Victor Vescovo

Not a lot, but I will just say that, yes, it can be very valuable to learn what people see and heard

Hostages often know a heck of a lot more than they think they do if you debrief them properly.

And then that information would go right back to the community, which was therefore very useful in the subsequent years as other teams continued, shall we say, to prosecute them.

Very effectively, actually.

Sure.

Unfortunately, it sounds reductionist and it doesn't sound very kind, but war is a process like any other.

like business, like a football game or baseball.

It can be reduced in some respects to mathematics.

A larger force will almost certainly defeat a much smaller one.

It's a matter of time.

Well, what about different quality?

Okay, that would be a factor you'd put into a mathematical equation.

In fact, some people tried to reduce warfare to mathematical equations.

especially after World War I, when it was very mathematical.

How much artillery do you put on a target to destroy it?

Then you can do this and this.

And some of them are called Lanchester equations and others.

And they're not exactly right, but they do rhyme a lot with the real world.

And that was one thing that I was researching a lot, was particularly in conventional warfare, could you actually model certain aspects of combat to predict their outcomes?

But more importantly than predicting the outcome, what are the most important variables that determine the outcome of a conflict?