Casualty Dynamics in Wars and Terrorism and the Scale-Free Organization of Social Systems

TL;DR

This paper explains the power-law patterns in casualties during wars and terrorism by proposing that social systems have a scale-free physical organization, offering insights into social system functioning and conflict strategies.

Contribution

It introduces a new mechanism based on scale-free physical organization to explain casualty dynamics, contrasting with previous theories like self-organized criticality.

Findings

Casualty dynamics follow power-law distributions in wars and terrorism.

The scale-free organization of social systems underpins casualty patterns.

Casualty development over time reveals social system functioning and conflict strategies.

Abstract

In this paper I propose a 'mechanism' for the explanation of power-law characteristics of casualty dynamics in inter-state wars, intra-state wars and terrorist attacks: the scale-free physical organization of social systems. Other explanations - self-organized criticality (Cederman, 2003) and the redistribution of total attack capabilities (Johnson et al. 2006) - do not provide a consistent framework for the power-law characteristics of casualty dynamics. The development in time of the power-law characteristics of casualty dynamics during wars and conflicts provides clues for the 'functioning' of social systems which are targeted, and/or for the (in)effectiveness and strategies of actors using force (violence) against these social systems.