Rex:
your response is interesting in that while you named four or five individuals who differed with the research-- outside of Drew Conway absolutely none are quantum physics types. What is interesting outside of the initial coverage with their research release being mentioned in about 10-15 articles, magazines, blogs in the various Social Sciences --outside of the 4 or 5 who differed there was a surprising lack of critique from others-in fact a number of Harvard types were impressed with the research and indicated that it opened new areas of research. Lately in one major Sociology blog the 15 characteristics of an insurgency have been relisted and there was indications of renewed interest in those characteristics.

You failed to mention that as far as I and probably you know there has been no other research project in this area that went over six years in length, covering 56,000 inputs on 11 different insurgencies---and even Drew had to admit that it was time to move in the direction the research was moving in and he in some aspects was debating the math not the direction being taken. So while some have differed with the results no one seems willing to explain the results themselves.

If one looks at the history of intelligence-- we started initially with hand jammed link analysis and matrixes, then with the computer age we moved to the link analysis tools-Analyst Notebook, Palantir, and Axis Pro, then when that was not providing answers we moved on to the Carnegie Mellon tool ORA for now the "hot buzz word-social network analysis". So do you honestly think the progressive development/evolution of new ideas/tool has stopped with the ORA tool---I beg to differ.

What you fail to mention is that social network analysis is really only a 1D slice of an ecosystem. So what does one want to use to see the rest of the ecosystem? The next logical progression is in empirically based ecology focused research of the insurgency---but where are the tools as I see nothing out there or do you know of any? How is in fact SNA going to tell you what the communication paths are, how the communications are flowing internally, how are IO/rumors impacting the individual/group, just what are the results of particluar cause and effect scenarios, what is the third degree level of impact going to be, etc.

I also challenge you that the definitions I use in ecology of and ecosystem of an insurgency are in fact not the same as the authors you mention are using as I doubt that any of the authors you mention are in fact using the 15 characteristics as defined in the released research. If in fact they are using the same definition and are referring to the 15 characteristics then I stand corrected, but I will not stand corrected as they are not using them---to use them would to a degree accept the premise of "open source warfare". Which we all know has been "cussed, discussed and found wanting" in comments in this blog a number of years ago, but stangely more and more of the terms are finding their way back into comments by senior leadship and in recent articles ie DoDBUZZ.

AND you seem to avoid answering the initial paragraphs I provided from the RAND article concerning splitter groups and how they will react---using the research the answers are clear--when using a SNA tool I am not sure what you answer would be.

Again this is all about intelligence and to argue my comments concerning the research were not begs the question of just how much did you understand the recent Gen. Flynn article which requires some reading between the lines.

Just a side comment--when looking at the ecosystem of an insurgency what strikes one as the most active element in that system?---the attacks--it has been always about the attacks---the attack if empirically analyzed provides some of the deepest info on the actual organization--but hey who wants to do that as there are not many tools for the intel analyst to use to reverse engineer the attack right? Think about it.

By your initial remarks on the methodology/math I am assuming that you have a degree in quantum physics and have a long number of years in the field?