ABSTRACT
Over the next 20 years, synthetic worlds will increasingly represent the non-physical, intangible aspects of life, moving beyond the 3 dimensions of the physical world. The behaviors of economies, information flows, human attitudes, cultural trends, and other intangible systems will be synthesized in models to allow users to explore the behavior of humans directly interacting with others (social systems) and humans interacting with technical systems (social-technical systems). Perhaps the most critical application of such worlds will be the use by policy makers who seek to understand, avoid, or avert global crises.
Today, we employ computer models to track the behavior (in the physical world) of aircraft, ships and trucks, and provide tactical users an ability to predict their near-term future trajectories; we envision a future where computer models will track the state of the intangibles of the world and enable strategic policymakers to discover potential flashpoints, focus on their modes of causality, and explore the effects of alternative policies and the course of action that implement them.
This chapter illustrates the future use of synthetic worlds in support of national security policymaking at the highest levels of government (e.g., National Security Council, Department of Defense, Department of State, and National Intelligence Council). The chapter complements other chapters on intelligence by illustrating how policy analysts will use the best estimate of foreign situations that are provided by intelligence in the form of synthetic worlds, to explore the effects of potential policies.
We begin by presenting the use of synthetic worlds in an 18 hour crisis situation that challenges policymakers to understand the complex dynamics of an emerging foreign crisis in the small, but potentially strategic area of the fictitious country of Cutanea. Policy makers, and their supporting analysts and planners will use their synthetic world models to both understand the emergent crisis phenomena of the situation, and to evaluate the range of effects of candidate US policies, illustrating the key role of synthetic worlds as an intermediary between intelligence and planners to support national policymaking.
