Micro, Meso, Macro: Generic Structures of Social Complexity for Defense Systems Engineering & National Security Wargames

Representing micro, meso, and macro sociotechnical systems and the social complexity of populations in national security wargames is a challenge. Practitioners need simulation structure at high fidelity, with reliable data, that can fluidly compose and decompose between these levels based on solid theory. This paper introduces three recent enhancements to the emerging-state actor model (E-SAM) simulation that can generalized as methodological blueprints for representing sociotechnical systems for system engineers or social complexity for national security wargames. We demonstrate the methods with three experiments. These include recreating the original ISIS case study in Syria & Iraq 2010–2020, a Ukrainian War hypothetical post-conflict stabilization scenario 2022–2032, and a hypothetical humanitarian aid mission after a major natural disaster in Myanmar in 2028. The experiments demonstrate the wide versatility of E-SAM and these simulation components to model different patterns of social complexity.