Faculty Research Fellow Neta Crawford Authors Costs of War Paper on Rising Civilian Deaths in Afghanistan

Neta C. Crawford, Professor and Chair of the BU Department of Political Science and a Pardee Center Faculty Research Fellow, recently authored a new paper for The Costs of War project detailing the dramatic increase in civilian casualties in Afghanistan since the United States military relaxed its rules of engagement for airstrikes in the country in 2017.

In the paper, Prof. Crawford explains that the Afghan government, the U.S. military and its allies, and anti-government militant groups have all escalated their attacks between 2017 and 2020. During that time period, the number of civilians killed by U.S.-led airstrikes in Afghanistan increased by 330 percent.

Read the full paper here.

Prof. Crawford is the co-founder and co-director of the Costs of War project at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, which explores the human, financial, environmental, social, and political costs of the post-9/11 wars. In October 2019, the Pardee Center launched a new collaboration with the Watson Institute called 20 Years of War: A Costs of War Research Series to expand the project with a new set of analyses to mark the 20th anniversary of the beginning of the post-9/11 wars.