Mathematics of War

[Ken White]

Falling in love with your own research is dangerous, definitely, but more often than not we're talking about people applying other people's innovations incorrectly--often disasterously...
I think that's a risk we take whenever we give up our faculties to authority, whether to math or to experience. To take a model and blindly apply it, without examining the math, its underlying assumptions, the facts on the ground, etc., is about as insane as trusting in the experience of someone simply because somebody told you he was good...

Therin lies the rub as they say...

In war -- not just in combat but in preparation as well -- the skills to do that rudimentary analysis may not be in the right place at the right time. Time will always be detrimental to a reasoned analysis. I totally agree that the most common problem is misapplication of data or models but my point is that war will force such errors far more often than not. Therefor considerable caution in their development and use should be taken -- and it is not...

I do not, however, agree that modelers arrive at different conclusions based on the same data. That's not a matter of faith, it's a mathematical fact. Given some data, there's a finite number of functions describing them. Those functions have to be homomorphic. If they weren't, then the data underlying them has to be different. That the data concerns human behavior is irrelevant.

Ah yes, I'm reminded of the famous Lancet study of Iraqi deaths in the war...

Not precisley the same thing but misuse of numbers is not unknown, deliberate or inadvertant. Trust but verify is good -- if you have time...

The problem, BTW, with that study was impeccable math was skewed terribly by very poor and dishonest data collection and thus GIGO occurred.

Furthermore, I do believe (or should say I have no reason to disbelieve the notion that) human behavior can be quantified. ... They will almost certainly be probabilistic. This is not a problem for me.

Understand and agree but it can create problems with the carelessly accepting and less numerate or aware.

Would you say this was the case at all scales of combat? And what time frame are we talking about for these observations? I was under the impression the modeling's been used fairly frequently in campaign analysis in recent decades. I'm not privy to the results of exercises, and data on conventional land-air operations is infrequent.

Up to the operational level for a great many, for virtually all at Tactical levels up to and including Division. All during the period 1949 until I retired in 1995 for the second time.

But the general aphorism that "people and numbers" don't mix well is disproven, once again, by a most obvious example: the medical profession.

Heh. We are two modelers presented roughly the same data and arriving at different conclusions.

[Presley Cannady]

Therin lies the rub as they say...

In war -- not just in combat but in preparation as well -- the skills to do that rudimentary analysis may not be in the right place at the right time. Time will always be detrimental to a reasoned analysis. I totally agree that the most common problem is misapplication of data or models but my point is that war will force such errors far more often than not. Therefor considerable caution in their development and use should be taken -- and it is not...

I wouldn't go that far. Combat computation is certainly not the norm at the infantry company scale, but it's made its way to the battalion level. It's applications in the Air Force and Navy stretch back to almost immediately after the end of World War II. Nor is modeling static. Both Navy and Air Force (don't know about Army or the Corps) have dozens of active programs refining and when necessary replacing tools already in the field.

Ah yes, I'm reminded of the famous Lancet study of Iraqi deaths in the war...Not precisley the same thing but misuse of numbers is not unknown, deliberate or inadvertant. Trust but verify is good -- if you have time...The problem, BTW, with that study was impeccable math was skewed terribly by very poor and dishonest data collection and thus GIGO occurred.

Setting aside the politics surrounding it, both Lancet studies were severely criticized on the merits. For one, the cluster size was very small compared to say the UN household survey ostensibly studying the same issue; the two reports were off by an order of magnitude. Therefore, there is no conclusive epidemiology about excess mortality due to combat, let alone due to Coalition arms. This is not a criticism of modeling, but in fact a virtue of it. Being able to demonstrate sensitivity to inputs by which we can consider or disregard specific models is something to be desired. I feel this is similar to the "plans v. planning" distinction.

And there's always time. You don't suffer from not pushing a model into service before it matures, you just don't gain any benefit from it. No need crying over what you simply don't have.

Finally, models aren't alone or even particularly special in their vulnerability to garbage input. A case has been made, in this forum no doubt, that collection, dissemination, and acceptance by the stakeholders based on no modeling whatsoever contributed to what many view as a misadventure in Iraq.

Understand and agree but it can create problems with the carelessly accepting and less numerate or aware.Up to the operational level for a great many, for virtually all at Tactical levels up to and including Division. All during the period 1949 until I retired in 1995 for the second time.Heh. We are two modelers presented roughly the same data and arriving at different conclusions.

Ah, but that data is sampled, and that's the key word. If you have a dataset that includes say the explosive tonnage of munitions expended and I have one that simply goes by the weight, our data sets are inevitably different. If that's the only difference, we'll find our results parallel but differ in magnitude. We can't even guarantee that if our collection is littered with completely unrelated classes of observables. Case in point, the Lancet studies v. the UN survey.

1949 to 1995? Jesus. Do they throw in frequent flier miles for the second time around?

[Ken White]

I wouldn't go that far. Combat computation is certainly not the norm at the infantry company scale...

Having spent most of my time from 1966 on above Company level and all after 1970 above Brigade, I'm well aware of that. I'm also aware that most are of marginal utility. I would say useless but there are Commanders who like numbers so they're handy to placate those guys.

And there's always time. You don't suffer from not pushing a model into service before it matures, you just don't gain any benefit from it. No need crying over what you simply don't have.

no one is crying but the time for the people that will use your model in combat to give it scrutiny before application to insure they understand what it shows is often not available. No amount of peacetime or rear area modeling can be reliably used in combat without thorough understanding of what is to be done -- time to get that knowledge embedded often will not exist.

Finally, models aren't alone or even particularly special in their vulnerability to garbage input. A case has been made, in this forum no doubt, that collection, dissemination, and acceptance by the stakeholders based on no modeling whatsoever contributed to what many view as a misadventure in Iraq.

Knowing the penchant of many in high places, I'm dubious but honestly don't know. I would characterize Iraq not as a misadventure but a as a necessary but regrettably flawed operation, a flawed effort that was predicated on several iterations of a computer modeled war game...[quote]Ah, but that data is sampled{/quote]Of course it is -- as is most all data.

1949 to 1995? Jesus. Do they throw in frequent flier miles for the second time around?

Sure but Federal employees have to turn 'em in...