Joint Special Operations University

7701 Tampa Point Boulevard

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https://jsou.libguides.com/jsoupublications

JOINT SPECIAL OPERATIONS UNIVERSITY

The role of economics in the generation and mitigation of grievances is well 

documented and understood. Likewise, the reliance on economic documents 

forms the basis for credible economic systems worldwide. For the Special 

Operations Forces (SOF) professional, however, the issues of property rights, 

economic development, and the generation of wealth are more nuanced 

and central to the successful completion of SOF missions in failing and failed 

states. As Colonel Bill Mandrick demonstrates in this monograph, a nationstate’s failure to have in place a system for the equitable access to and the 

sharing of economic activity is a guarantor of grievances, anger, and instability. So too is the failure to enforce an existing system of property rights 

and economic opportunity. He argues that an awareness of the economic 

records of a nation-state provides useful insights into its stability and can 

provide important intelligence to expand SOF situational awareness and 

support SOF mission planning. 

ISBN 978-1-941715-27-7

Property Rights and Social Justice as 

an Indicator of Stability: The SOF Nexus

Bill Mandrick

JSOU Report 17-9

JSOU Report 17-9 Property Rights and Social Justice as an Indicator of Stability Mandrick 

Several Afghan government ministers and an advisor from USAID 

review proposed amendments to the national law governing land 

management in an effort to secure and develop land. PHOTO BY 

SERGEANT APRIL CAMPBELL, INTERNATIONAL SECURITY 

ASSISTANCE FORCE HQ PUBLIC AFFAIRS.
Joint Special Operations University

Brian A. Maher, Ed.D., SES, President

Boyd L. Ballard, Director, Center for Strategic Studies

Francis X. Reidy, Deputy Director, Center for Strategic Studies

Robert Nalepa, Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Air Force, Ret., Editor in Chief

Lisa Sheldon, B.A., Advertising, JSOU Press Editor

Resident Senior Fellows

Peter McCabe, Ph.D., Political Science, Colonel, U.S. Air Force, Ret.

Will Irwin, MMAS, Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army, Ret.

Paul Lieber, Ph.D., Mass Communication & Public Affairs

David Ellis, Ph.D., International Relations, Comparative Politics

Editorial Advisory Board

Roby C. Barrett

Ph.D., Middle Eastern & South Asian History 

Public Policy Center Middle East Institute and 

JSOU Senior Fellow

James J.F. Forest 

Ph.D., Higher Education Administration

Associate Professor, School of Criminology and 

Justice Studies, University of Massachusetts 

Lowell and JSOU Senior Fellow

Mario Forestier

Chief Warrant Officer, U.S. Army, Ret.

Director, Joint Special Operations Command 

Center for Counterterrorism Studies

Thomas H. Henriksen

Ph.D., History

Hoover Institution, Stanford University

and JSOU Senior Fellow

Bernd Horn

Colonel, Canadian Dept. of National Defence, Ret.

Ph.D., War Studies

Command Historian, CANSOFCOM Education 

and Research Centre

Russell D. Howard

Brigadier General, U.S. Army, Ret.

John D. Jogerst

Colonel, U.S. Air Force, Ret.

James Kiras

Ph.D., History

School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, 

Air University and JSOU Associate Fellow

William W. Mendel

Colonel, U.S. Army, Ret. 

JSOU Senior Fellow

Alvaro de Souza Pinheiro

Major General, Brazilian Army, Ret.

JSOU Senior Fellow

James F. Powers, Jr.

Colonel, U.S. Army, Ret.

JSOU Senior Fellow 

Bryan C. Price

Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army

Ph.D., Political Science

Director, Combating Terrorism Center at 

West Point

Richard H. Shultz, Jr.

Ph.D., Political Science

Director, International Security 

Studies Program, The Fletcher School, 

Tufts University and JSOU Senior Fellow

Robert G. Spulak, Jr.

Ph.D., Physics/Nuclear Engineering

Sandia National Laboratories 

and JSOU Senior Fellow 

Jessica Glicken Turnley

Ph.D., Cultural Anthropology

Galisteo Consulting Group 

and JSOU Senior Fellow 

Rich Yarger

Ph.D., History 

JSOU Senior Fellow

Joint Special Operations University and the 

Center for Strategic Studies

The Joint Special Operations University (JSOU) provides its publications 

to contribute toward expanding the body of knowledge about joint special 

operations. JSOU publications advance the insights and recommendations 

of national security professionals and the Special Operations Forces (SOF) 

students and leaders for consideration by the SOF community and defense 

leadership. 

