Resource Allocation in Strategic Adversarial Interactions: Colonel Blotto Games and Their Applications in Control Systems

TL;DR

This paper advocates for the use of Colonel Blotto game frameworks in control systems, highlighting their analytical richness and versatility for strategic resource allocation in adversarial settings.

Contribution

It demonstrates how Colonel Blotto games can model and solve complex resource allocation problems in cybersecurity, network defense, and multi-agent systems.

Findings

Survey of recent analytical and computational advances

Application examples in cybersecurity and network defense

Extensions addressing incomplete information and multi-stage decisions

Abstract

Resource allocation under strategic adversarial constraints represents a fundamental challenge in control systems, from cybersecurity defense to infrastructure protection. While game-theoretic frameworks have long informed such problems, Colonel Blotto games -- despite their direct relevance to allocation decisions -- remain underutilized and underappreciated in the controls community compared to other game-theoretic models like the Prisoner's Dilemma. The disparity stems largely from analytical complexity: Colonel Blotto games typically require characterizing intricate mixed-strategy equilibria that resist the clean, closed-form solutions control theorists prefer. Yet as Golman and Page observe, this very complexity ``makes Blotto all the more compelling in its interpretations.'' The goal of this expository article is to showcase the power and versatility of Colonel Blotto game frameworks for the controls community, demonstrating how allocation problems across cybersecurity, network defense, and multi-agent systems can be modeled within this unified theoretical structure. We survey recent analytical and computational breakthroughs, highlight diverse applications, and examine extensions addressing incomplete information, network effects, and multi-stage decision-making -- illustrating how Colonel Blotto games provide both practical tools and fundamental insights for strategic resource allocation in adversarial environments.