A Military Surge in Afghanistan -- Modeling a Focused Security Effort

Date of Award

Summer 2009

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering

Program/Concentration

Modeling and Simulation

Committee Director

John Sokolowski

Committee Member

Catherine Banks

Committee Member

Michael Bailey

Call Number for Print

Special Collections LD4331.E58 M67 2009

Abstract

In October of 2001, the United States invaded Afghanistan and ousted the Taliban government. Since their overthrow, the Taliban has pieced together and waged an insurgency to retake Afghanistan. That insurgency has gained momentum and grown in strength while the United States I NA TO counterinsurgency effort has decreased in size to about 55,000 troops in 2007. Many factors contribute to the insurgency inside of Afghanistan, from ethnic to economic factors to the failure of the central government. This research used a study of the current state of affairs in Afghanistan and agent-based modeling to determine whether a military troop surge emphasizing a Focused Security Effort could be successful in battling the growing insurgency within Afghanistan.

An agent-based model was created and validated against the current strategy and situation on the ground in Afghanistan. Three experiments were then conducted representing surges of fifty percent, two hundred percent, and four hundred percent. The results indicate that a surge of two hundred percent or four hundred percent of the current size force in Afghanistan would be successful at reducing the size of the insurgency, but a surge of only fifty percent (50,000 more troops) would not yield results different than current results using the current strategy. These model results provide insight into the potential success of various sized troop surges in Afghanistan that implement a Focused Security Effort.

Rights

In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).

DOI

10.25777/zr54-en07

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