Modeling insurgency, counter-insurgency, and coalition strategies and operations

We model insurgency and counter-insurgency (COIN) operations with a large-scale system of differential equations and a dynamically changing coalition network. We use these structures to analyze the components of leadership, promotion, recruitment, financial resources, operational techniques, network communications, coalition cooperation, logistics, security, intelligence, infrastructure development, humanitarian aid, and psychological warfare, with the goal of informing today’s decision makers of the options available in COIN tactics, operations, and strategy. In modern conflicts, techniques of asymmetric warfare wreak havoc on the inflexible, regardless of technological or numerical advantage. In order to be more effective, the US military must improve its COIN capabilities and flexibility to match the adaptability and rapid time-scales of insurgent networks and terror cells. Our simulation model combines elements of traditional differential equation force-on-force modeling with modern social science modeling of networks, PSYOPs, and coalition cooperation to build a framework that can inform various levels of military decision makers in order to understand and improve COIN strategy. We show a test scenario of eight stages of COIN operation to demonstrate how the model behaves and how it could be used to decide on effective COIN resources and strategies.