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Modelling A Guerilla War 1971 PDF
Modelling A Guerilla War 1971 PDF
Jim Doran
Department of Computer Science
University of Essex
doraj@essex.ac.uk
Proceedings of the IEEE Workshop on Distributed Intelligent Systems: Collective Intelligence and Its Applications (DIS’06)
0-7695-2589-X/06 $20.00 © 2006 IEEE
to represent agents, the nature of agent interactions, the regime forces (and defection from regime forces)
agents’ joint environment, and the specific techniques reflects the numbers and attitudes of the so far
adopted to validate the model, that is, to ensure its uncommitted general population of the region in
reliability as a source of insight about the target. question. This population will partially support the
The Iruba (Ireland-Cuba) project [6] is following insurgents, and will partially be aware of the
this approach to construct and experiment with a insurgency, depending upon the conflict history in that
general model of a guerrilla war sufficiently realistic to region. These two “population attitude” variables and
offer new insights into dynamics or to further develop their use are intended to go some way towards
existing insights. In the model agents correspond to capturing the dynamics of population opinion and its
guerrilla bands, regime bases or outposts, and to impact upon the course of the insurgency.
headquarters on each side. A particular objective is to The core cycle of the model may be expressed in
establish sets of conditions expressed in terms of the outline pseudo-code as:
model’s parameters and structures that guarantee that
an insurgency will succeed or, alternatively, fail. Repeat
The Iruba model has been made broadly realistic Attacks and their impact
having regard to the relevant literature. In particular, HQ decisions
the model is loosely based on (extensive descriptions Recruitment
of) guerrilla wars that took place in the last century in Force movement
Ireland (1919-1921) and in Cuba (1956-1959), with Until termination
some further features drawn from the Arab Revolt
against the Turks in the Hejaz (1917-1918) towards the As indicated above, a degree of central control by
end of the First World War. It is important to recognise “headquarters” agents is possible for both sides. If an
that in many published descriptions of insurgencies insurgency grows, regime force may be concentrated
there is much that is inaccurate and biased to one side into regions where the insurgency is at its strongest.
or the other. This is certainly true of aspects of the Irish Furthermore, faced with a dangerous insurgency the
insurgency as has been demonstrated by Hart [12]. regime may take “all out” measures (comparable with,
Nevertheless, reliable sources for the foregoing for example, the so called “Salvador option”).1 On the
conflicts are [3] and [12]. other side, in appropriate circumstances the insurgents
The main structural and behavioural concepts used may be switched into “hyper-mobile” mode
in building the Iruba model are drawn from the Irish (comparable with the use of “flying columns” by the
insurgency: near autonomous regions with only limited IRA in Ireland) and/or an “all out” attack across a
central control; mobility; limited weaponry; the range of regions or even the entire island, may be
importance of terrain; and the importance of ideology triggered (compare the Tet Offensive in the Vietnam
and popular support. Correspondingly, the Iruba model war).
is structured as a network of 32 relatively autonomous Victory in this model is a matter either of
regions on an island that vary in terrain and population. insurgent annihilation, or of the insurgents achieving
The population of a region provides a (finite) massive numerical superiority and hence, by
recruitment pool for both insurgents and regime forces. assumption, political power. At several points the
Initially the regime forces are relatively numerous, model invokes chance factors using a pseudo-random
distributed in bases over the island, and relatively number generator. Consequently the success or failure
static, whilst the insurgents are small in number, of an insurgency may vary with the pseudo-random
localised, mobile and hard to find. As indicated, number stream seed even if all other model setting are
computational agents represent guerrilla cells/bands the same. The Iruba model has been implemented in
and regime bases and insurgent and regime the C programming language. Although some model
headquarters. Attacks take place within regions variables (e.g. population support for insurgents) are
following simple rational strategies. For example, a updated by simple mathematical relationships, many
guerrilla band may attack a poorly defended regime aspects of the model structure are much more complex.
base, with the outcome dependent upon terrain, relative For example, agents (guerrilla bands, regime bases and
numbers and weaponry, and random factors. A HQs) are essentially expressed as sets of conditional
successful attack may well lead to capture of weapons. rules. Thus, even if feasible, a more formal
Movement of insurgent or regime forces between mathematical or logical specification of the model
neighbouring regions takes place under appropriate independent of the code would achieve nothing.
conditions. For example, neither the forces that are
moved nor those that remain behind are left at 1
For the “Salvador option” see Michael Hirsh and John Barry,
significant risk. Recruitment to insurgents and to NEWSWEEK, Jan 10th, 2005.
