The Latest Weapons Against Urban Insurgencies

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Mathematical Models: The Latest Weapons Against Urban Insurgencies

War planners for decades have used computer simulations to prepare for future battles.

The Iraq experience, however, convinced commanders that they need new and improved ways to cope with the complex social environments and insurgent behaviors that were poorly understood before U.S. forces invaded Iraq.

“The Defense Department is asking for models of social agendas, of social behaviors,” said Rob Goff, manager of defense operations at Alion Science and Technology Corp. The company develops simulations and models for military war games.

“A lot of work is going on in that area,” said Goff.

Simulations that require accurate representations of foreign cultures are tough to do, he said. The challenge is even harder when the models have to predict the interaction between different cultures in harsh conditions, Goff noted.

Military leaders, for example, may want to know what happens when two cultures are thrown into a poverty stricken city — how they would relate to each other based on religion, economics, ethnicity and other factors.

My suggestion, send the social scientist to ANY U.S. Urban metropolitan area and save us the tax dollars. The impact of public policy decisions on inner cities appears to be foreign in nature to many U.S. citizens.