Small Wars, Big Data

The Information Revolution in Modern Conflict

By: Eli Berman, Joseph H. Felter, Jacob N. Shapiro, Vestal McIntyre

Narrated by: John McLain

Small Wars, Big Data provides groundbreaking perspectives for how small wars can be better strategized and favorably won to the benefit of the local population.

The authors show that a revolution in the study of conflict - enabled by vast data, rich qualitative evidence, and modern methods - yields new insights into terrorism, civil wars, and foreign interventions. Modern warfare is not about struggles over territory, but over people; civilians - and the information they might choose to provide - can turn the tide at critical junctures.

The authors draw practical lessons from the past two decades of conflict in locations ranging from Latin America and the Middle East to Central and Southeast Asia. Building an information-centric understanding of insurgencies, the authors examine the relationships between rebels, the government, and civilians. This approach serves as a springboard for exploring other aspects of modern conflict, including the suppression of rebel activity, the role of mobile-communications networks, the links between aid and violence, and why conventional military methods might provide short-term success but undermine lasting peace. Ultimately, the authors show how the stronger side can almost always win the villages, but why that does not guarantee winning the war.

©2018 Princeton University Press (P)2018 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

About 4 out of 5 stars

It's a good book, but not a perfect book. Some parts dragged on a bit. Also, the audio version doesn't have the diagrams the book does.
But overall would recommend.
I did learn a lot.
Just maybe skip some of the parts you aren't interested in.

This book has several good lessons for how to solve other data related problems.
As well as giving several good examples of how to do statistical analysis in the real world.
I would recommend this book to a data scientist, and a data analyst.

Probably better in paper form

Would help to have references as to which charts he's talking about. It was at times pretty jarring to suddenly realize he was reading the description of a series of charts in the middle of the paragraph.