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Mike Spagat

@michael-spagat.bsky.social
1.1K followers 632 following 216 posts

Economist who studies war. Chair of Every Casualty Counts and former Chair of Action on Armed Violence. Obsessed with measurement.

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Reposted by Mike Spagat
Wesley Morgan @wesleymorgan.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
There are a few stories that I used to make a point of re-reading on 9/11 and am returning to this year—the New Yorker articles about Rick Rescorla and John O’Neill, the Falling Man article in Esquire, and this WaPo story about Heather Penney, the F-16 pilot who very nearly had to ram Flight 93.
washingtonpost.com
F-16 pilot was ready to give her life on Sept. 11
A pilot reflects on one of the lesser-told tales of Sept. 11: how the first counterpunch the U.S. military prepared to throw at the attackers was effectively a suicide mission.
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Mike Spagat @michael-spagat.bsky.social · 05/07/2026
Every Casualty Counts is hiring! @everycasualty.bsky.social everycasualty.org/we-are-hiring/
everycasualty.org
we are hiring - Every Casualty Counts
We are excited to announce two vacancies on the ECC team: Executive Director and Advocacy Director.
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Mike Spagat @michael-spagat.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
1/7 Yesterday I presented new research on what I'm calling the "demographic fingerprints" of armed conflict — and what they reveal about Gaza. Here is a recording of the presentation: vimeo.com/1175493576?s...
vimeo.com
Identifying Genocide by its Fingerprints
Every conflict leaves a demographic fingerprint in its casualties - who was killed, by age and sex, reflects the nature of the violence itself. Combat deaths skew young and male; some mass atrocities ...
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Mike Spagat @michael-spagat.bsky.social · 25/03/2026
everycasualty.org/webinar-08ap... @everycasualty.bsky.social @leloveluck.bsky.social
everycasualty.org
Webinar - Identifying Genocide by its Fingerprints - Every Casualty Counts
Your gift can be doubled 2-9 Dec, allowing us to expand our unique work on accurate casualty recording, to help loved ones find peace.
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Reposted by Mike Spagat
Jason "Red5" Lyall @jaylyall.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
This is a very cool article/🧵 that outlines the argument and evidence in my book, Divided Armies, about why prejudice and discrimination is bad for military effectiveness
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Mike Spagat @michael-spagat.bsky.social · 05/03/2026
1. IDF defenders claim Gaza's male-to-female ratio (~3.2:1 in ages 15-39) shows exceptional care in protecting civilians. I analyzed this ratio across 21 cases. The data shows the opposite: Gaza's pattern is consistent with indiscriminate killing, not precision targeting. 🧵
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Abu Aardvark @abuaardvark.bsky.social · 30/01/2026
The think tankers/analysts/ “journalists” who spent years debunking Gaza death count should be feeling a bit shook right now, maybe a little hung out to dry, possibly taking a good long look in the mirror and hating what they see, potentially seeking new career. In reality, likely no consequences.
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Mike Spagat @michael-spagat.bsky.social · 30/01/2026
aoav.org.uk/2026/denial-...
aoav.org.uk
Denial as strategy: pro-Israel casualty denialism and the Gaza death toll - AOAV
An examination of how pro-Israel denialism systematically sought to discredit Palestinian casualty figures in Gaza, and how the reported acceptance by the Israeli military of the death toll exposes th...
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Mike Spagat @michael-spagat.bsky.social · 28/01/2026
1. New analysis by @karlfrost.bsky.social shows Israel's civilian-to-combatant ratio in Gaza is far worse than Netanyahu claims. He told the Economist it's 1.5:1. The data says otherwise—likely 5:1 to 8:1 depending on scope. @aoav.bsky.social aoav.org.uk/2026/why-isr...
aoav.org.uk
Why Israeli claims of low civilian-to-combatant harm in Gaza do not hold up - AOAV
A rigorous reassessment of casualty data shows that Israel’s campaign in Gaza has produced an exceptionally high civilian-to-combatant death ratio, far exceeding official claims and placing the confli...