JSOU is the educational component of the United States Special Operations 

Command (USSOCOM), MacDill Air Force Base, Florida. The JSOU mission 

is to prepare SOF to shape the future strategic environment by providing 

specialized joint professional military education, developing SOF-specific 

undergraduate and graduate level curriculum and by fostering special operations research, analysis and outreach in support of USSOCOM objectives. 

JSOU conducts research through its Center for Strategic Studies (CSS) 

where efforts center upon the USSOCOM mission: 

USSOCOM mission. USSOCOM synchronizes the planning of Special 

Operations and provides Special Operations Forces to support persistent, 

networked, and distributed Geographic Combatant Command operations 

in order to protect and advance our Nation’s interests.

Press publications are available for download from the JSOU Library 

web page located at https://jsou.libguides.com/jsoupublications.
JSOU Report 17-9

The JSOU Press

MacDill Air Force Base, Florida

2017

Property Rights and Social 

Justice as an Indicator of 

Stability: The SOF Nexus

Bill Mandrick
Comments about this publication are invited and should be forwarded to 

the Director of the Center for Strategic Studies, Joint Special Operations 

University, 7701 Tampa Point Blvd., MacDill AFB, FL 33621.

*******

The JSOU Center for Strategic Studies (CSS) is currently accepting written works 

relevant to special operations for potential publication. For more information, please 

contact the CSS Director at jsou_research@socom.mil. Thank you for your interest 

in the JSOU Press. 

*******

This work was cleared for public release; distribution is unlimited.

Printed in November 2017.

ISBN 978-1-941715-27-7
The views expressed in this publication are entirely those of the 

author and do not necessarily reflect the views, policy, or position 

of the United States Government, Department of Defense, United 

States Special Operations Command, or the Joint Special Operations 

University.

Authors are granted academic freedom provided their work does not 

disclose classified information, jeopardize operations security, or 

misrepresent official U.S. policy. Such academic freedom empowers 

authors to offer new and sometimes controversial perspectives in the 

interest of furthering debate on key issues.
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Paul Lieber

Special Operations Contracting: 21st Century Approaches for Service and 

Technology Acquisition, JSOU Report 17-5, Benjamin Tkach 

Outside the Box: A New General Theory of Special Operations, JSOU Report 17-4, 

Volume 2, Tom Searle 

Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco: Change, Instability, and Continuity in the Maghreb, 

JSOU Report 17-3, Roby Barrett

A Social Marketing Analysis for Suicide Prevention Initiatives in USSOCOM: A 

Framework for Future Research and Success, JSOU Report 17-2, R. Craig Lefebvre 

A Unified Theory for Special Operations, JSOU Report 17-1, Volume 1, 

Richard W. Rubright

On the cover. A young woman in Burkina Faso holds her Certificate of Rural Land 

Ownership issued after a change in the law that moved the country from state ownership of all land to municipal and individual ownership. SOURCE: JEREMY GREEN/

USAID. 

Back cover. Several Afghan government ministers and an advisor from USAID 

review proposed amendments to the national law governing land management in 

an effort to secure and develop land. PHOTO BY SERGEANT APRIL CAMPBELL, 

INTERNATIONAL SECURITY ASSISTANCE FORCE HQ PUBLIC AFFAIRS.
v

Contents

Foreword .....................................................................................vii

About the Author...........................................................................ix

Introduction................................................................................... 1

1. Defining the Problem ................................................................ 5

2. Hernando de Soto: Formal and Informal Economies................ 11

3. An Enhanced Civil Information Management Framework 

for Analyzing the Complex Operational Environment.................. 19

4. Joint Intelligence Preparation of the 

Operational Environment ............................................................ 21

5. Operational Design and Stability Operations End States .......... 25

6. Challenges to de Soto’s Techniques: The Problem of 

Institutional Transfer and the Transplant Effect.............................. 33

7. Conclusion ............................................................................. 43

Appendix A. Operational Environment Ontology......................... 45

Appendix B. List of Acronyms...................................................... 61

