Representing urban cultural geography in stabilization operations analysis of a social network representation in Pythagoras

Abstract

Civilian human behavior representation is the most significant gap in representing political, military, economic, social, information and infrastructure aspects of the operational environment in urban operations. We consider three analytical models for different aspects of population dynamics, and explore whether they can be implemented in the Pythagoras 2.0.0 agent-based combat simulation software. These analytic models are an attitudinal effect model, a social network model, and an economic model. This study shows that the transfer of simple analytic models into an advanced simulation software platform can bring unpredictable difficulties. A detailed investigation reveals the strengths and weaknesses of this advanced software, and shows that the current version of Pythagora's is not capable of adequately mapping all three human behavior models. The thesis recommends code changes to overcome these limitations and points out ways to improve Pythagoras' ability to represent human behavior, so it can be used by the U.S. Army and Marine Corps for more sophisticated analyses of stabilization operations. The ultimate goal is to provide decision makers with tools to help them make better decisions regarding stabilization operations and other issues critical to global security.