Implications of Emerging Applications of Information and Computational Power

During the coming decades, the U.S. armed forces will likely be expected to conduct a wide range of non-conventional, irregular warfare and humanitarian assistance missions. It is also anticipated that these operations will be conducted in extremely unfamiliar, unstable and complex social environments. These operations will rely heavily on civil-military interactions, and as such, the need to coordinate planning and operations with other U.S. government agencies and members of the host nation will be at a premium. In the Information Age, information is abundant. Unfortunately, the enormous volume of social and network information related to an operational environment is practically impossible for humans to retain and process quantitatively. In an effort to assist the Combatant Commander with the difficult task of managing the enormous amount of information available, computer-based decision support tools are currently being developed and evaluated. These tools are promoted as having the ability to assimilate individual and social attitudes and to forecast to various degrees of accuracy the stimulus-response of targeted individuals and social groups. This paper will ascertain if agent-based modeling and simulation can provide platforms for planners to develop more accurate assumptions of the social environment. In addition, can synthetic environments be a reliable venue to game and vet joint operational level non-kinetic courses of action prior to implementation? Finally, is social network modeling feasible on an operational level?