Endnotes...................................................................................... 63

vii

Foreword 

The role of economics in the generation and mitigation of grievances is 

well documented and understood. Likewise, the reliance on “economic 

documents” is standard practice in the so-called ‘core’ countries as defined 

by Thomas Barnett and forms the basis for credible economic systems worldwide. For the Special Operations Forces (SOF) professional, however, the 

issues of property rights, economic development, and the generation of 

wealth are more nuanced and central to the successful completion of SOF 

missions in failing and failed states. Who owns the land and the means of 

production? Are local and national economic policies inclusive, or do they 

exclude most of the people to the benefit of a small minority? Are there 

systems of property rights in place? Are they enforced fairly? In those cases 

where they are not, how does the public express their frustrations over their 

alienation from the economic life of the nation-state? 

This monograph, written by Colonel William S. Mandrick, argues that an 

awareness of the economic records of a nation-state provides useful insights 

into its stability and can provide important intelligence to expand SOF situational awareness and support SOF mission planning. A failure to have in 

place a system for the equitable access to and the sharing of economic activity is a guarantor of grievances, anger, and instability. So too is the failure 

to enforce an existing system of property rights and economic opportunity. 

Colonel Mandrick asserts that the stability of any state can be assessed by 

analyzing its body of economic documents and their connection to higherlevel economic policies and laws and describes how these documents and 

records, “have a powerful strategic communications effect, whereby the 

population gains confidence in the government’s ability to enforce property 

rights for all members of society.”

This well-researched monograph addresses the “Elements of a Stable 

State” (human security, economic and infrastructure development, and rule 

of law) and emphasizes the importance of the “formalization of property” 

in building credible governance. The emotional demands of squatters on 

an ancient hillside for government roads, water, and electricity are likely 

to be ignored and could lead to angry demonstrations and even violence. 

It is important to understand the rights—if any—that are granted to such 
viii

squatters. Is their occupation of the land the consequence of long-entrenched 

systems of inequitable access to property ownership? 

Colonel Mandrick clearly traces how absent, neglected, or mismanaged 

systems of property rights create the dissatisfaction and instability that 

lead to conflict. He also lays out techniques for understanding the levels of 

governance credibility by analyzing the state of economic documents. In 

addition to SOF, the U.S. Agency for International Development and other 

interagency partners share concerns about property rights and social justice and can provide important skills, resources, and experience to shared 

efforts to create stability within a given nation-state. The SOF professional 

will find that what follows provides important information about the role of 

economic issues—especially property rights—in assessing economic health 

and the state of social justice. Specific applications to SOF missions, with 

appropriate examples, animate the importance of the economic element of 

national power to SOF operations.

Boyd L. Ballard

Director, Center for Strategic Studies
ix

About the Author

Bill Mandrick, Colonel, U.S. Army Reserves, is a senior fellow at Joint 

Special Operations University. He also currently serves as the Operation Inherent Resolve branch chief at United States 

Central Command’s Coalition Coordination Center. 

Prior to this, he was a senior concept developer at the 

Institute for Military Support to Governance within 

the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare 

Center and School, Fort Bragg, NC. He has also taught 

courses in philosophy, military science, and security 

studies at the State University of New York (SUNY) 

College at Brockport and Angelo State University in 

Texas. As a graduate student, he studied the ontology 

of geographic objects, conflict, and institutional reality. He holds a master’s 

degree and Ph.D. in philosophy from the SUNY University at Buffalo. 

Colonel Mandrick previously served as an active duty infantry officer, 

and presently serves in the U.S. Army Reserves as a civil affairs officer. At 

the initiation of the global war on terrorism, he served as an assistant team 

chief in the remote regions of northeast Afghanistan, where he helped plan 

and lead numerous civil reconnaissance, foreign internal defense, and foreign 

humanitarian assistance missions. He later served as a civil affairs company 

commander, where he planned and coordinated civil-military operations in 

support of 4th Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division in Central Iraq 

during the 2008 surge. 

In his civilian role, Dr. Mandrick works as a senior ontologist for the 

intelligence community, developing ontologies for use in supporting information retrieval, analysis, and integration. His work covers a broad range of 

domains to include geospatial and geopolitical objects, organizational and 

social structures, human phenotypes, and human activities to include social 

interaction and conflict processes. 

