So why does the Moral Disorder Index not score war directly? Because the MDI measures the moral conditions people live under. War requires something different.
If we added battlefield events to the MDI, wars would overwhelm the slower changes the index is tracking. We would also risk counting the same disorder twice and blaming invaded countries for decisions made by their attackers.
What the MDI measures
The MDI measures the moral conditions of daily life in all 195 nations. It draws on 17 independently collected primary-source datasets across seven domains: Body, Family, Sacred, Truth, Authority, Sovereignty, and Creation. In each country, we ask: What is it like to live here, morally?
Can you speak the truth without fear? Will a court judge your case following rule of law? Are marriage and family holding together? Can you change your religion and live openly?
The MDI is not a grading of a government. A government may send troops across a border, defend its territory, or support a foreign war. These are not the same as the conditions its people face at home.
War moves too fast.
The MDI tracks changes that usually take years: laws change, courts lose independence, families break down, officials normalize coercion, and governments gain control over what people may say. War can begin in days. Front lines can move in hours. A ceasefire can change the picture again.
If we added battle deaths, airstrikes, or territorial gains to the MDI, the score would rise and fall with the news. The war would drown out the slower changes underneath it, and you would lose everything.
The MDI may already show the disorder that led to war
Aggressive states often reveal their character before they invade anyone. They silence critics, corrupt courts, punish dissent, manufacture public truth, and concentrate power. The MDI already scores those conditions.
If the same government later attacks a neighbor, adding the war to its MDI score may count the same underlying disorder again. It would also hide one of the index’s most useful findings which is the internal warning signs were visible before the attack.
A war score would punish the country under attack
Suppose an invasion automatically raised the invaded country’s MDI score. That country would appear more morally disordered just because a foreign ruler chose to attack it. Many may risk their lives to defend their families and neighbors.
Such a score would tell us where violence is occurring. It would not tell us which society is morally disordered or who caused the war. Who caused or why is also a tricky question to answer and in cases takes decades to fully flush out.
When conflict does affect the MDI
A long war can become part of daily life. When courts no longer function, the government loses control of its territory, armed groups replace civil authority, and people can no longer rely on basic public order, the MDI records that breakdown in the Sovereignty domain. State failure, civil war, and ungoverned territory make up a portion of the Sovereignty score.
War can also change other scores over time. It may break families, destroy trust, increase coercion, or weaken courts. The MDI records those changes when the underlying data show that daily conditions have changed and persisted longert han a single event.
What the MDI can show about aggressive regimes
The MDI can show conditions that make aggression easier: rulers who rely on coercion, governments that control public truth, and institutions that cannot restrain those in power.
The Coercion Index adds another distinction. It separates countries where people freely uphold moral order from countries that appear orderly because the state forces compliance.
Why conflict has its own index
War matters too much to force into a measure that was not for it. The Global Conflict Index tracks conflict directly. It can move as events move and can be updated on the schedule of war. The GCI Pulse reports those changes each week.
The MDI asks: What moral conditions do people live under? The GCI asks: What violence is happening now?
Combining them would make both answers less clear.
Methodology and data for the Moral Disorder Index are published at the Open Science Framework and licensed: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. The Global Conflict Index is at unseenfront.com.