Exploring the Consequences of IED Deployment with a Generalized Linear Model Implementation of the Canadian Traveller Problem

摘要

The deployment of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) along major roadwayshas been a favoured strategy of insurgents in recent war zones, both for theability to cause damage to targets along roadways at minimal cost, but also asa means of controlling the flow of traffic and causing additional expense toopposing forces. Among other related approaches (which we discuss), theadversarial problem has an analogue in the Canadian Traveller Problem, whereina stretch of road is blocked with some independent probability, and the stateof the road is only discovered once the traveller reaches one of theintersections that bound this stretch of road. We discuss the implementation ofideas from social network analysis, namely the notion of "betweennesscentrality", and how this can be adapted to the notion of deployment of IEDswith the aid of Generalized Linear Models (GLMs): namely, how we can model theprobability of an IED deployment in terms of the increased effort due toCanadian betweenness, how we can include expert judgement on the probability ofa deployment, and how we can extend the approach to estimation and updatingover several time steps.