Xu Zhiheng, Zhuang Jun
Risk Anal. 2019 Jun;39(6):1414-1432. doi: 10.1111/risa.13257. Epub 2019 Jan 2.
Government usually faces threat from multiple attackers. However, in the literature, researchers often model attackers as one monolithic player who chooses whether to attack, how much investment to spend, and on which target, instead of treating multiple attackers as independent agents. This modeling strategy may potentially cause suboptimal defense investment if the attackers have vastly different interests and preferences and may not be combined as one in theory. In this article, we develop a sequential game with complete information. This model considers one defender explicitly dealing with multiple unmergeable attackers. Thorough numerical experiments are conducted using ratio and exponential contest success functions under different scenarios. The result is also contrasted with the corresponding single attacker model to study the effect of mishandling multiple attackers. The propositions and observations drawn from the numerical experiments provide insights for government decision making with a better understanding of the attackers' behavior.
政府通常面临来自多个攻击者的威胁。然而，在文献中，研究人员常常将攻击者建模为一个整体的参与者，该参与者决定是否发动攻击、投入多少资源以及针对哪个目标，而不是将多个攻击者视为独立的主体。如果攻击者有着截然不同的利益和偏好，并且在理论上不能被合并为一个整体，那么这种建模策略可能会导致防御投资次优。在本文中，我们构建了一个具有完全信息的序贯博弈模型。该模型考虑了一个防御者明确应对多个不可合并的攻击者的情况。我们在不同场景下使用比率和指数竞赛成功函数进行了全面的数值实验。研究结果还与相应的单一攻击者模型进行了对比，以研究处理多个攻击者不当所产生的影响。从数值实验中得出的命题和观察结果为政府决策提供了见解，有助于更好地理解攻击者的行为。
