Artificial War: Multiagent-Based Simulation of Combat

782 Pages·2004·63.68 MB·English

by  Andrew Ilachinski

ARTIFICIAL WAR
Multiagent-Based
Simulation of Combat
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ARTIFICIAL WAR
Mul ti age nt - Based
Simulation of Combat
Andrew Hachinski
Center for Naval Analyses, USA
vp
World Scientific
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ARTIFICIAL WAR
Multiagent-Based Simulation of Combat
Copyright 0 2004 by World Scientific Publishing Co. Re. Ltd.
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This book is dedicated to four extraordinary in-
dividuals who, each in his own way, has shaped
much of my professional career as a military op-
erations research analyst: Richard Bronowitz, David
W. Kelsey, Lieutenant General (Retired) Paul K. van
Riper and Michael F. Shlesinger. Without their kind
encouragement, gentle guidance and quiet wis-
dom, the work described herein would not only
never have been completed but almost surely
would never have gone much beyond being just
a faint whisper of a crazy, but interesting, idea.
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Foreword
“In war more than in any other subject we must begin by looking at the nature of the whole,
for here more than elsewhere the part and whole must always be thought of together.”
-Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831)
In his famous opus, On War, the Prussian General Carl von Clausewitz observed
that “absolute, so-called mathematical, factors never find a firm basis in military
calculations.” Yet, today, as in the past, many practitioners and students of war
approach it as a discipline founded on scientific principles. They spend considerable
intellect, time, and resources in attempts to make war understandable through
some system of immutable laws. Theoreticians such as these seem to achieve a
measure of satisfaction in presenting papers at professional conferences, writing
articles and books, and offering advice to various authorities. In the end, however,
their considerable efforts amount to nothing more than descriptions of what they
wish war to be, not the terrible, brutal, bloody phenomenon that exists in the real
world.
The widest and most inappropriate use of such scientific methods for studying
and conducting war came during the late-1960s when Secretary of Defense Robert
McNamara and his disciples brought systems engineering thinking and tools to the
battlefields of Vietnam. Modern military operations they argued needed better
quantification. Thus, strict accounting rules dominated much planning and nearly
all assessments of how well the war was going. While computers whirling away in
Saigon produced numerical “evidence” of success those of us slogging through the
rice paddies and jungles came to a very different conclusion. Unfortunately, in the
final tally the war-fighters’ judgment proved correct and the tragic conflict ended
without victory even as it produced a bitterly divided nation.
An intellectual renaissance occurred throughout the American military in the
years following the Vietnam War. Officers disillusioned with their recent experience
attributed much of the problem to the professional education they received prior
to the war. As a result, when they achieved positions of greater authority they
eliminated curricula filled with the analytical methods of business administration
vii
...
Vlll Fore word
in favor of ones based on historical case studies and the writings of such philosophers
of war as Sun Tzu, Clausewitz, and Mahan. New thinking led to new doctrine rich
with the ideas of the classical strategists and replete with examples from history.
Eventually leaders at all levels deemed experience, wisdom, and judgment more
useful for tackling military problems than checklists, computer printouts, and other
mechanistic means. They tagged systems analysts as those who “knew the cost of
everything and the value of nothing.”
The many reforms implemented by the Vietnam era officers during the late
1970s and the 1980s manifested themselves in Operation Desert Storm in 1991,
an operation unprecedented in its speed and one-sided results. Not content to
rest on their laurels these same officers, now very senior in rank and motivated
by recent events and the approaching millennium, intensified their efforts to think
about war in the future. Ample evidence existed of the changing character of
war-failed states, radical religious movements, terrorists-and of new forms of war
brought about by informat ion technologies, precision-guided munitions, and space-
based systems. These new dissimilarities from the recent past required attention;
nonetheless, the focus of thought remained on the fundamentals of war.
Long recognized as an innovative military service, the United States Marine
Corps in 1994 undertook a wide review of new discoveries seeking those that showed
