EINSTein: A multiagent-based model of combat

Abstract

Artificial Life techniques-specifically, multiagent-based models and evolutionary learning algorithms-provide a powerful new approach to understanding some of the fundamental processes of war. This chapter introduces a simple artificial toy model of combat called EINSTein. EINSTein is designed to illustrate how certain aspects of land combat can be viewed as self-organized, emergent phenomena resulting from the dynamical web of interactions among notional combatants. EINSTein's bottom-up, synthesist approach to the modeling of combat stands in stark contrast to the more traditional top-down, or reductionist, approach taken by conventional military models, and it represents a step toward developing a complex systems theoretic toolbox for identifying, exploring, and possibly exploiting self-organized, emergent collective patterns of behavior on the real battlefield. A description of the model is provided, along with examples of emergent spatial patterns and behaviors. © 2009 Springer London.