Procedure of Mining Relevant Examples of Armed Conflicts to Define Plausibility Based on Numerical Assessment of Similarity of Situations and Developments

Abstract

It is possible to link plausibility to numeric assessment of similarity of situations and developments. In order to observe similarities of two situations or developments, it is necessary to prepare descriptions. These descriptions must consist of statements, preferably in a format that allows them to be represented by appropriate logic formulas, with the purpose of calculating the index of descriptive similarity. With the need to observe several armed conflicts, there will arise a need to limit the amount of cases, considering physical abilities of experts. The aim is to decide- which cases can be considered as relevant. The focus of this study is the procedure whose implementation results are selected as conflicts (involving national armed forces), with certain geographical and time constraints, linked to conflicts, associated with a particular country C (i.e. with the state whose interests or concerns, etc., are applied in the procedure). The choices are based on the types of associations, like direct geographical neighborhoods within country C, binding to defense and security agreements, interconnection based on economic needs (raw materials, markets, access) etc. However, associations may be subject to some time and geographical constraints. For example, as the Republic of Estonia (located in northeastern Europe), is linked to several countries within NATO who only arose after World War II, then is allowed though, not required to exclude conflicts involving countries that preceded World War II. Alternatively, as the United States, is linked to the Republic of Estonia within the framework of NATO, then the Vietnam War (which took place in Southeast Asia) could be in the set of cases. In addition, one more example - because Russia is the immediate neighbor of the Republic of Estonia, so the military conflict in Georgia in 2012 should also be involved. Based on the types of associations fixed for the Republic of Estonia, the sample examined was limited to only 32 relevant examples. This, in turn, allows the comparison of pairs of conflicts to be limited to 496 pairs.