Description
This research compares and contrasts current counterinsurgency strategies, Hearts and Minds and Cost Benefit Theory, by applying System Dynamics in order to construct system models that provides insight into the influences and emergent behavior patterns of system elements. The information gained from the development of these models and from their simulation behaviors was used to construct a System Dynamics model of a Hybrid Counterinsurgency Strategy that combines the influential elements and behaviors from each of the previous models in order to obtain a more comprehensive model of the counterinsurgency system. The behavior patterns suggest that security operations, critical during the short-term, are key to disrupting insurgent organizational mechanisms that strongly influence the population’s support for the host government and the coalition.
