Universal patterns underlying ongoing wars and terrorism

TL;DR

This paper uncovers universal patterns in violence across ongoing wars and terrorism, revealing that insurgent forces behave similarly regardless of their ideologies or terrain, explained through a self-organizing system theory.

Contribution

It introduces a microscopic theory modeling insurgent groups as self-organizing systems with coalescence and fragmentation dynamics, unifying diverse conflict patterns.

Findings

Universal violence patterns observed in wars and terrorism

Insurgent forces operate similarly across different contexts

A self-organizing system model explains insurgent behavior

Abstract

We report a remarkable universality in the patterns of violence arising in three high-profile ongoing wars, and in global terrorism. Our results suggest that these quite different conflict arenas currently feature a common type of enemy, i.e. the various insurgent forces are beginning to operate in a similar way regardless of their underlying ideologies, motivations and the terrain in which they operate. We provide a microscopic theory to explain our main observations. This theory treats the insurgent force as a generic, self-organizing system which is dynamically evolving through the continual coalescence and fragmentation of its constituent groups.