Irregular warfare models for regional stability development

Abstract

A war game can be defined as a realistic representation of inputs and outcomes in line with real world situations in a military environment. The Center for Army Analysis runs a war game simulation in order to gain insights and analyze counterinsurgency operations for higher level military commanders. The war gaming process is designed to develop a methodology that allows for the analysis of counterinsurgency operations at the operation/strategic levels. The adjudication table within the war game is used to predict outcomes based on troop levels, and is based solely on data from U.S. counterinsurgency missions in Iraq. With the withdrawal of forces from Iraq and now soon Afghanistan, it will be important to expand the scope of the adjudication table in order to improve the adaptability and accuracy of the war gaming process. An expanded adjudication table will allow the process to model counterinsurgency operations of the future that we have little knowledge of today. It can expedite decision making at the strategic level by modeling a wider expanse of solutions for an unfamiliar war zone. Outcomes can consist of a variety of possibilities to include number of insurgent attacks, total number of insurgents, and troop levels required to defeat the insurgency. In order to expand the scope of the adjudication table we have analyzed a number of counterinsurgency operations across a wide variety of countries and time periods. Incorporating additional conflicts into the adjudication table will allow for the adaptation of the war game to any potential number of conflicts in the future.