Social Simulations for Border Security

EADS North America and George Mason University have partnered to build analytical tools for border security that incorporate social, cultural, behavioral and organizational aspects of interactions among border security forces, smugglers and the population and represent integrated technology architectures made up of fixed and mobile sensor and surveillance networks. These tools provide critical capabilities that influence border security operations, planning, analysis and training. We present the results of the first sprint of our effort, demonstrating the feasibility of social simulation for the security of the Southwestern U.S. border. First, we recount how we used open-source data on border security forces and smuggling organizations, replicating for 2009 the landscape of gateway organizations and cartels in Sonora along with the border security architecture for the Tuscon sector of Customs and Border Patrol (CBP). We then describe the architecture of the model that connects a disaggregated view of these organizations to a high-fidelity representation of the physical environment and sensor networks. Finally, we conclude with a short discussion of model dynamics, validity and generalizability of our approach.