"Could bombing Syria kill more civilians than it saves?" --Ezra Klein [View all]

[KoKo]

The answer is clearly yes, and for two reasons.The answer is clearly yes, and for two reasons.

The first is that our bombs will kill people. The United States will do everything it can to minimize civilian casualties, of course. But Syrian President Bashar al-Assad won’t. As James Fearon writes, “you can bet that the Assad regime will do what it can to make it so attacks do kill, or appear to kill, a lot of civilians.”The chemical attack we’re punishing is thought to have killed about 1,400 people: It won’t take all that many ill-targeted explosives to match that death toll.


The second — and probably larger — worry is that our bombs will lead the Syrian government to kill more people. That’s the implication of this 2012 paper by Reed Wood, Jason Kathman, and Stephen Gent (which I found via Erica Chenoweth).

The authors looked at a range of conflicts from 1989 to 2005 and found that when outside governments intervene on behalf of rebel forces, the government’s killing of civilians increased by 40 percent. The reason, basically, is that as the government fears it’s losing control of the conflict, it becomes more desperate and more ferocious and more lethal. The authors conclude (italics mine):

Supporting a faction’s quest to vanquish its adversary may have the unintended consequence of inciting the adversary to more intense violence against the population. Thus, third parties with interests in stability should bear in mind the potential for the costly consequences of countering murderous groups. Potential interveners should heed these conclusions when designing intervention strategies and tailor their interventions to include components specifically designed to protect civilians from reprisals. Such strategies could include stationing forces within vulnerable population centers, temporarily relocating susceptible populations to safe havens that are more distant from the conflict zone, and supplying sufficient ground forces to be consistent with such policies. These actions could fulfill broader interests in societal stability in addition to interests in countering an organization on geopolitical grounds. Successful policies will thus not only counter murderous factions but will explicitly seek to protect civilian populations.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/08/31/could-bombing-syria-kill-more-civilians-than-it-saves/