simulation

The Economist offers a piece about breakthroughs in modeling civil wars.  I, for one, am highly skeptical that our wunderkinder can do anything of the sort that is truly faithful to the massive complexity of human interactions.

For in the war-games rooms and think-tanks of the rich world’s military powers, bright minds are working on the problem of how to model insurrection and irregular warfare. Slowly but surely they are succeeding, and in the process they are helping politicians and armies to a better understanding of the nature of rebellion.