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Mike Spagat @michael-spagat.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
Essential reading from Rachel Taylor, out Executive Director at @everycasualty.bsky.social everycasualty.org/holocaust-me...
everycasualty.org
Holocaust Memorial Day: Why remembering is an act of resistance - Every Casualty Counts
ECC Director shares reflections on importance of casualty recording this Holocaust Memorial Day 2026
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Reposted by Mike Spagat
Iain Overton @iainoverton.bsky.social · 22/08/2025
The black box of combat deaths: why Israel must release its Gaza casualty data Excellent analysis for @aoav.bsky.social by @michael-spagat.bsky.social, as ever. aoav.org.uk/2025/the-bla...
aoav.org.uk
The black box of combat deaths: why Israel must release its Gaza casualty data - AOAV
Israel’s refusal to release the underlying data behind its claimed Gaza combatant deaths creates a dangerous transparency gap, Professor Mike Spagat argues, undermining efforts to establish the true h...
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Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) @aoav.bsky.social · 20/08/2025
Technical debates over famine definitions miss the point while children in Gaza starve Powerful op-ed piece by @michael-spagat.bsky.social here for @aoav.bsky.social aoav.org.uk/2025/technic...
aoav.org.uk
Technical debates over famine definitions miss the point while children in Gaza starve - AOAV
While pro-Israel media accuse aid agencies of lowering the bar to declare famine in Gaza, the real issue is that methodological nit-picking obscures the urgent need for a ceasefire to allow proper ass...
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Reposted by Mike Spagat
Christine Binzel @christinebinzel.bsky.social · 03/08/2025
#Gaza #Genocide #Germancomplicity apnews.com/photo-essay/...
apnews.com
PHOTO ESSAY: Starvation attacks the bodies of these children in Gaza
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — In some tents and shelters in northern Gaza, emaciated children are held in their parents' arms. Their tiny arms and legs dangle limp.
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Mike Spagat @michael-spagat.bsky.social · 01/07/2025
www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/0...
washingtonpost.com
In Sudan, where children clung to life, doctors say USAID cuts have been fatal
The Trump administration’s cuts to USAID had an immediate and deadly impact in war-ravaged Sudan, according to civilians, doctors and aid officials.
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Mike Spagat @michael-spagat.bsky.social · 27/06/2025
www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...
haaretz.com
100,000 dead: What we know about Gaza's true death toll
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Adil Haque @adhaque.bsky.social · 24/06/2025
New paper estimates 75,200 violent deaths in Gaza from Oct 7, 2023 to Jan 5, 2025. Note potential sources of "downward bias." Estimate of nonviolent deaths is much lower than others. If correct, an amazing testament to Gaza's health workers and family support.
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Mike Spagat @michael-spagat.bsky.social · 24/06/2025
1. New Paper "Violent and Nonviolent Death Tolls in the Gaza War: New Primary Evidence" by me, Jon Pedersen, Khalil Shikaki, Michael Robbins, Eran Bendavid, Håvard Hegre and Debarati Guha-Sapir
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Mike Spagat @michael-spagat.bsky.social · 21/06/2025
www.haaretz.com/middle-east-...
haaretz.com
UN warns of water shortage; Reports: Israeli forces kill 202 in Gaza in last 48 hours
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Mike Spagat @michael-spagat.bsky.social · 21/06/2025
www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...
haaretz.com
As living space in Gaza shrinks, remaining pockets endure hellish conditions
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Mike Spagat @michael-spagat.bsky.social · 08/06/2025
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
bbc.co.uk
Israel is accused of the gravest war crimes in Gaza
Distinguished lawyers, senior humanitarians and diplomats tell Jeremy Bowen why they are increasingly concerned about the catastrophe inside Gaza.
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Mike Spagat @michael-spagat.bsky.social · 04/06/2025
www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...
haaretz.com
A grim poll shows most Jewish Israelis support expelling Gazans. It's brutal – and true
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Mike Spagat @michael-spagat.bsky.social · 28/05/2025
www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...
haaretz.com
Pandemonium at Gaza aid distribution centers is exactly what the UN warned about
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Mike Spagat @michael-spagat.bsky.social · 22/05/2025
unherd.com/2025/05/the-...
unherd.com
The brutal flaw in Israel’s starvation plan
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Mike Spagat @michael-spagat.bsky.social · 14/05/2025
www.nytimes.com/2025/05/13/w...
nytimes.com
In Private, Some Israeli Officers Admit That Gaza Is on the Brink of Starvation
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Mike Spagat @michael-spagat.bsky.social · 14/05/2025
aoav.org.uk/2025/i-saw-w...
aoav.org.uk
‘I saw war crimes’: UK Special Forces veterans accuse SAS and SBS colleagues of executions and cover-ups - AOAV
Former UK Special Forces soldiers have publicly accused their SAS and SBS colleagues of executing detainees, including children, and falsifying reports to cover up alleged war crimes in Afghanistan an...
