TY - CHAP
T1 - Statistical physics and modern human warfare
AU - Dixon, Alex
AU - Zhao, Zhenyuan
AU - Bohorquez, Juan Camilo
AU - Denney, Russell
AU - Johnson, Neil F
PY - 2010
Y1 - 2010
N2 - Modern human conflicts, such as those ongoing in Iraq, Afghanistan and Colombia, typically involve a large conventional force (e.g., a state army) fighting a relatively small insurgency having a loose internal structure. In this chapter, we adopt this qualitative picture in order to study the dynamics – and in particular the duration – of modern wars involving a loose insurgent force. We generalize a coalescence-fragmentation model from the statistical physics community in order to describe the insurgent population, and find that the resulting behavior is qualitatively different from conventional mass-action approaches. One of our main results is a counterintuitive relationship between an insurgent war’s duration and the asymmetry between the two opposing forces, a prediction which is borne out by empirical observation.
AB - Modern human conflicts, such as those ongoing in Iraq, Afghanistan and Colombia, typically involve a large conventional force (e.g., a state army) fighting a relatively small insurgency having a loose internal structure. In this chapter, we adopt this qualitative picture in order to study the dynamics – and in particular the duration – of modern wars involving a loose insurgent force. We generalize a coalescence-fragmentation model from the statistical physics community in order to describe the insurgent population, and find that the resulting behavior is qualitatively different from conventional mass-action approaches. One of our main results is a counterintuitive relationship between an insurgent war’s duration and the asymmetry between the two opposing forces, a prediction which is borne out by empirical observation.
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U2 - 10.1007/978-0-8176-4946-3_14
DO - 10.1007/978-0-8176-4946-3_14
M3 - Chapter
AN - SCOPUS:84979173851
VL - 51
T3 - Modeling and Simulation in Science, Engineering and Technology
SP - 365
EP - 396
BT - Modeling and Simulation in Science, Engineering and Technology
PB - Springer Basel
ER -