Every map is a projection of addressed observations, not an assertion that proximity, color, or correlation establishes cause.
Processing sequence
- Preserve the source row and its versioned dataset boundary.
- Normalize names or codes only to join a row to reference geometry; retain the source identity in raw records.
- Join conflict-year, candidate-event, regime, mortality, fertility, and crude-birth-rate records by disclosed country and time keys.
- Render each measurement in its native unit. Visual height or color is a comparison aid, never a replacement value.
- Keep missing values missing. No pre-source history, current-year health value, motive, or responsibility is synthesized.
Print War Map temporal range
For every conflict represented retrospectively, the focal interval begins before the movement that later proves decisive and ends before the final victory removes the contested field. The selection is disclosed as an interpretation, not inevitability. For a current conflict without a known outcome, the interval begins at the first loaded observation and ends at the latest disclosed source observation.
Prompted causal exploration
Users can move from an outer conflict record toward participants, locations, decisions, observed departures, and consequences. Plausible projections remain questions or explicitly labelled projections until a source-bearing enclosure is available. Nesting preserves disagreement and provenance instead of collapsing competing records into one premature flag.
Network-science and relationship rules
The conflict network applies the analytical vocabulary developed in Albert-László Barabási's Network Science to the visible UCDP-derived graph. It computes unique-neighbor degree, normalized degree centrality, normalized betweenness, connected components, density, and degree distribution for each selected conflict and date window. Node size responds sublinearly to degree.
The global Relationships view uses nations as nodes and draws an edge only when two states have recorded same-side participation in the same conflict-year or candidate event. Edge width reflects the number of distinct shared years. Historic opposing-side participation is not converted into an edge; the inspector instead exposes opponents reached by a two-step path through a nation allied with both. This keeps the global topology sparse and its edge rule inspectable.
Hub denotes the current graph's top degree decile; bottleneck denotes the top decile of positive betweenness. These are relative structural descriptions. They do not show that a conflict graph is scale-free, arose by preferential attachment, or that a node holds command, toughness, or causal power. For fields above 1,200 nodes, betweenness is computed on structural nodes while observation leaves remain visible.
Organization and topology criteria
The global Relationships view exposes observed same-side participation, sourced organization co-membership, or their combination. Organization edges retain their organization identifier and source semantics; co-membership is not silently relabeled as alliance, coordination, or causation. The current layer includes explicit United Nations, NATO, and BRICS state rosters. The World Economic Forum is retained as a non-state organization record because its source describes company and stakeholder communities rather than a state-membership bloc; it is not converted into national membership.
The topology selector can generate deterministic Barabási–Albert, Erdős–Rényi, or Watts–Strogatz comparison graphs on the selected node set. Those edges are marked synthetic, are never presented as observations, and use the selected evidence layer only to define the node set and comparison density. Selecting observed topology is required for evidentiary claims.
Casualty posture and strategic balance
The conflict network's candidate-event colors use a disclosed spatial inference: territory supplies 70% base confidence for defensive or offensive casualty posture, and one-sided reported military casualties can add 15 percentage points. Government and country begin as one composite sovereign node; the inspector can isolate the regime. The structural zero-sum proxy measures exclusive side attachment, not utility, while equilibrium candidates identify bilateral or high-betweenness bridges.
These outputs are not legal findings. The laws governing force, self-defense, distinction, proportionality, precautions, civilian protection, and responsibility require evidence not supplied by a graph position or casualty count.
Geometry
Natural Earth geometry supplies geographic reference only. Boundary display does not express a position on sovereignty, recognition, or territorial claims. Country aliases are used solely to align source naming systems with map features.