1

Mandrick: Property Rights and Social Justice as an Indicator

Introduction

Every developing and transition country actually has some form of 

formal property system; however, a majority of the citizens don’t 

have access to it. The law protects the elites under the ‘bell jar.’1

One way of assessing the stability of a nation-state is by analyzing its 

body of economic (social) documents and their connection to higherlevel economic policies and laws. The documents contain information pertaining to the presence of property rights, discrimination against certain 

groups of people, rule of law, and potential drivers of conflict. Furthermore, a society can be made more stable by enhancing or creating a body 

of economic (social) documents that are connected to, and enforced by, a 

set of higher-level economic policies and laws.2 Where needed, laws must 

be revised or created to formalize property rights, ownership, and equality, 

with the intent of connecting informal, local economies to the extended 

economy (i.e., globalization). Formal property rights create incentives for 

and protection of profit by establishing ownership over capital assets—land, 

equipment, ideas, etc.—but if the system isn’t fair and open to all, grievances 

may continue. Jillian Keenan describes the challenges involved in formalizing property laws and registering private land: 

Under colonialism, official land deeds and titles were few and far 

between, which meant that Burundians often could not prove that 

they owned acreage. In the early 1960s, as independence loomed, 

the government began offering land registration to parties that 

requested it, which, for the most part, were foreign businesses such 

as hotels. Families also had the option to register their land, but 

because the centralized system was inaccessible for most farmers 

and required a huge tax payment, few did. So land plots quickly 

fell into two categories: those with boundaries recognized by the 

state, and those with borders determined by custom—that is to say, 

residents understood trees, rocks, paths, creeks, and huts to mark 

de facto property lines.3
2

JSOU Report 17-9

As will be shown, the lack of formal property systems serves as a driver 

of conflict, so that the formalization and strengthening of economic documents, such as titles, deeds, cadastre, etc., have several positive effects at 

the grass-roots or tactical level. For example, when connected to a higher 

set of provincial and national policies, these documents—and the very 

process of creating, implementing, and enforcing them—have a powerful 

strategic communications effect, whereby the population gains confidence 

in the government’s ability to enforce property rights for all members of 

society.4 Furthermore, the information produced by both formal and informal property systems serves as a valuable 

source of intelligence for the operations 

planner and analyst. One caveat is that 

legitimate grievances may continue if the 

elite attempt to exert control through the 

formal system and the disenfranchised 

continue to exert control through ‘squatting’ or possession/actual use of the 

property. The grievance may continue within the informal community with 

members who believe they should formally own the property.

As Special Operations Forces (SOF) work toward the long-term stabilization of a failed or failing state, they require a constant flow of information 

for planning and decision making. A state’s body of economic documents 

provides a treasure trove of information that can be used by SOF for intelligence, planning, and operational design—“which broadly describes the 

actions the joint force needs to take to reach the political and military end 

state.”5 Economic documents portray social realities such as ownership of 

valuable parcels of land, influential persons or organizations, discriminatory 

practices, normative dissonance, and other drivers of conflict and instability. These elements can be portrayed as nodes and links within political, 

economic, and social systems. Such analysis is a critical step in identifying centers of gravity, and helps planners formulate stability operations’ 

end states, as well as the metrics—indicators and measurements—used to 

determine success.

Information obtained through the analysis of property documents 

contributes to the planning and conduct of special operations core activities. More specifically, property rights information feeds into the planning 

and successful conduct of special reconnaissance, foreign internal defense 

Furthermore, the information 

produced by both formal and 

informal property systems 

serves as a valuable source of 

intelligence for the operations 

planner and analyst.
3

Mandrick: Property Rights and Social Justice as an Indicator

(FID), counterinsurgency (COIN), military information support operations 

(MISO), and civil affairs operations (CAO). How economic and property 

intelligence contributes to each of these core activities will be addressed in 

what follows. For example, FID refers to U.S. activities that support a host 

nation’s (HN’s) internal defense and development strategy and programs, 

and are designed to “free and protect its society against subversion, lawlessness, insurgency, terrorism, and other threats” to its internal security and 

stability.6

5

Mandrick: Property Rights and Social Justice as an Indicator

1. Defining the Problem

Competition over land and the resources found on land drives much 

conflict around the world. Conflict over land is far more likely to 

escalate and become violent when land tenure and resource rights are 

weak, insecure, and non-negotiable and when the land governance 

systems in place are ineffective, corrupt, or otherwise dysfunctional. 

