O'Hanlon's Update

Michael E. O'Hanlon and his co-workers at the Brookings Institute have put out the latest update to their chart on "The States of War". They have the chart colour-coded, with light grey for "More favorable conditions" and dark grey for "Less favorable conditions". However, their colour-coding appears to be seriously faulty. Under the heading "Judges in Kandahar Province (need: at least 50)", we discover that there were five in 2008, colour-coded as "Less favorable conditions". In 2009, there were 7, which O'Hanlon et al. decided to to colour-code as medium. And in 2010, there were 8 judges, which was colour-coded as "More favorable conditions".

And this is where the colour code breaks down. While hiring 3 extra judges in 2 years resulted in a "more favourable" ranking, while they are still 42 judges away from what is needed.

A further quibble: under the section "Trends in Pakistan", the "Number of Aerial Drone Attacks by U.S. (monthly average)" has changed from 3 in 2008, to 4 in 2009, to 8 in 2010. As the report was released by the Brookings Institute, the increase in drone attacks is considered movement to "More favorable conditions".