…the predicted duration of peace following imposed
settlements/decisive outcomes is about 260 months (over
21 years). This is nearly seven years longer than negotiated
settlements/decisive outcomes, with a predicted duration
of about 180 months (15 years), and over nine years longer
than no settlement/decisive outcomes, with a predicted
duration of about 150 months (less than 13 years). 7
Inconveniently, the same study notes the vast majority of
interstate conflicts between 1816 and 2001 ended in stalemate,
the least stable outcome. 8 Though this study mainly reviewed
conflicts between states, it hints that the principle holds true
within states as well.
This supposition is borne out by Barbara F. Walter (2010),
who reviews civil conflicts between 1945 and 2009, finding 57
percent of all civil wars had at least one sequel. 9 She adds that
by the 2000s, 90 percent of then-ongoing internal conflicts
had recent precursors. In an earlier paper, Walter (2004) notes
that with the growing frequency of recurring civil wars, such
conflicts not only involve the same territory, but often the very
same people. For a variety of reasons, “the soldier who enlists
in one war is likely to be the same soldier who enlists again and
again.” 10 The propensity of past combatants to become future
combatants has clear implications for Identity Activities, and its
sub-fields of biometrics and forensic exploitation.
Identity In Theater
Every one of us is a practitioner of biometrics, whether we
realize it or not. Each time we see a familiar face or hear a voice
we know, we perform basic biometric functions. The sequence is
simple – our eyes or ears identify a unique biological character-
istic of another individual, the brain matches that characteristic
with our catalogues of acquaintances, and we access contextual
information on the individual, such as a name, leading to recog-
nition.
Modern biometric technology supplements human capabilities
by adding extra modalities – such as fingerprint, iris and DNA
scans – and retaining identity information in an electronic
form accessible to any authorized individual, so recognition of
a friend or foe does not require prior personal acquaintance.
Forensic exploitation amplifies this by allowing recognition of
unknown individuals who left their biological traces – generally
fingerprints or DNA – at a site or on an object. Years may pass
between encounters, but the fusion of biometrics and forensics
allows any soldier to identify individuals enrolled by other forc-
es, even if that soldier was unacquainted with those individuals
before.
Figure 2: Forensic exploitation permits attribution of
past activities to known individuals, even years after the
event or after biometric enrollment.
Criminal investigators employ this principle every time they
solve a “cold case” – or overturn convictions – by analyzing
DNA from decades-old evidence. The Department of Defense
routinely does the same thing in support of its own missions. In
an extreme case, a former Iraqi soldier from Saddam Hussein’s
army, fingerprinted and photographed after surrendering in
1991, was identified in 2012 – by algorithms, not acquaintances
from 21 years before – when applying to work on a U.S. instal-
lation in Iraq. This particular individual was not a threat, but his
case highlights the longevity of such biometric records and the
value of data going back decades. More routinely, individuals
linked to entities such as ISIS or the Taliban today are often
matched to their biometric enrollments from the mid-2000s,
providing important clues to their histories and networks.
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