Efforts to protect land records, to mediate land disputes between 

and among displaced persons and settlers, and to rebuild capacity 

in the land governance systems can help reduce tension, stabilize 

a locale, and set the stage for productive investments and growth, 

which, in turn, can decrease conflicts.7

The 2014 Fragile States Index ranks 138 of 178 countries worldwide as 

being less than stable.8 These failed and failing states are addressed in 

the 2015 National Security Strategy, which states that “the nexus of weak 

governance and widespread grievance allows extremism to take root, violent 

non-state actors to rise up, and conflict to overtake state structures.”9 The 

strategy is to partner with those fragile states that have a genuine political 

commitment to establishing legitimate governance and providing for their 

people. According to the strategy, the focus of U.S. Government efforts will 

be on areas such as inclusive politics, enabling effective and equitable service 

delivery, reforming security and rule of law sectors, combating corruption 

and organized crime, and promoting economic opportunity. It is critical 

that planners and analysts understand the interdependence of each of these 

elements, and how they are related. In addition to describing how property 

rights affect stability, this monograph provides a framework for organizing 

all of the elements that make up the political, economic, and social systems 

in any area of responsibility.

SOF are employed globally, planning and conducting operations in failed 

and failing states. They work toward long-term stability, which includes 

the establishment of end-states such as a safe and secure environment, rule 

of law, stable governance, a stable economy, and social well-being.10 Joint 

military doctrine acknowledges that success in stability operations is not 

only defined in military terms; it also involves: “rebuilding infrastructure, 
6

JSOU Report 17-9

supporting economic development, establishing the rule of law, building 

accountable governance, establishing essential services, and building a 

capable HN military responsible to civilian authority.”11 According to the 

U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, stabilization is: “the process by which military and 

nonmilitary actors collectively apply various instruments of national power 

to address drivers of conflict, foster HN resiliencies, and create conditions 

that enable sustainable peace and security.”12

As depicted in figure 1, the elements of a stable state include (a) economic 

and infrastructure development, (b) the establishment of governance and 

rule of law, and (c) overall human security. However, it is not enough to 

develop these elements independently. Rather, they must be developed interdependently for long-term stability to take hold, which requires analysis and 

understanding of the operational environment (OE) as a complex system of 

interdependent systems—political, military, economic, social, infrastructure, and informational (PMESII). This type of analysis allows planners 

and decision makers to see connections between nodes in the disparate, but 

interrelated, PMESII systems. This monograph is a contribution toward the 

analytical processes required for making sense of the countless elements and 

flux that make up any complex OE. 

Figure 1. Elements of a stable state. SOURCE: U.S. JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF13 

Human

Security

Economic and

Infrastructure

Development

Governance

and

Rule of Law

Political Stability

Societal Relationships
7

Mandrick: Property Rights and Social Justice as an Indicator

It will be argued in what follows that the formalization and representation of property rights affects all three elements of a stable state by clarifying 

and strengthening land rights; mitigating drivers of conflict associated with 

property disputes; connecting informal, local economies to the formal, global 

economy; and legitimizing higher-level governmental policies. However, the 

formalization of property is more than simply creating land titles, deeds, and 

cadastre maps. Formalization is a process that includes numerous hours of 

interviews with stakeholders, verification of property boundaries, creation of 

standardized documents, and alignment with higher-level policies that may 

be under revision at the same time. Planners may learn about the context of 

the operating environment in this way, but they probably won’t be able to 

fix the root causes at the national level. Geoffrey Demarest argues that, “the 

most defensible goals of human development: freedom of expression, association, movement, worship, material prosperity, and non-violent resolution 

of conflict, are more likely achieved where rights and duties associated with 

land are formalized—regardless of the name given the overall system.”14 A 

system that effectively supports property rights is probably a system that 

supports all these positive outcomes.

Evidence suggests that the interrelated processes of understanding, clarifying, documenting/formalizing, registering, and enforcing land rights have 

powerful stabilizing effects on all members of a society, not just the elite class. 

