Network to Predict War

Contact: Meredith Dickenson (214) 768-7654 [email protected]

November 2, 1998

SMU RESEARCHER DEVELOPING EARLY-WARNING NETWORK TO PREDICT WAR

DALLAS (SMU) ó International conflicts often appear as simmering disputes that suddenly erupt into full-scale war, taking the world by surprise. In reality, says a Southern Methodist University political scientist, war is at least as predictable as the economy. All it takes is listening to a countryís mass media. W. Ben Hunt, associate professor of political science in SMUís Dedman College and associate director of the universityís John G. Tower Center for Political Studies, is developing an early-warning network capable of anticipating conflict between nations. The network is based on the research of Huntís latest book, Getting to War, which shows how to examine systematically any nationís media for war propaganda. For this particular application, Hunt will focus on the Peopleís Republic of China. "All governments, whether they are communist or democratically elected, make a real effort in the mass media to try to build public opinion not only immediately after they start a fight, but also before they start one," says Hunt. "This is where the early-warning comes in. If you can closely analyze these domestic media efforts, you can pick up signals that a government is thinking of starting a fight." For his research, Hunt has been selected the first recipient of the Tower Centerís Colin Powell Global Order and Foreign Policy Fellowship. Powell, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and National Security Advisor to President Bush, visited the Tower Center in March 1997 to participate in a series of educational forums and to accept the centerís first John G. Tower Medal of Freedom Award. The Colin Powell Fellowship is open to SMU faculty whose work bears broadly on what President Bush called the "New World Order," the role of the United States in this New World Order, and policies and programs the U.S. might pursue in its own interest and that of the world. Huntís model will use an historical baseline for evaluating against the prevalence of government propaganda toward another nation. He will be looking for what he calls "blips" off this baseline. The examples he gives are the 1982 U.S. invasion of the Caribbean nation Grenada and the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq . "Before we got involved in the Iraq War, the level of complaining about Iraq in The Wall Street Journal was greater than it had been about any country since World War II. Thatís the kind of blip Iím talking about," Hunt says. Hunt plans to travel to China next summer to identify influential newspapers most closely aligned with the government. In China, he also will hire English translators at Hong Kong and Beijing universities who can regularly e-mail him translated editorials. He will use these to prepare weekly forecasts on the likelihood of war between China and other nations and disseminate his forecasts via the Tower Center website. Over time and with more funding, Hunt would like to expand his early-warning network to include more countries. He says China has dozens of newspapers with circulations in the millions despite the lack of press freedoms. "Chinese newspapers are incredibly prevalent and different government groups have their own newspapers. For example, the Peopleís Liberation Army has its own newspaper, but you canít get it in the U.S.," says Hunt. "Other newspapers you can get in the U.S., but theyíre weeks late and thatís not enough time for me. I need to get the data quickly in order for my early-warning network to work." The SMU Tower Center supports teaching and research programs in international and domestic politics with an emphasis on global studies and national security policy. Toward these ends, the center sponsors several conferences a year, works with other international organizations such as the Dallas Council on World Affairs, and supports faculty research and travel. It also is the only program of its kind in Texas that exposes undergraduates to national and international studies. Each year the Tower Board of Directors awards undergraduate fellowships to SMU students interested in studying abroad. Another Tower program places SMU students in summer internships at American embassies around the world. The center is named in honor of Senator John Tower, who earned a masterís degree in political science from SMU in 1953. He also taught in the Political Science Department after his retirement from the Senate in 1985. The Senator and his daughter, Marian Tower, died in a plane crash in Georgia on April 5, 1991.

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