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Chris Hayes @chrislhayes.bsky.social · 13/05/2025
read this please www.nytimes.com/2025/05/13/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | The Science I Would Be Doing if I Weren’t in ICE Detention
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Mike Spagat @michael-spagat.bsky.social · 05/05/2025
www.justsecurity.org/112956/icj-u...
justsecurity.org
“With the Utmost Urgency” - The Crisis in Gaza and Advisory Opinion(s) of the International Court of Justice
Legal scholar argues that the ICJ can and should act on an expedited basis to address Israel's blockade of humanitarian assistance in Gaza.
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Mike Spagat @michael-spagat.bsky.social · 04/05/2025
www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...
haaretz.com
Two months into Israel's blockade, Gazans are nearly out of food
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Mike Spagat @michael-spagat.bsky.social · 03/05/2025
A great article about what must have been a great event on casualty recording. @everycasualty.bsky.social aoav.org.uk/2025/casualt...
aoav.org.uk
Casualty recording: a fundamental tool to preserve lives. Notes from the final plenary of the NDM-UN28 - AOAV
This final plenary at NDM-UN28 highlighted how accurate and disaggregated casualty recording is essential to evidence-based, lifesaving, and rights-driven mine action responses.
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Mike Spagat @michael-spagat.bsky.social · 01/05/2025
This is a really good article: slate.com/news-and-pol...
slate.com
If You’ve Watched Ken Burns’ Vietnam Documentary, Do You Need Netflix’s?
I, a historian of the Vietnam War, have watched the Turning Point treatment. I have some notes.
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Mike Spagat @michael-spagat.bsky.social · 20/04/2025
www.nytimes.com/2025/04/19/w...
nytimes.com
As Famine Rages in Sudan, U.S. Aid Remains Scarce
The stark consequences of the rollback are evident in few places as clearly as in Sudan, where a brutal civil war has combined with a staggering humanitarian catastrophe.
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Reposted by Mike Spagat
Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 20/04/2025
The Naval Academy reviewed the slides of a speaker that it had hosted without controversy in the recent past. They asked him to change his speech to not include mention of their purge of their library. He declined, and his talks were cancelled.
Roughly an hour before my talk was to begin, I received a call: Would I refrain from any mention in my remarks of the recent removal of 381 supposedly controversial books from the Nimitz library on campus? My slides had been sent up the chain of command at the school, which was now, as it was explained to me, extremely worried about reprisals if my talk appeared to flout Executive Order 14151 (“Ending Radical and Wasteful Government D.E.I. Programs and Preferencing.”)

When I declined, my lecture — as well as a planned speech before the Navy football team, with whom my books on Stoicism are popular was canceled. (The academy “made a schedule change that aligns with its mission of preparing midshipmen for careers of service,” a Navy spokesperson told Times Opinion. “The Naval Academy is an apolitical institution.”)
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Mike Spagat @michael-spagat.bsky.social · 20/04/2025
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...
theguardian.com
‘If I die, I want a loud death’: Gaza photojournalist killed by Israeli airstrike
Fatima Hassouna, who had been documenting war in Gaza for 18 months and was subject of new documentary, killed along with 10 members of her family
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håvard mokleiv nygård @havardmn.bsky.social · 19/04/2025
‘Like the other 11 children, Abdo starved to death in the weeks after President Trump froze all U.S. foreign assistance, said local aid workers and a doctor’. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/19/w...
nytimes.com
As Famine Rages in Sudan, U.S. Aid Remains Scarce (Gift Article)
The stark consequences of the rollback are evident in few places as clearly as in Sudan, where a brutal civil war has combined with a staggering humanitarian catastrophe.
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Mike Spagat @michael-spagat.bsky.social · 09/04/2025
The beauty of this is that with the tariff increase on China there will be even more American jobs servicing robots that insert little screws in iphones.
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Mike Spagat @michael-spagat.bsky.social · 09/04/2025
Can we just agree that the tariffs were a massive success and move on, that is after we get the full benefits of the China tariffs so those can also be suspended, hopefully permanently?