These processes expose the economic policies and practices of a developing 

state to its citizenry for their consideration. This type of transparency is 

required for building trust at the tactical level of society—where instability 

and insurgency take root. However, if the system does not fairly represent the 

disenfranchised, then the conflict will continue. The revision of economic 

policies, and the alignment of local property to the extended (legal) market, 

results in increased confidence in the government. Without popular support and confidence in the 

legitimate government, the 

population is vulnerable to 

extremist messaging. No 

amount of strategic communications or counter-messaging by an HN government can overcome 

perceptions of corruption and unfair property rights. Popular support is only 

gained by providing and enforcing a fair property rights system, which is the 

de facto strategic messaging program of the HN government. Furthermore, 

Without popular support and confidence 

in the legitimate government, the population is vulnerable to extremist messaging.
8

JSOU Report 17-9

Figure 2. Positive impacts of normalized and codified property rights. 

SOURCE: U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT15
9

Mandrick: Property Rights and Social Justice as an Indicator

the cascading positive effects of normalized and codified property rights 

include dramatically increased productivity, investment, and even caloric 

intake (see fig. 2). These effects result in a more powerful counternarrative to 

the anti-government forces, who will claim to be the force needed to bring 

stability to the population. 

For these reasons, experts in the field of land tenure and property rights 

(LTPR) argue that property formalization may be more important than other 

stabilizing activities such as holding elections, passing laws, or building 

schools. Efforts to establish strong land rights, register formal titles, and 

resolve land-related disputes have the second-order effect of infusing confidence and trust across a citizenry. The confidence that one’s land is rightfully 

owned, and not subject to confiscation, creates an incentive to improve and 

increase productivity. In this regard, Demarist argues that, “comprehensive, 

precise, transparent expression of real property is a necessary precondition of peace; places outside the lines of formal property necessarily slump 

toward possession by force.”16 In order to be consistently enforced, property 

rights need to be formally expressed, transparent, and accessible by every 

category of person and group. Without the formal expression (representation) of property rights, the bad actor (insurgent, revolutionary, or thug) can 

continue to operate unfettered by a set of standards that illuminate their 

criminal actions.

The next chapter presents the case that peaceful and democratic societies necessarily describe and formally represent the ownership of property 

in documents such as titles, deeds, and cadastre maps. Formal descriptions 

of property rights, the documentation of land ownership, registration of 

property in a common management system or cadastre, and enforcement 

of property laws are required elements of enduring stability. Economists 

such as Hernando de Soto prescribe methods for analyzing, formalizing, 

extending, and enforcing property rights, in order to increase the presence of 

formal economies while reducing property-related drivers of conflict. Informal economies drive conflict and instability because they are disconnected 

from higher-level enforcement mechanisms—property laws and economic 

policies—and fail to protect property rights at the local level. 

11

Mandrick: Property Rights and Social Justice as an Indicator

2. Hernando de Soto: Formal and 

Informal Economies

Markets were never intended to be anarchic: It has always been 

government’s role to police standards, weights and measures, and 

records, and not condone legalized sleight of hand in the shadows of 

the informal economy. To understand and repair one of mankind’s 

greatest achievements—the creation of economic facts through 

public memory—is the stuff of nation-builders.17

In order for people to participate in the legal and global economy, they 

must have the ability to create economic facts, such as the fact that someone owns (has a claim over) some piece of property or the fact that someone 

has a debt (an obligation to repay a loan). Furthermore, these economic facts 

must be representable in a standardized system of economic knowledge. 

Like any successful knowledge system, an economic knowledge system is 

one where economic facts are gathered, organized, standardized, recorded, 

continuously updated, and made accessible to others. A system of economic 

information records and classifies knowledge of both (a) intangible entities 

such as stocks, commercial paper, deeds, ledgers, contracts, patents, companies, and promissory notes, and (b) tangible assets such as parcels of land, 

buildings, and machines. States that fail to develop such economic knowledge systems have a majority population that lacks access to the extended, 

global market.

Most people in developing countries operate within an informal economy, which consists of extralegal arrangements based upon informal consensus. The result is that their physical assets—land, buildings, and other 

facilities—are not formally represented by economic documents that are 

tied into a formal system of property laws. In every country that de Soto’s 

team researched, they found that some 80 percent of the land parcels were 

not protected by up-to-date records or held by legally accountable owners. 

