc. Furthermore, there were definite differences in terms of how each of these countries allocated their military resources. England certainly had the dominant navy during the late 1800s, but countries like France, Germany, and Russia had advantages in terms of their ability to field ground forces that the British just didn't possess.  

As Phil mentions, the measure may need some further development, but I still think this is really neat. 

On the Utility of IR Research

At the Duck of Minerva, Josh Busby has a post on the gap between political science research/IR and the policymaking community. I don't have a whole lot to say about the specific content of Busby's post, aside from the fact that I think this is an interesting an important debate to have. (Also, please note that the links in the quotations were provided in Busby's original post).

Math's PR Problem OR Changing our Educational System

I was listening to the BBC's Global News Podast this morning and found an interesting segment on the utility of mathematical modeling. Professor John Adam's book (which can be found here) looks at how one can model various aspects of urban life—pollution, traffic congestion, number of dentists offices, etc. I've not read the book, but Adam's message in his interview was something that I can sympathize with. In particular, Adam talks about the degree to which the educational process divorces math from any kind of applied usage. Learning math in this way, he goes on, is partially responsible for why more children/people are not as interested in mathematics as they might otherwise be. 

Sure, there are the ubiquitous "if a train leaves city A at rate X, and a train leaves city B at rate Z, when will their paths cross," kind of examples. But seriously, is that the best we can do? Now, I recognize that I'm far from being the strongest, or the quickest, when it comes to picking up a lot of the methods that I've been taught over the past few years. I, like many people I suppose, was not the biggest fan of math class in high school. Some of this was laziness on my part, but some of it was also the framework in which the subject matter was taught. Even in college it was far from clear that any kind of math beyond balancing a checkbook would play as big a part in my life as it currently does. I did well enough in these classes, but it was not until graduate school that I really had to seriously engage math and statistics.  

As it turns out, I've really enjoyed the quantitative side of my training here at Binghamton, and I'm far more willing to work at developing my understanding and skills now than I was when I was 16. Had I known in high school that I this stuff could be used to study things like war, human rights, etc., I might have cared a bit more. These are things that I've always been interested in. And this is perfectly rational behavior, right? If the expected utility of learning this material is zero, or even negative, then why expend the effort? Where is the payoff? If this is the case, then a major part of the reason that the expected utility of learning this material is so low is because the people that should be able to provide you with the relevant information to update your expectations simply do not do a very good job of that. In fact, I'd say that I didn't really get that at all until grad school. And being able to make that initial connection between math and statistics, and the substantive topics that I care about, has subsequently led me to develop a greater appreciation for the math itself that underlies the models I often use. 

I don't have any answers for how the educational system could be modified to address this issue. I also realize that you would have to find a way to incorporate applied mathematics into most subject fields, as not everyone has the particular set of interests that would make more math in history or government class a sufficient solution to the problem. Still, there must be a better way. With folks like Neil deGrasse Tyson going around trying to promote greater scientific literacy, and the recent attacks on NSF funding for political science, it seems like there is a space for us to modify how we educate our younglings and how science, math, history, etc., can be better integrated in this process. Maybe if people developed a better understanding of science as a process, or math as something with real world and substantive applications, rather than something that existed strictly from 1pm to 1:45pm during 8th period, people would be better able to develop a more robust appreciation for how mathematics and science fit into, and matter for, our daily lives. This is fairly obvious when phrased like that, but the fact is that it's not really what we do currently, is it?

Am I missing something?

Also—and this is a total aside—Brian Rathbun at the Duck of Minerva has a discussion of how Iron Maiden material can be used to teach political science. This is perhaps a good example of what I was talking about above, so perhaps this is not a total aside, but what we have here is essentially "applied awesomeness."

Poker is a game of skill

The New York Times (this may cost you one of your monthly alloted articles) reports on a new article by Levitt and Miles that argues that poker is a game of skill and not a game of chance.  The policy-relevant implications for the study deals with legalization - several prohibitions against poker are codified with terminology that prohibits gambling and randomized lotteries while allowing for skilled based gaming. The authors track a set of known players from the 2010 World Series of Poker (WSOP).  The study indicates that "good" poker players do get returns on their tournament buyins (seen as an investment) while the unknown players are more likely to lose money during the event.  The data includes 57 tournaments that run during the course of the WSOP (there are several side tournaments besides the main event).

Naturally, for those who are concerned about the endogeneity between the tracked players and their 2010 performance, the players are picked based on pre-2010 WSOP data - they were either ranked highly previous to the tournament (in poker magazines or online) or did well at the 2009 WSOP.  Naturally, if poker was entirely based around randomization, your previous performance ought to have no influence on your next tournament. For those of us who are poker players, the results should not be too surprising; however, having evidence of skilled players doing well should be reassuring.  Perhaps, also, it will allow us to hear less bad beat stories (stories about opposing players getting lucky against the story teller).

