Related papers: Universal patterns underlying ongoing wars and ter…
We analyze the database prepared by Brecke (Brecke 2011) for violent conflict, covering some 600 years of human history. After normalizing the data for the global human population, we find that the number of casualties tends to follow a…
The conflicts between armed groups often go on for years. The classical model of such conflicts accounts for the number of participants and for the technology level of the equipment of the groups. Below we extend this model in order to…
Phase transitions, characterized by abrupt shifts between macroscopic patterns of organization, are ubiquitous in complex systems. Despite considerable research in the physical and natural sciences, the empirical study of this phenomenon in…
In this paper, we have initiated an attempt to develop and understand the driving mechanisms that underlie fourth-generation warfare. We have undertaken this from a perspective of endeavoring to understand the drivers of these events from a…
Although very large wars remain an enduring threat in global politics, we lack a clear understanding of how some wars become large and costly, while most do not. There are three possibilities: large conflicts start with and maintain intense…
Coalition forming is investigated among countries, which are coupled with short range interactions, under the influence of external fields produced by the existence of global alliances. The model rests on the natural model of coalition…
Society faces a fundamental global problem of understanding which individuals are currently developing strong support for some extremist entity such as ISIS (Islamic State) -- even if they never end up doing anything in the real world. The…
In this essay we explore analogies between macroscopic patterns, which result from a sequence of phase transitions/instabilities starting from a homogeneous state, and similar phenomena in cosmology, where a sequence of phase transitions in…
Temporal networks are a fundamental and flexible way of describing the activities, relationships, and evolution of any complex system. Global terrorism is one of the biggest concerns of recent times. It is also an example of a temporal…
The 'out of the blue' nature of recent terror attacks and the diversity of apparent motives, highlight the importance of understanding the online trajectories that individuals follow prior to developing high levels of extremist support.…
Why are human societies unstable? Theories based on the observation of recurring patterns in historical data indicate that economic inequality, as well as social factors are key drivers. So far, models of this phenomenon are more…
Major revolts have recently erupted in parts of the Middle East with substantial international repercussions. Predicting, coping with and winning those revolts have become a grave problem for many regimes and for world powers. We propose a…
Existing models of political violence often emphasize discrete transitions, when conflicts emerge, escalate, or subside, without considering the longer trajectories of violence that accumulate across time and space. This paper introduces a…
The risk of conflict is exasperated by a multitude of internal and external factors. Current multivariate analysis paints diverse causal risk profiles that vary with time. However, these profiles evolve and a universal model to understand…
Spatial distribution of the human population is distinctly heterogeneous, e.g. showing significant difference in the population density between urban and rural areas. In the historical perspective, i.e. on the timescale of centuries, the…
Universality in the behavior of complex systems often reveals itself in the form of scale-invariant distributions that are essentially independent of the details of the microscopic dynamics. A representative paradigm of complex behavior in…
We are able to unify various disparate claims and results in the literature, that stand in the way of a unified description and understanding of human conflict. First, we provide a reconciliation of the numerically different exponent values…
The proliferation of terrorism is a serious concern in national and international security, as its spread is seen as an existential threat to Western liberal democracies. Understanding and effectively modelling the spread of terrorism…
Many successful terrorist groups operate across international borders where different countries host different stages of terrorist operations. Often the recruits for the group come from one country or countries, while the targets of the…
Support for extremist entities - whether from the far right, or far left - often manages to survive globally online despite significant external pressure, and may ultimately inspire violent acts by individuals having no obvious prior…