Proceedings of the IEEE Workshop on Distributed Intelligent Systems: Collective Intelligence and Its Applications (DIS’06)
0-7695-2589-X/06 $20.00 © 2006 IEEE
A Major Insurgency is Defeated
100000
Combatants and
80000
Activists
60000 Insurgents
40000 Regime
20000
0
105
118
131
144
157
170
183
196
209
222
235
248
1
14
27
40
53
66
79
92
Simulation Cycles ("weeks")
Figure 1. A simulated insurgency “takes off” but is then defeated by regime counter-action.
See main text for further commentary.
Proceedings of the IEEE Workshop on Distributed Intelligent Systems: Collective Intelligence and Its Applications (DIS’06)
0-7695-2589-X/06 $20.00 © 2006 IEEE
fully “passive” with only 10% insurgent support. Other population at large and increase awareness and support
parameters in the Iruba model were set at plausible for the insurgents.
values. Table 3 addresses parameter changes concerning
what Mrs Thatcher, a former British Prime Minister,
Table 1. Impact of initial guerrilla band size on famously called “the oxygen of publicity”. We find
insurgent success rate. Success is taken to mean that in this model relatively high levels of “publicity”
that the total insurgent force has grown to more than for insurgent attacks (irrespective of their outcome)
100,000. Results were compiled from 100 trials (ie 100 favour the regime by rapidly mobilizing the general
simulated guerrilla wars) for each band size, each with population in support of the regime in the key initial
a timespan of 150 cycles (notionally weeks). phase of the struggle. Partial suppression of insurgent
recruitment (implying partial regime suppression of
Initial
insurgent publicity) is even more to the advantage of
guerrilla 30 35 40 45 50 55
band size the regime (compare Table 2).
Insurgent
success (%) 5 28 58 79 86 90 Table 3. Impact of publicity on insurgent
Insurgent success rate. The “publicity multiplier” influences
success (%) general population awareness of the insurgency and
if regime 3 23 45 77 83 80 recruitment to both sides. “Insurgent recruitment
force efficiency” influences the extent of insurgent
concentration recruitment. Initial insurgent band size is 50.
Publicity
multiplier 0.10 0.15 0.20 0.25 0.30
For comparison, at the outset of his Cuban Insurgent
insurgency Castro initially had 81 followers, who were success (%) 98 96 86 85 76
almost immediately reduced to about 20 in an attack by Insurgent
regime forces. The results of Table 1 indicate the success with
insurgent 73 57 40 27 26
unreliability of foco theory as propounded by Guevara
recruitment
and Debray. In fact, most insurgencies inspired by foco efficiency
theory do seem to have failed ([3], page 171). reduced to 0.5
Table 2 shows what happens when the insurgents
are made more effective in attack, and when their
efficiency at recruitment (in real life partly a matter of 4. A Feedback Loop
communication) increases. Interestingly, the results
suggest that within the Iruba model effective In all these experiments a potential positive
recruitment is more important than military skills. feedback loop is apparent: increasing insurgent
numbers make insurgent attack success more likely,
Table 2. Impact of insurgent attack which increases population awareness and support for
effectiveness and insurgent recruitment the insurgents, and hence increases recruitment to the
efficiency. The former increases with column, the insurgents and their numbers. All the forgoing trials
latter with row. Table entries are insurgent success indicate that if this loop is reliably established, and if
rates (again calculated over 100 trials), with a success spatial spread is achieved, then the insurgents succeed.
criterion of 100,000. Initial insurgent band size is 40.
If not, then they partially or completely fail. However
it is possible, within the model, for the loop to be
1.0 1.5 2.0
disrupted even when it has been established. In Table 4
1.0 58 68 68 is shown the average impact of an “all out” regime
1.5 73 86 90 counter attack on the insurgents when triggered by the
2.0 94 95 97 insurgency reaching a threshold total size.
An “all-out” regime counter attack comprises a set
Taken together these results suggest that sufficient of regime changes including better attack efficiency,
preconditions for likely insurgent success in the Iruba more effective recruitment, more focussed force
model as calibrated are: a sufficiently large initial concentration, and more effective insurgent group
band, at least minimal mobility, attack efficiency, some detection techniques, all implemented by appropriate
initial population support, and communication parameter adjustments within the model. Once these
processes by which insurgent successes impact the changes are triggered in a particular trial, they remain
in place until the end of it.
