If ever there’s an argument in favor of Julian Assange releasing thousands of highly classified US documents onto the web, then surely this it. By using previously secret data supplied by WikiLeaks, a team of researchers has taken predictive analytics into a war zone in an attempt forecast where and when battles might take place.

By sorting through and collating vast amounts of data from diplomatic cables dumped online by Assange and co. in 2010, a group of geeks friends at the headquarters of the internet company Bitly Inc., in New York, has managed to create a computer model that not only predicts where and when violence might occur in Afghanistan, but also its level intensity. The results of their work were published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences last month.

Predictive analytics isn’t a new concept of course. We’ve previously seen law enforcement agencies attempt to get their heads around vast amounts of big data in order to try and second guess criminals, so that they can figure out where best to deploy their resources and prevent crimes from happening. The only difference with law enforcement is that, for the most part, the data they use is fairly structured, based on historical databases of crime statistics.

The Afghan war zone researchers had a much harder task, gleaning information from 77,000 unstructured and scattered bits of data to come up with their view of the country’s flashpoints, which makes the fact that they managed to finish their project in just one night all the more amazing.

Obviously, this war zone prediction model has some far reaching consequences, and not just for the military. No doubt our generals would love to get their hands on this kind of info (if they don’t already have it), which would help them plan everything from assaults on enemy forces to rescue operations.

But the model can provide valuable insights for plenty of others too, including aid organizations, charities, journalists, security companies, and anyone else who has a vested interest in second-guessing when it’s going to kick off inside a war zone.