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Mike Spagat @michael-spagat.bsky.social · 07/04/2025
1. A sergeant in the armoured corps said that in 2024 he was given “shoot to kill” orders for any male adult who entered the perimeter. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...
theguardian.com
Israel military razed Gaza perimeter land to create ‘kill zone’, soldiers say
Combatants’ testimonies describe how areas were destroyed to create ‘a death zone of enormous proportions’
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Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · 06/04/2025
Maybe his plan is to make it seem like eggs are getting cheaper by making everything else even more expensive than eggs.
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Mike Spagat @michael-spagat.bsky.social · 06/04/2025
"Colonel Shoshani said earlier in the week that nine of those killed were Palestinian militants." We have to call into question all claims by the IDF, not verified by other sources, that people they have killed are militants. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/04/w...
nytimes.com
Video Shows Aid Workers Killed in Gaza Under Gunfire Barrage, With Ambulance Lights On (Gift Article)
The U.N. has said Israel killed the workers. The video appears to contradict Israel’s version of events, which said the vehicles were “advancing suspiciously” without headlights or emergency signals.
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Mike Spagat @michael-spagat.bsky.social · 05/04/2025
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
theguardian.com
I was a British tourist trying to leave America. Then I was detained, shackled and sent to an immigration detention centre
Graphic artist Rebecca Burke was on the trip of a lifetime. But as she tried to leave the US she was stopped, interrogated and branded an illegal alien by ICE. Now back home, she tells others thinking...
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Airwars @airwars.bsky.social · 03/04/2025
1/ NEW: You read about the leaked Signal group between top U.S. national security leaders, but what happened in the strikes they authorised? And what does this say about the new administration’s approach to warfare? trump-yemen.airwars.org
trump-yemen.airwars.org
What the chats signal about Trump's bombing campaign in Yemen
Everyone talked about the leaked Yemen attack plans. But who was killed in the strikes authorised?
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Lisa Reyna Loe @lisaloe.bsky.social · 03/04/2025
My hometown paper ☕️💅🏽
Zach W. Lambert @ZachWLambert

This is how you write a headline.

San Antonio Express-News ®
@ExpressNews
Sen. Rafael Edward Cruz, who uses the preferred name Ted, has introduced a bill to limit the use of preferred names and pronouns.
expressnews.com
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Charles Logan @charleswlogan.bsky.social · 02/04/2025
My kid has a bleeding disorder and we just received an email from the National Bleeding Disorders Foundation that yesterday "nearly all staff within the CDC’s Division of Blood Disorders and Public Health Genomics" will be fired, so fuck you, RFK Jr, and all the senators who approved his nomination.
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Kara Jane Adams @ghostinexile.bsky.social · 02/04/2025
The question of if a country could fuck itself harder than the UK did with Brexit has today been answered.
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Mike Spagat @michael-spagat.bsky.social · 01/04/2025
Please consider donating money to support casualty recording in Ukraine after you know who pulled the plug money committed for this purpose. gofund.me/4d761f42 @everycasualty.bsky.social
gofund.me
Donate to Fund Memorial Platform — in memory of the Ukrainians killed, organized by Every Casualty Worldwide
Russian military actions kill Ukrainians every day — on the b… Every Casualty Worldwide needs your support for Fund Memorial Platform — in memory of the Ukrainians killed
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Mike Spagat @michael-spagat.bsky.social · 31/03/2025
1. “We’re digging them out in their uniforms, with their gloves on. They were here to save lives. Instead, they ended up in a mass grave,” Whittall said. “These ambulances have been buried in the sand. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...
theguardian.com
Israel killed 15 Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers one by one, says UN
Workers on a mission to help colleagues were buried in mass grave in southern Gaza, says humanitarian office
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The Onion @theonion.com · 26/03/2025
Teen Warned Not To Accept Group Chat Invites From National Security Advisors She Doesn’t Know
Teen Warned Not To Accept Group Chat Invites From National Security Advisors She Doesn’t Know
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Brandy Jensen @brandyjensen.bsky.social · 24/03/2025
my god
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Mike Spagat @michael-spagat.bsky.social · 24/03/2025
www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...
theatlantic.com
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans
U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat about upcoming military strikes in Yemen. I didn’t think it could be real. Then the bombs started falling.
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