Guinean Red Cross workers prepare to carry the corpse of a victim of Ebola in Macenta on Nov. 21, 2014. Drought had left people hungry and desperate, ethnic hatreds were burning and Islamic extremists were growing stronger. The U.S. officials facing the looming crisis in West Africa were thankful for one thing, though. It was just a game. As the U.S. deals with increasingly complex, interlocking security risks -— from disruptive technologies to climate-driven food and water shortages and virulent extremism and nationalism —- some officials are borrowing a tool from the military in an effort to identify the triggers for instability. The aim is to defuse them before they become threats. The U.S. Agency for International Development is reinventing military war-gaming — an ancient concept — to prevent wars rather than win battles. Instead of maneuvering virtual armies, the nation’s main foreign aid agency is staging peace games and deploying data to map the many elements that can tip a country into chaos and war. “That has been a sea change in how we’re thinking” about averting instability, said AID Assistant Administrator Nancy Lindborg. Poring over maps and gaming out scenarios with an array of officials from AID and…
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