Land Warfare and Complexity, Part I: Mathematical Background and Technical Sourcebook

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to provide the theoretical framework and mathematical background necessary to understand and discuss the various ideas of nonlinear dynamics and complex system theory to plant seeds for a later more detailed discussion (provided in Part II of this report) of how these ideas might apply to land warfare issues. This paper is also intended to be a general technical sourcebook of information. The main idea put forth in this paper is that significant new insights into the fundamental processes of land warfare can be obtained by viewing land warfare as a complex adaptive system. That is to say, by viewing a military "conflict" as a nonlinear dynamical system composed of many interacting semi-autonomous and hierarchically organized agents continuously adapting to a changing environment.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jul 01, 1996
Accession Number
ADA362620

Entities

People

  • Andrew Ilachinski

Organizations

  • Center for Naval Analyses

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Autonomy
  • C4I
  • Cyber
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Ground and Sea Platforms
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Agent-Based Simulations
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Automata Theory
  • Chemical Reactions
  • Cognitive Science
  • Computational Science
  • Computer Languages
  • Computer Programming
  • Computer Programs
  • Computer Science
  • Computers
  • Information Processing
  • Machine Learning
  • Mathematical Models
  • Network Science
  • Nonlinear Dynamics
  • Self Organizing Systems

Readers

  • Business Analytics
  • Systems Analysis and Design
  • Wetland-Land-Environmental Management.