Space Competition and the Dynamics of Conflict: Using Game Theory and Artificial Intelligence to Gain Strategic Insight

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Triezenberg, Bonnie L.

Contributor:

Downing, Bryce

Langeland, Krista

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Space race--Technological innovations--United States.

Space race.

Astronautics and state--United States.

Astronautics and state.

Space race--Mathematical models.

Other Title:

Space Competition and the Dynamics of Conflict

Place of Publication:

RAND Corporation 2022

Summary:

Competition between great national powers has often played out in space. As it becomes increasingly militarized, understanding the long-term effect of nation-state investments in space security and subsequent use of products from those investments becomes strategically important. In 2014, the RAND Corporation began to develop a game-theoretic model to assess strategic implications of U.S. and a competitor nation's investments in space capabilities. In projects since, RAND researchers have built on traditional game theory to provide a context-rich assessment of how nation-state investments may play out over a range of possible futures. Although previous research using this model explored the effect of investments on deterring horizontal escalation of a terrestrial war into outer space, the authors focus here on the dynamics of space competition. They describe strategic interaction patterns, where possible; the conditions that give rise to them; and how investments shape those conditions. In many cases, they have yet to discover correlations between conditions in the game and resulting dynamics and strategic interaction patterns. To create a context-rich assessment of space competition, they developed a complex model using sophisticated artificial intelligence (AI) methods. Although they found that this complexity adds context to their assessments of how investments may play out, it also hampered their ability to isolate the conditions that gave rise to different strategic interaction patterns. This report should be of interest to not only space policy decisionmakers but to anyone contemplating using AI models to perform exploratory research.