Politics, Power, and Preventive Action

Months after promising to release the number of civilians that have been killed in U.S. lethal counterterrorism operations outside of "areas of active hostilities," the Obama Administration today released its count in a report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. According to the numbers provided, there were 473 "strikes" [presumably this includes both manned and unmanned aircraft conducted by both the CIA and the U.S. military] which killed between 2,372 and 2,581 combatants, and between 64 and 116 civilians. According to the numbers that we have provided since our Reforming U.S. Drone Strike Policies report in January 2013, the numbers of strikes in non-battlefield settings and fatalities of both combatants and civilians is much higher. As of today, there have been approximately 578 strikes—50 under George W. Bush, 528 under Obama, which have cumulatively killed an estimated 4,189 militants and 474 civilians. This information is fully presented in the chart below with the sources used.   Sources: New America Foundation (NAF); Long War Journal (LWJ); The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) ** Based on averages within the ranges provided by the organizations monitoring each country as of July 1, 2016.  

Estimating and translating the probability of an event for decision-makers is among the most difficult challenges in government and the private sector. The person making the estimate must be able to categorize or quantify a likelihood, and willing to relay that analysis to the decision-maker in a way that is comprehensible and timely. The decision-maker then must consider the probability within the context of other information, and subsequently consider the trade-offs between one course of action over another. The ultimate goal of perceiving and communicating risks is to best assure any institution has managed those risks and made the most sound choice possible in the time allotted. There were fascinating paragraphs hidden in a recent NASA Office of Inspector General (OIG) report—NASA’s Response to SpaceX’s June 2015 Launch Failure: Impacts on Commercial Resupply of the International Space Station—about the inherent challenges that come with estimating probabilities. On June 28, 2015, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying a cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS) failed two minutes after liftoff. The rocket along with a capsule and $118 million worth of NASA cargo it was carrying was destroyed. SpaceX later determined through recovering parts of the Falcon 9 and telemetry analysis that the likely cause was a “strut assembly failure” during the rocket’s second stage. The June 2015 event had been the second commercial resupply mission failure in eight months, following a failed liftoff of an Orbital ATK’s third mission (termed, Orb-3). Given that SpaceX and Orbital are the only two commercial space providers to have successfully supplied the ISS—a third, Sierra Nevada Corporation, was awarded resupply contracts, but has not launched yet—the OIG examined NASA’s response to the SpaceX failure and its efforts to reduce the risks associated with future missions. On pages twenty and twenty-one of the report, the OIG reveals that “there is no integrated presentation or package that documents all risk areas for a given launch. Instead, separate presentations are used to determine the ‘acceptable’ risk posture—a term that evolves frequently.” The report then contains the following passage: Although the flexibility in determining and altering the nature of an acceptable risk posture has some benefits, it may also introduce confusion into the process. For example, senior NASA officials have stated that high levels of risk for cargo missions are tolerable, noting the expected risk of mission failure for a typical [Commercial Resupply Services] launch is one in six. However, as stated in the Orb-3 Independent Review Team’s report, NASA engineering personnel expressed significant concerns about the Orb-3 launch vehicle’s engines and the recent failures Orbital had experienced on test stands, characterizing the likelihood of mission failure for Orb-3 as "50/50." In contrast, the ISS Program’s risk matrix reflected the risk of Orb-3 engine issues as "low" and assigned a subjective risk of "elevated but acceptable." Although according to some ISS Program officials NASA management is generally willing to accept heightened risk for cargo missions, it is unclear whether senior NASA management clearly understood the increased likelihood of failure for the Orb-3 mission. Even so, the disparity between 50/50 and one in six for the same mission raises questions about the adequacy of communication between the engineers and top program management [emphasis added]. Such estimates are inherently subjective, but nevertheless they captured somebody’s degree of belief of the probability of mission failure. As we know from the work of scholars like Baruch Fischoff and Richard Zeckhauser that combining numerical estimates and probability expressions leads to confusion among decision-makers. Moreover, when people are asked to assign a numerical probability to phrases like “low” or “elevated but acceptable” they will offer a wide range of numbers. To mitigate against such ambiguity, a U.S. Intelligence Community directive assigns percentage ranges for probability expressions. “Unlikely” to “improbable” are 20 to 45 percent, while “very likely” and “highly probable” are 80 to 95 percent. The Department of Defense uses a different method for assessing risks, which is posted below: Naturally, any decision-maker would react differently, and potentially opt for an alternative choice, to a 17 percent or 50 percent probability—the contrasting “one in six” and “50/50” estimates that were found by the NASA OIG. In 1964, Sherman Kent, a pioneer in intelligence analysis, published an important piece—“Words of Estimative Probability”—in the CIA’s in-house journal, Studies in Intelligence. Kent reviewed the ambiguous words, phrases, and numbers that analysts have used to translate likely outcomes for policymakers. Kent wrote that “once the community has made up its mind in this matter, it should be able to choose a word or a phrase which quite accurately describes the degree of its certainty; and ideally, exactly this message should get through to the reader.” Apparently, there was no such standard used between the two commercial space providers and the ISS program managers, introducing needless uncertainty upon which decisions were made.

