IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/joudef/v22y2025i2p197-205.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The lethality paradox: Goodhart’s Law and the challenge of measuring lethality

Author

Listed:
  • Adam T Biggs
  • Joseph A Hamilton
  • Greg Huffman
  • Rachel R Markwald

Abstract

Military performance must be evaluated, and one of the most critical concepts to measure involves the lethal capabilities of a military force. However, there are multiple challenges that complicate any accurate performance assessment, including theoretical issues of measurement due to statistical irregularities and practical limitations due to the military context. Here, we describe the lethality paradox, which states that measuring lethality could be a self-defeating exercise despite its necessity. Specifically, the value of any collected metric may be inherently reduced by the act of measurement while, also, creating operational vulnerabilities for a military force. This paradox is conceived as an extension of Goodhart’s Law and incorporates the same challenges of a personnel gaming a set standard rather than developing the skill set supposedly measured by this standard. Our discussion identifies the limitations and applications of Goodhart’s Law to lethality while also concluding with several proposed solutions to different paradoxical challenges.

Suggested Citation

  • Adam T Biggs & Joseph A Hamilton & Greg Huffman & Rachel R Markwald, 2025. "The lethality paradox: Goodhart’s Law and the challenge of measuring lethality," The Journal of Defense Modeling and Simulation, , vol. 22(2), pages 197-205, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:joudef:v:22:y:2025:i:2:p:197-205
    DOI: 10.1177/15485129231165527
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/15485129231165527
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/15485129231165527?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:joudef:v:22:y:2025:i:2:p:197-205. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.