NSCC/SA: Collaborative Research: Predicting the Nature of Conflict - An Evolutionary Analysis of the Tactical Choice

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This award was funded through the Social and Behavioral Dimensions of National Security, Conflict, and Cooperation competition, a joint venture between NSF and the Department of Defense.This research examines the relationship and dependence between the type of conflict or insurgency that exists in a country, and the type of government present in the country from which the conflict originates. An innovative dual approach is proposed to study conflict in which an evolutionary game theoretical model is paired with an experimental analysis in the laboratory. Evolutionary game theory predicts that individuals making the "fittest" choices will survive, multiply, and characterize the population. In the spirit of this approach, rebels in a country will be modeled as agents interacting among themselves and with the rest of the population in the country, repeatedly over time. The rebels' choice of tactic will be the action that performs the best (with the highest fitness) given on the type of political and social environment faced in the country. Therefore, over time, an equilibrium characterized by a particular type of conflict will emerge. Experimental methods will be used to investigate how groups learn to cooperate and coordinate over the best tactic over time, as they interact with each other. The objective will be to determine how the choice of an action or tactic evolves over time under different environments, mimicking different types of regimes and governments. The proposed evolutionary model looks at the evolution of tactical responses in conflict situations as a function of the power of a state. This connects the nature of future -- and, therefore, unobservable -- conflict to the current and observable nature of government, and provides a means for predicting the nature of conflict. This predictability can then be used to develop responses specific to the nature of the expected conflict.