Date of Award

3-24-2016

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Operations Research

Department

Department of Operational Sciences

First Advisor

Darryl K. Ahner, PhD.

Abstract

Using open source data, this research formulates and constructs a suite of statistical models that predict future transitions into and out of violent conflict and forecasts the regional and global incidences of violent conflict over a ten-year time horizon. A total of thirty predictor variables are tested and evaluated for inclusion in twelve conditional logistic regression models, which calculate the probability that a nation will transition from its current conflict state, either In Conflict or Not in Conflict, to a new state in the following year. These probabilities are then used to construct a series of nation-specific Markov chain models that forecast violent conflict, as well as yield insights into regional conflict trends out to year 2024 and beyond. The logistic regression models proposed in this study achieve training dataset accuracies of 88.76%, and validation dataset accuracies of 84.67%. Additionally, the Markov models achieve three year forecast accuracies of 85.16% during model validation. This study predicts that global violent conflict rates remain constant through year 2024, but are projected to increase beyond that timeframe with 95 of the 182 considered nations projected to be in a state of violent conflict from the current 84 nations in conflict.

AFIT Designator

AFIT-ENS-MS-16-M-128

DTIC Accession Number

AD1028633

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