promise for improving the profession of arms. “Casting their nets widely” and
looking far beyond the usual interests of military personnel a handful of Marine
officers-of which I was fortunate to be included-learned of the emerging field of
nonlinear dynamics, more popularly known as the science of chaos or complexity.
Some critics dismissed the nascent theories coming from this new field of study as
simply the products of another fad. However, when our group of combat veterans
read the reports of researchers associated with the Santa Fe Institute we found that
their elemental descriptions of activities occurring throughout the natural world
matched our own observations of the essentials of actual battles. The more deeply
we considered the promising ideas the more convinced we became that war possessed
nonlinear characteristics, and thus might be better studied and understood through
the lens of complexity theory.
Not surprisingly then, when assigned in summer 1995 as the Commanding
General of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command-the organization
charged with writing concepts for future operations and determining the kinds of
organizations and equipment needed for these operations-I established an “Office
of New Sciences” to delve into the possibility of employing complexity theory in
support of the command’s mission. Marines in the office quickly opened an ongo-
ing dialogue with experts in the field. They soon felt confident enough to sponsor
a series of workshops and conferences to inform a wider military audience of the
potential of this new discipline. About the same time I discovered that a research
analyst-Dr. Andrew Ilachinski-employed by the Center for Naval Analyses, a
federally funded research organization chartered to support the Navy and Marine
Fore word iX
Corps, possessed an extensive educational background in nonlinear studies. I im-
mediately sought his assistance.
In an initial discussion Dr. Ilachinski suggested we focus our research on the
relevance of complexity theory to land combat because of its unique characteristics,
these being hierarchically organized units engaged in multifaceted interactions with
each other and the enemy over complicated terrain. I quickly agreed and autho-
rized a six-month exploration of the subject, In July 1996 Dr. Ilachinski published
a ground breaking report titled, Land Warfare and Complexity, Part 11: An Assess-
ment of the Applicability of Nonlinear Dynamic and Complex Systems Theory to
the Study of Land Warfare. A separate earlier volume, Land Warfare and Complex-
ity, Part I: Mathematical Background and Technical Source book offered material in
support of the second volume. The Part I1 report concluded:
“. .. t hat the concepts, ideas, theories, tools and general methodolo-
gies of nonlinear dynamics and complex systems theory show enor-
mous, almost unlimited, potential for not just providing better so-
lutions for certain existing problems of land combat, but for funda-
mentally altering our general understanding of the basic processes
of war, at all levels.”
Most important, the report suggested specific ways in which an understanding
of the properties of complex systems and land warfare might be used, starting with
changing the metaphors that elicit images of war and continuing through to de-
veloping fundament ally new concepts-or “the universal characteristics” -of land
warfare. The report also introduced the possibility of creating an agent-based sim-
ulation of combat. Less than three months later in September 1996, Dr. Ilachinski
had such a model-Irreducible Semi-Autonomous Adaptive Combat (ISAAC)-up
and running and a detailed report with source code published. He later intro-
duced an improved Windows version called Enhanced ISAAC Neural Simulation
Tool (EINSTein).
Combat-experienced Marines who observed the ISAAC program running im-
mediately detected patterns of activity that mimicked those of actual battles and
engagements. ISAAC did not generate the statistics and formulas of the traditional
military models, it displayed an ebb and flow with the look and feel of real battles.
Complexity theory recognizes that reducing or tearing apart a nonlinear system
into its component parts to enable analysis will not work, for the very act of sep-
arating the system into lesser elements causes the overall system to lose coherence
and meaning. A nonlinear system is not a sum of its parts, but truly more than
that sum. Therefore, it must be examined holistically. Clausewitz understood this
fact when he wrote that “in war more than in any other subject we must begin
by looking at the nature of the whole, for here more than elsewhere the part and
whole must always be thought of together.” War is not subject to the methods of
systems analyses, yet these and other tools of Newtonian physics were the only ones