Abstract for: Improving Military Strategy using Predictive Agents with Embedded Mental Simulation Models

Air strategy planners have the difficult task of providing commanders with campaign plans prior to commencing operations, and recommending options during the campaign. BAE Systems has developed the Commander’s Model Integration and Simulation Toolkit (CMIST), a tool for creating and using simulation models appropriate for high-level strategic decision-making. CMIST provides a unified graphical interface for a variety of methodologies appropriate for systems modeling, including System Dynamics, Bayesian cause-effect, individual agents, Coloured Petri Nets, and other families. Recent development on CMIST enables an agent to run an embedded simulation model representing its own internal, usually simplified, model of the outside world. This proactive intent model allows the agent to project the future state of the world in order to make decisions and take appropriate preventative measures before those future states occur. We discuss comparative results using reactive vs. proactive intent models in the context of our notional Insurgent Growth model.