As an aside, footnote 10 indicates who not to be at the WSOP: "The biggest loser in the 2010 WSOP paid in $252,000 in entry fees, but earned only $24,000 in prize money."

Abstract:

In determining the legality of online poker – a multibillion dollar industry – courts have relied heavily on the issue of whether or not poker is a game of skill. Using newly available data, we analyze that question by examining the performance in the 2010 World Series of Poker of a group of poker players identified as being highly skilled prior to the start of the events. Those players identified a priori as being highly skilled achieved an average return on investment of over 30 percent, compared to a -15 percent for all other players. This large gap in returns is strong evidence in support of the idea that
poker is a game of skill.

The NBER paper can be found here.

 

Facts and Stuff on the Distributions of Income and Race in America

Via Andrew Gelman at the Monkey Cage, an article on this recent Gallup poll regarding people's income and their perceptions of income distributions, tax burdens, etc. 

The thrust of the article is that there are some disparities between where people fall in the overall income distribution and their perceptions of how the tax burden should be distributed---Not my normal thing, but interesting nevertheless.

More below...

Stupid people doing their stupid jobs

Dan Drezner has a good post that is worth a read.  Again, I think the issue he's discussing raises the question on how some of these lower-level actors fit into the policymaking process.  This piece also sort of raises the issue of how these actors should fit into the broader public discourse over policies as well.  But I suppose my advice to Senator Graham would be, if you're not prepared for, or don't want to hear the answer, then don't ask the question.  Unless you're purposely trying to bait the DNI to bash him, that is.  I agree that it's ridiculous to feign this sort of outrage and demand the resignation of a public official who is---dare I say it?  Actually attempting to do his job in an unbiased manner?

As an extension of this issue, I have to wonder what sort of political capital there is to be gained from publicly attacking the DNI in this way?  Does Graham impress voters?  Colleagues? 

Sounds About Right

courtesy: www.smbc-comics.com

Rumsfeld Interview

Given this piece from the other day, I thought this was an appropriate followup.  Daily Show fans have probably already seen his interview from last night with former Defense Secretary Donald Rumseld, but for those who have not I would recommend it.  Rumsfeld was unquestionably one of the most important architects of the Iraq war, and I think this interview fits in nicely with the discussion from the other day regarding the influence of unelected actors in the policymaking process.  I found it particularly interesting how Rumsfeld acknowledges the important role played by presidential advisors in this process, but really seems to shift accountability away from the Defense Department and onto the State Department and the non-descript "intelligence community" (of which the DOD is an incredibly important member).  

It's worth noting Rumseld's comments regarding his previous remarks on "going to war with the military you have, not the one you wish you had."  I think it's easy to dismiss this comment as another of Rumsfeld's  witticisms, but I think the question it poses is important and worth exploring.  How much do we really know about how the decisions of an administration's predecessor constrain the ability of the current administration to act in certain ways?  If we are to take Rumsfeld at his word--not much.  He seems to be implying that the capabilities of the state don't factor into decisions related to the use of force, or at least that they only matter to a certain extent.  Policy objectives come first--capabilities matter second. 

Some of his remarks also suggest some interesting things insofar as the learning process of the miltiary/DOD is concerned.  Is it preferable to invest significant amounts of money and resources up front to address possible shortfalls?  Or is it better to go to war, knowing that capabilities are less than optimal, but that investments in updating or upgrading capabilities will be more efficiently and effectively applied after more information is gained through battlefield encounters?  Rather, that it is impossible to know what the optimal allocation of funds is until more information is gained? 

Thoughts?  

Quick Post

So it's been a little while since I've posted here (very busy times these are).  Anyway, I wanted to link to this post by Phil Arena over at his blog.  Phil discusses how his views on various topics related to IR have changed over the past few years.  I agree with a lot of what he has to say on these issues--I think a lot of what IR scholars focus on, to the extent that we're interested in the domestic forces generating foreign policy outcomes, tend to place too much stock in the qualities we typically assume to characterize democracies and autocracies.  I also agree that economic forces play a huge role in shaping the incentives of political actors--particularly the elites that Arena mentions. 

CRACK

I found this link via Andrew Gelman's blog the other day:

CRACK Mapmaking software for Mac

I haven't had much of a chance to play with it, but it looks like it could be useful.  I've had a few instances in class this semester where I've wanted to make some maps of the US to illustrate various points, but alas, have not known how to do so.  Rather, I've wanted to make customizable maps, but have not known how.  It seems like this program is pretty simple to use--just drag and drop a CSV file with the relevant data onto the map.  It also appears to be able to perform some basic data manipulation as well.  When all is as you wish it to be, you can export an image file of your customized map to incorporate into documents, presentations, etc.  

As the link suggests, this appears to be only for Mac users at the moment.  I'm sure there must be some freeware out there that accomplishes the same thing for PC users as well.  I'm generally behind the curve on this kind of thing, so if anyone is aware of the existence of such software please post a link in the comments section.  Also, if anyone is aware of similar software that can be used at the global level that would also be most useful.