Type of Research: Corporate (work done under DMSO support to advance the state of Land Warfare Command and Control (C2) in JWARS).

Summary:
This paper describes a “plug-in” module that attempts to introduce behavior patterns for synthetic commanders. These behavior patterns are driven by fuzzy logic. “It uses data from well known personality tests in fuzzy rule sets to influence the interpretation of this doctrine, and a chess-like look-ahead engine to see the results of various applications of this doctrine. It then chooses the COA that gets to a goal while best satisfying other values such as ‘minimize attrition of friendly troops.’”

Above: Major components of the JWARS Land Warfare Commander model.

• Commander Model (CM)       Situation Assessment       COA Selector             - Conventional Rules             - Fuzzy Rules             - Game Board       Commander Behavior Model (CBM)           (Optional)             - Personality Traits             - Personality to Attitudes Converter             - Attitudes to Values Converter             - Consequence Evaluator             - Value/Consequence Resolver

• Staff Support Elements       Maneuver Planner       Intel Planner       Resupply Planner       Fire Support Coordinator • Information       Knowledge Base (enemy, friendly, etc.)       Fuzzy Knowledge Base (supports COA           Selection and CBM)

“The JWARS Land Commander Model is responsible for three primary functions. First, it has the responsibility for assessing the situation.... Second, the CM selects the course of action (COA) from those that are available. And third, the CM monitors the plan and makes the decision when to modify or abandon the plan and select a new one.”

Examples of some of the fuzzy logic rules for COA:

“If force A is flank assaulting force B, then B must face A.

If force A’s strength is much greater than B’s strength and B’s loss rate is very attriting, then B should withdraw.

If attacker A is much stronger than defender B and A is close to objective C, then the objective is likely.

A person whose decision-making axis is feeling has a benevolent attitude towards others

If friendly frontal attack is true, friendly attrition is very true.

A commander whose attitude towards others is benevolent has a minimizing loss
COA evaluation strategy.”

This is an interesting concept, trying to simulate a commander’s decisions based on fuzzy logic and MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory) and the MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) tests.

In the future they plan on implementing the following:

Current Prototype	Long Term JWARS CBM/COA Selector
Agents treat perceptions as ground truth, i.e. have full confidence in them.	Agents recognize they only perceive situations (do not know truth), and take different fuzzy likelihoods into account in their decisions.
Agents all have the same knowledge of themselves that the opponent has.	Each agent has a model of what their opponent likely knows about that agent, based on opponent’s position, sensor capability and intelligence, making deception and information operations possible.
Agents all have the same doctrinal rule sets.	Agents have individual rule sets based on their country’s doctrine, and a model of opponent’s rule sets based on their identification of the opponent and its doctrine.
Agents have a simple scoring function.	Agents act based on the assumption that opponents will do what is best for them given their doctrine and personality.
Agents have the same moves available to them at all times.	Agent’s doctrinally correct responses are constrained by their forces and supplies, by the enemy situation, and by the environment, with only the top n options considered in COA tree creation.

Above: How a COA tree is created with second order perception.

Comments:
This is a very ambitious undertaking and, I feel, a very dangerous precedent. While there are a number of stories⁷ - some apocryphal others not — of a commanding general altering his strategy because of some perceived inside knowledge of his opponents personality, COA analysis, by definition, is supposed to include a bestcase and a worst-case scenario.

Commanders come and go (and are frequently replaced in combat). I would have much more confidence in a computer analysis of what an opposing force could do based on the laws of physics rather than what it might do based on some vague psychological principles.

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⁷ Lee’s comments on Grant after he assumed command in the east and Patton’s comments about Rommel before the battles in Tunisia come to mind.

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