Proceedings of the IEEE Workshop on Distributed Intelligent Systems: Collective Intelligence and Its Applications (DIS’06)
0-7695-2589-X/06 $20.00 © 2006 IEEE
Table 4 indicates that an “all out” response by the specifics of a particular war of interest, and then (b)
regime is highly effective, especially if deployed early. run it repeatedly from the current military/political
With no “all-out” counter-attack at all the insurgent situation to find likely outcome(s). Core general
success rate is 88. properties previously discovered with the aid of the
general model may be used to guide and interpret
Table 4. Insurgent success rates when an “all specific prediction.
out” regime counter attack is triggered at the Of course, this simple prescription ignores major
stated insurgency size. This is in addition to regime difficulties. There are at least three sources of
force concentration. Success criterion for insurgents is uncertainty and unreliability. Firstly the general model
100,000, and table entries are again based on 100 itself may be inaccurate and incomplete. Some of the
trials each here of length 300 cycles. Recall that a total Iruba model’s limitations in this regard have already
insurgency size of more than 10,000 implies that the been stated. In most real contexts at least some of these
insurgency has certainly spread beyond its initial
region.
limitations would have to be removed.
Secondly, the process of “fitting” the model to the
Regime particular guerrilla war instance is likely to be very
counter- difficult to perform with precision. The number of
attack 5000 10000 30000 50000 parameters to be specified is very large, and many of
threshold them would be impossible to collect evidence for under
Insurgent conflict conditions. Even in historical retrospect this
success rate 0 4 27 52 task is difficult [12]. Perhaps the most than can be
% hoped for is that a probability distribution be estimated
for each such parameter and that prediction is based
upon the corresponding joint probability distribution
5. Limitations of the Model over the parameter space. Just how this is best done
remains an open question.
Although the Iruba model is already complex, it is Finally, the model is inherently stochastic so that
apparent that a great deal of importance is missing at best predictions will be in terms of probabilities (see
from it. The omissions include matters of relative the results presented earlier). At worst there may be
detail, for example, different types of attack including regions in a model’s parameter space that are “chaotic”
explicit “terror” attacks and assassinations, the in the sense that very small changes in parameter
distinction between death, injury, and imprisonment, settings may lead to major changes in the probabilities
and intelligence gathering and also such major matters of particular outcomes, and these will need to be
as population movement, external third party carefully mapped.
involvement, and the political and administrative
structures that insurgents often create as part of their 7. The Irish War of Independence
struggle.
The Irish War of Independence (1919-1921) is
6. Prediction of Outcomes potentially an instructive test case. It may be possible
to use the abundant (but still incomplete) historical
It is widely held in the relevant literature that the evidence available to capture within Iruba the state of
outcomes of guerrilla wars can sometimes be predicted the conflict as it was in, say, March 1920. Then we
if the required information is available and taken into may ask what outcome Iruba predicts. Historically,
account.4 The same is often asserted for social there was a ceasefire and negotiations in late 1921 that
revolutions e.g. [9]. Although Iruba is a general model ended in partial success for the insurgents and then a
designed to support exploration of the space of brief civil war. Retrospective prediction of this type,
possible guerrilla wars and to discover core properties although difficult to do convincingly, is nevertheless
(see earlier discussion of the core feedback loop), it relatively easy compared with successfully predicting
can be used predictively if we (a) “fit” the model to the the outcome of an ongoing war.
4
8. Peacemaking
Consider, for example: "Granted mobility, security (in the form of
denying targets to the enemy), time and doctrine (the idea to convert
every subject to friendliness) victory will rest with the insurgents, for
It seems possible that predictive use of a general
the algebraical factors are in the end decisive, and against them model of a guerrilla war has a potential role to play in
perfections of means and spirit struggle quite in vain” (T.E. cease-fire negotiations. To the extent that the reliability
Lawrence, [14], page 953).
Proceedings of the IEEE Workshop on Distributed Intelligent Systems: Collective Intelligence and Its Applications (DIS’06)
0-7695-2589-X/06 $20.00 © 2006 IEEE
of the model has been demonstrated, it has the Klaus G Troitzsch) Pre-Proceedings of the Third Conference
potential convincingly to elaborate or even correct the of the European Social Simulation Association (ESSA),
assessments that parties to such a negotiation will Koblenz, 2005, pp 198-205
necessarily already have made about their own military
[7] Doran, J E and Gilbert, N, “Simulating Societies: an
prospects. Thus the model might play a role akin to
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destruction are achieved on even a single occasion. Press, Stanford, California, 1971
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(with a foreword by B. H. Liddell Hart), Cassell, London,
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Guerrilla War Process” In Representing Social Reality (ed.
Proceedings of the IEEE Workshop on Distributed Intelligent Systems: Collective Intelligence and Its Applications (DIS’06)
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