Abstract
Most people have at least an intuitive understanding of hierarchies,
how they work, and
how to affect their behavior. However, covert organizations, such
as terrorist organizations,
have network structures that are distinct from those in typical hierarchical
organizations. Their
structure is distinct from the organizations that most people in western
culture are used to dealing
with. In particular, they tend to be more cellular and distributed.
As such, most people do not
have an intuitive understanding of how they work and instead seek
to think of them as
hierarchies. However, analysis reveals that trying to destabilize
a cellular distributed network
using tactics designed for hierarchies is likely to be ineffective.
A secondary problem is that
despite the vast quantities of information on the size, shape and
structure of these networks, such,
information is incomplete and possible erroneous. What is needed is
a set of tools and an
approach to assessing destabilization strategies in a decision context
that takes these difficulties
in to account and provides analysts with guidance in assessing alternative
destabilization tactics.
Such an approach is forwarded in this paper. In addition, initial
lessons learned are discussed.
The particular approach is extensible and scales well to groups composed
of 1000’s of members.
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