text: Planning and Operational Considerations
  7-52. Attack the network operations enable greater understanding of the human networks and those
  variables critical to insurgent and threat networks. Network mapping, charting, and social network analysis
  are intelligence products that can aid in refined analysis and course of action developments, bridge
  conceptual planning and detailed planning by visually depicting time sensitive intelligence and mission
  requirements, and provide a shared understanding of the operational environment and design. Additionally,
  these network analysis products assist commanders and staffs in recognizing dynamic and static network
  relationships for targeting to support mission accomplishment. The evaluation and measurement of
  targeting effects continually aid in refined understanding and provide potential follow-on targets to degrade
  threat and insurgent networks.
  7-53. Attack the network operations require that commanders and staffs understand social networks. A
  social network analysis is a tool for understanding the organizational dynamics of an insurgency and how
  best to attack or exploit them. A social network analysis allows analysts to identify and portray the details
  of a network structure. It shows how an insurgency’s networked organization behaves and how that
  connectivity affects its behavior. A social network analysis allows analysts to assess the network’s design,
  how its members may or may not act autonomously, where the leadership resides, how leadership is
  distributed among members, and how hierarchical dynamics may mix or not mix with network dynamics.
  7-54. Attack the network operations provide a construct to identify, define, and engage any network,
  regardless of its design. The framework for attack the network operations can be applied against any type
  or combination of adaptive networks. It allows leaders to effectively engage neutral and threat networks
  with the appropriate lethal or nonlethal targeting, once a network has been defined through information
  collection and analysis. It also provides a means to protect friendly networks. Assessments of targeting and
  the measurement of the effects on networks (friendly, neutral, and threat) in an operational environment
  assist the staff in providing further targeting recommendations in sustainment of lethal or nonlethal
  activities.
  7-55. Attack the network operations are tactical, operational, and strategic operations that capitalize on or
  create vulnerabilities to neutralize the threat network’s ability to function and enable success of the
  operation. Adaptive networked threats present an enduring challenge to all military operations. Neutralizing
  them may require an attack the network approach that includes the following activities:
  * Support friendly networks.
  * Influence neutral networks.
  * Neutralize threat networks.
  Support Friendly Networks
  7-56. Friendly network actions are intended to establish, reinforce, or set the conditions necessary for
  friendly networks to function effectively and increase capability. These operations also have indirect effects
  on threat networks, driving down their capabilities and altering the environmental conditions those
  networks require to survive and operate. Actions supporting friendly networks are intended to establish,
  reinforce, or set the conditions necessary for the host nation or civil authorities to function effectively, add
  capability, and increase capacity.
  7-57. Commanders and staffs use all resources available, both Department of Defense (DOD) and
  non-DOD, in an area of operations to ensure a comprehensive approach to supporting and enabling friendly
  networks. Host-nation networks such as government agencies, local business or religious organizations,
  tribal or cultural communities, and educational institutions all have an impact on a population and can alter
  its perceptions. Commanders can affect these organizations positively, thus altering public perceptions in
  favor of supporting those organizations. This results in increased cooperation, support, and even active
  rebuttal of threat networks. (See paragraphs 1-47 and 1-48 for more information on comprehensive effort.)
  Influence Neutral Networks
  7-58. Influence neutral networks activities include operations intended to alter the opinions and attitudes of
  a population segment through information, influence, presence, and conduct. These activities reflect the
  ability of friendly forces to operate within the cultural and societal norms of the local population while