The "Green COP" (AKA, Civil Considerations Common Operational Picture)

[Abu Suleyman]

I am actually working a similar set of issues with a DoD organization. One of the tools that we are using is Social Network Analysis. I know that is a buzz word right now, but there is a lot of goodness in adapting the techniques used for ethnography, political science, or economics towards 'mapping' the green layer.

One of the issues that is addressed in academia is complexity. Unfortunately, complexity is a new methodology, but fortunately they are blazing the trail with new ways of examining data.

One of the main issues that I am attempting to look at is the issue of cross modal analysis. This is what BayonetBryant was hinting at with the "multiple issues" comment. While the green layer is a set of interactions, it is not just a set of interactions between people. People also have relationships with locations, or food sources, or ideologies, just to name a few. If you throw it all onto an ANB chart it turns into a colossal mess.

A good starting point may be to take the issues that we address when looking at ourselves and at the enemy and then look at them as far as the green layer. Just to use a simple paradigm, we could look at group membership relationships (S-1), communication and information flow (S-2), activities and operations (S-3), where people get supplies (S-4), intergroup relationships (S-5), Information infrastructure (S-6), and so on. (I just extrapolated from military to civilian ad hoc, so there may be better correlations than what I have listed here.)

The advantage of using a military paradigm over a civil one, like Maslow, is that the military paradigm includes all and only things which the military can affect. I don't think any military operation on earth could increase self actualization for the green layer. By isolating each aspect of what we are looking at, we can likely prevent seepage from one layer to the other. After all, even within an extremely hierarchical organization like the US military, the chain for supply is different than the chain of command, and so on.

One thing that I would caution against, and this is not uncommon outside of people who study networks, is that network analysis is not family trees. Family trees are networks, but there is a lot more in network analysis than just who is related to whom.

[slapout9]

One thing that I would caution against, and this is not uncommon outside of people who study networks, is that network analysis is not family trees. Family trees are networks, but there is a lot more in network analysis than just who is related to whom.

One thing I would caution is that the family tree is the first network your are involved in from birth! And can have a large impact on what other networks you are likley to be exposed to or end up joining.

[Abu Suleyman]

One thing I would caution is that the family tree is the first network your are involved in from birth! And can have a large impact on what other networks you are likley to be exposed to or end up joining.

That is true, except when it isn't.

[slapout9]

That is true, except when it isn't.

As in like an orphan? Can you expand upon that?

[Abu Suleyman]

As in like an orphan? Can you expand upon that?

Sorry, I was trying to be pithy and witty, but apparently ended up being opaque.

Family is important, but it is only one dimension of interpersonal and social development. Many people 'grow out' of their families, so to speak. The best example that I can think of is how Nikita "We will bury you" Khruschev's son, defected to the United States and now teaches at the Naval War College and Brown University. Anyone who looked at only his pedigree might have been surprised by that. However, by looking into other relationships we might be able to see and even predict such behavior.

Any good analysis will include a 'genealogy' of the area, especially if it is an area like the Middle East, which is rich overlapping families. Unfortunately the use of short hand descriptions, like "family tree's", of an in depth method like network analysis can obscure the value of network analysis to those unfamiliar with it. ("I don't need a family tree!") I suppose that I am somewhat sensitive to that characterization because I confront it fairly often.

[slapout9]

Abu, I am tracking a little better now. What do you think of this reference?



http://www.grazian-archive.com/gover...0Contents.html

[Abu Suleyman]

This is awesome! I haven't read the whole manual, yet, but just based on the introduction and the couple of sections I breezed through, this is going to be well worth a more in depth read. Given that this manual predates several modern analytic techniques, I will be interested in what he recommends for techniques.

How did you come across this? Do you have any idea why this is not more commonly referred to, or has not been revised and repubbed, as far as I know?