Modeling Insurgency Attrition and Population Influence in Irregular Warfare
Abstract
The author develops a model that is a combination of Lanchester and Deitchman attrition models and population epidemic models. His fundamental premise is that a combination of these two types of models can yield important insights into the key relationships between an insurgency and the contested population. The two models are a base model with constant parameters, and more a advanced model with opportunistic and idealistic recruitment, various levels of government effort against the insurgency. and different ways of modeling population support. He finds, much like the real world, that initial conditions and policy decisions have a strong impact on the outcome of the conflict. Opposing factions that tailor their tactics to the situation (a government focusing on securing the population in a security-minded public) have a much greater chance of success. He also demonstrates the importance of good intelligence. Based on different attrition, recruitment, and transition rules, he studies the relationships between dynamic population flow and insurgency success or failure. The goal of the work is to provide an analytical framework for these situations, and to analyze the effect of different initial conditions and interactions on the success or failure of an insurgency. The models developed herein are descriptive, not predictive, and are designed to give decision makers an insight into a complex insurgency process.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jun 01, 2007
- Accession Number
- ADA469937
Entities
People
- Jeffrey M. Howell
Organizations
- Naval Postgraduate School