FLEXIBLE COMBAT MODELING

Global changes in military affairs place new demands for flexibility o n military models and analysis. Military models were historically desi gned to assess central European conflict, with limited options for exa mining alternative scenarios or other conflict variations. Military mo dels today must deal with these issue, but must also reflect the more likely future regional conflicts, in which strategies, doctrines. forc es, and environment will vary significantly from the European standard of the past. Models like the RAND Strategy Assessment System (RSAS) h ave already begun to meet these new requirements, addressing a multipo lar world that poses a wide variety of prospective conflicts. It allow s for relatively easy and powerful manipulation of conflict scenarios and parameters as well as providing graphical interfaces for both inte rmediate variables and final figures of merit. It also has begun to re flect some of the significant regional differences in conflict style. But several advances in the state of the art in military analysis are still required to provide the flexibility demanded by the new environm ent. These advances will be facilitated if two conditions exist. First , the likely differences among regional conflicts and coalition partic ipants must be established Second, a more systematic procedure to acco unt for the secondary effects of new weapon technologies (on doctrine and opposition reactions) needs to be developed.