Sabina Frizell is a research associate in the Civil Society, Markets, and Democracy Program at the Council on Foreign Relations. This week alone, Turkey jailed two journalists on trumped-up terrorism charges, threatened to sue a professor for insulting President Erdogan, and pushed forward the same construction project that sparked massive anti-government protests in 2013. As Turkey’s democracy deteriorates, German-Turkish relations have gone from tense to outright hostile. Chancellor Angela Merkel is vacillating on whether to hold firm to core European Union (EU) values of democracy and human rights or appease Turkey. She can either continue to waver, tacitly accepting Erdogan’s behavior, or send Turkey a strong signal that its human and civil rights violations are unacceptable. Germany and Turkey are bound by over fifty years of migration. Starting in the 1960s, hundreds of thousands of Turks began immigrating to Germany under its supposedly temporary Gastarbeiter (guest worker) program—but many stayed beyond the intended one-to-two years, bringing their families and settling for good. Today Germany has over three million citizens and residents of Turkish descent, making Turks the country’s largest immigrant group. Amid the ongoing refugee crisis, migration again ties the two countries together. Germany and Turkey were the primary negotiators of the EU-Turkey migrant deal, which set up a one-for-one trade of asylum seekers for Syrian refugees. The EU also pledged €6 billion for Turkey to help settle migrants, and raised the possibility of visa-free travel for Turks. Though widely declared a human rights catastrophe (and rightly so), the deal is critical to Merkel’s already-waning popularity at home—and its success in stemming the flow of migrants hinges on Turkey’s cooperation. As a result, Merkel’s government developed some degree of dependency on Turkey, despite Erdogan’s many affronts to democracy and ever-tightening grip on power. In this context, Germany has at times compromised its own values rather than strain its relationship with Turkey, as in the case of the charges against German comedian Jan Böhmermann. After Böhmermann read a crude poem insulting Erdogan on television, the Turkish government filed a criminal complaint demanding that Germany charge him for violating an archaic German law from the 19th century that prohibits slander of foreign heads of state. Though the law leaves some room for interpretation—it applies to slander, but not satire, riding a fine and subjective line—Merkel approved a criminal prosecution against Böhmermann, and even apologized for the poem. With Turkey extending limitations on free speech beyond its borders, many Germans were outraged, saying Merkel was kowtowing to Erdogan for fear that he might back out of the migrant deal. But the Bundestag has also proved ready to challenge Turkey. This month, the parliament voted almost unanimously to officially recognize the Ottomans’ slaughter of some 1.5 million Armenians during World War I as genocide. Germany follows over twenty countries that have passed similar resolutions, but its voice is especially significant given both its own history, and its complicity with the Armenian genocide as a then ally of the Ottoman Empire (which the resolution acknowledges, calling Germany “partially responsible.”) The Turkish government, which vehemently denies the killings constitute genocide contrary to almost all historical assessments, called Germany’s vote a “test of friendship” and within hours recalled their ambassador to Turkey—warning the move was just a first step. Judging by Turkey’s short memory of other countries’ rulings on the genocide, the threats will likely die down. But the episode nevertheless rattled the countries’ fragile bond. Germany is attempting a precarious balance with Erdogan, and should adopt a more coherent stance—one that recognizes his government’s transgressions consistently, not selectively. To start it should make aid, not just visa-free travel, contingent on Turkish respect for human rights, especially those of the migrants. With a wave of far right parties gaining momentum across Europe and the refugee deal falling apart, Merkel’s center right Christian Democratic Union party may be in jeopardy. Recent polls show support for the bloc is at an all-time low, while distrust of Turkey is rising. Merkel’s ability to manage relations with Ankara will be one crucial piece of maintaining public support.