What Are We Measuring?

As tough as it is given the natural instincts of our press to report the daily bombing, we can't focus on the daily casualties in Iraq as we judge our war effort.

Engram notes that casualties in Iraq overall are not declining as our surge is put into effect:

I'm looking forward to the day that I can bring you good news about civilian causalities in Iraq. Today is not that day.

I am not shocked by this result, though I hoped I might be wrong as the surge progressed. It would certainly make things easier. But remember, casualties are not the proper metric of success:

Certainly, victory in the end will be signalled by the great reduction of enemy violence. Eventually. But in the near term, this is problematic. An enemy determined to fight can pull off spectacular kills even with our troops all over the place. Terrorists need only the will to kill and nearby civilians grouped together.

And if there is little violence, it could mean the enemy is waiting until we leave as much as it means we have won. This metric of levels of violence assumes near-term success can be achieved when a counter-insurgency against a well-financed and fanatical enemy could go on a decade more.

I would rather have a metric of success that judges whether we have prepared Iraqis to fight this decade-long fight. If we have done that, even if the violence in Baghdad is roughly the same, we can call it a victory. But if we truly are judging the surge based on ending violence, unless the enemy suddenly breaks, I fear we are setting ourselves up for a paper defeat. Which in our political environment will quickly be translated into actual defeat.

The real metric is the defection of Sunni Arabs from supporting the enemy. If this metric continues, then in time overall casualties will decline as we win:

If the movement of Sunni Arabs away from terrorism and toward the government can be sustained, our surge will be a success.

Remember, reduced civilian casualties are a result of winning--not the cause of victory. I've worried that the surge of troops will exhaust our patience, which is the real resource we need to maintain.

We are winning this war, but the statistics our press is using to measure the war do not reflect this progress. I know it is easy to track casualties, but this is the lazy method of reporting on the war.

But that's the press we have and not the press I'd like. So I guess I've bummed myself out for the night.