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Abstract:
The Red Queen's notion. "It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place" has been applied within evolutionary biology, politics and economics. We find that a generalized version in which an adaptive Red Queen (e.g. insurgency) sporadically edges ahead of a Blue King (e.g. military), explains the progress curves for fatal insurgent attacks against the coalition military within individual provinces in Afghanistan and Iraq. Remarkably regular mathematical relations emerge which suggest a prediction tau eta = tau Iota Eta -[m log 10 tau lota +c] for the timing of the eta' th future fatal day, and provide a common framework for understanding how insurgents fight in different regions. Our findings are consistent with a Darwinian selection hypothesis which favors a weak species which can adapt rapidly, and establish an unexpected conceptual connection to Physics through correlated walks.
| Limitations: |
 APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE |
| Pages: |
26 |
| Report Date: |
MAR 2011 |
| Report Number: |
A680845 |
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