Iruba : An Agent-Based Model of the Guerrilla War Process

We suggest that, as an extension to traditional historical analysis, it is potentially insightful and useful to model guerrilla wars in agent-based terms. Accordingly, the Iruba agent-based model of a guerrilla war has been designed and implemented. Some experimental results obtained with the model and conclusions that may be drawn from them are reported, particularly in relation to Guevara and Debray’s theory of “foco” and to a set of sufficient conditions for insurgent success asserted by T. E. Lawrence. Then the limitations of the Iruba and similar models are considered and the need for and possibility of direct analysis of an agent-based computational model discussed.