Modeling and Evaluating Irregular Warfare in the Age of Complexity

In this paper the use of agent-based models (ABMs) as modeling tools for irregular warfare (IW) is discussed. Furthermore, options for evaluating ABM-generated outcomes for simulated IW scenarios are presented. ABMs can be used to enhance traditional wargaming capabilities or as stand-alone simulations. Both possibilities are discussed, including criteria delineating when they are likely to produce beneficial results. An example of the complementary use of ABMs with an interactive wargame (crowd confrontation) is presented. Afterwards, the use of a stand-alone ABM to explore the complexity of combat is discussed. The flexibility and strengths of ABMs in capturing combat complexity lead to a need for suitable measures of effectiveness (MOEs) for capturing the complexity of IW quantitatively. These measures are (mostly) independent of attrition, and are able to capture manoeuvres including dispersion and re-aggregation of forces, as well as the interactions between spatial and temporal dynamics. The measures discussed can be used to evaluate traditional force-on-force attrition combat as well as less traditional operations in the presence of non-combatants, and to provide insights into the complex nature of warfare not easily gained through other quantities, including the possible critical nature of some types of conflicts. Lastly, implications of the complexity-based MOEs for real conflicts are briefly outlined