This means that in developing countries, there is no representation of assets 

in the form of titles, deeds, or contracts. With no proof of ownership, people 

cannot legally protect their property or leverage it to improve their situation. Hernando de Soto states that “living in the informal sector means 
12

JSOU Report 17-9

for 80% of the world population that their savings, investments in housing 

and businesses cannot be used to generate capital, which they can use to 

create a better living and to escape from 

poverty.”18

In contrast, a formal economy is characterized by a body of formal property 

laws and procedures, expressed in documents, which represent the ‘invisible’ 

properties of a physical object, such as ownership or transferability. In other 

words, property documents make the invisible become visible. These hidden 

properties of physical assets, represented by economic documents, are what 

connect a physical object to the formal economy, and make an economy 

run. Connecting assets to the formal, extended economy makes them more 

valuable, because knowing who owns an asset, and fixing that information 

in public records, makes it possible for investors to infer value, take risks, 

and track results. The economic facts created through property documents 

that represent assets in a common registry are what connects those assets 

to the extended market. Metaphorically speaking, the process of connecting 

property to the extended, legal market brings those dead assets to life. An 

article in The Economist states that: 

According to de Soto’s research, based on interaction with extra-legal 

communities in several countries, such informal property rights 

cover assets—notably, land and housing—worth many billions of 

dollars. Informal systems of property rights usually make such assets 

“dead capital”, meaning that it is hard to use them as collateral for a 

loan, which might be used to start a business, for example. Bringing 

these rights into the formal legal system will unleash this capital and 

spur growth, says Mr. de Soto: an efficient, inclusive legal system 

preceded rapid development in every rich country.19

So we are left to wonder why so many people, entire populations even, 

continue to live and operate within the informal sector, while the ‘elite’ 

minority operate within a bell jar wherein there exists a body of codified laws 

and policies which transform physical objects into transferable property in 

the formal marketplace. According to de Soto, access to the formal sector 

in developing countries is made nearly impossible by the insurmountable 

number of administrative procedures required to register property or start a 

With no proof of ownership, 

people cannot legally protect 

their property or leverage it 

to improve their situation.
13

Mandrick: Property Rights and Social Justice as an Indicator

business. People attempting to enter the formal sector face an impenetrable 

wall of rules, which serves as a driver of conflict and instability. Enduring 

stability requires that this impenetrable wall be broken down, streamlining 

the number of steps involved and adopting existing common practice as 

much as possible into the formal property system, resulting in the integration of the informal sector into the formal sector. As will be described, de 

Soto’s strategies for integrating the formal and informal economies should 

be viewed as critical tasks in COIN and stability operations lines of effort 

(LOEs)20—specifically the Support to Economic and Infrastructure Development LOE (see fig. 3).

Figure 3. LOEs in COIN operations. The tasks involved in integrating local 

economies into the extended (legal) economy support all of the COIN LOEs. 

SOURCE: U.S. ARMY 21

ProInsurgent 

Populace

Neutral 

or 

Passive 

Populace

ProGovernment 

Populace

Support to Economic and Infrastructure Development

Establish Civil Security

Support Host Nation Security Forces

Support to Governance

Establish Civil Control

Restore Essential Services

Conduct Information Engagement

COUNTERINSURGENCY LINES OF EFFORT

Neutral 

or 

Passive 

Populace

ProGovernment 

Populace

Starting

Conditions

End

State
14

JSOU Report 17-9

French historian Fernand Braudel argues that formal markets in developing countries are only accessible to an elite minority, who participate in an 

economy that is isolated from the majority. He states that “the key problem 

is to find out why that sector of society of the past, which I would not hesitate 

to call capitalist, should have lived as if in a bell jar, cut off from the rest: 

why was it not able to expand and conquer the whole society?”22 In his book, 

The Mystery of Capital, de Soto similarly argues that most people living in 

developing countries are excluded from the legal economy by a highly complex, impenetrable legal and administrative system, which serves as a bell 

jar keeping them out of the formal economy. These exclusive economies, 

operating within a bell jar, drive conflict by forcing a majority of the population into the extra-legal economy, which causes resentment, unresolvable 

land disputes, and a lack of economic opportunity.

In contrast to exclusive economies that force most of the population into 

the extralegal sector, a sustainable economy is defined as: “the ability of the 

people to pursue opportunities for livelihoods within a system of economic 

governance bound by law.”23 In stability operations, a sustainable economy 

Table 1. Tasks that support the Economic and Infrastructure 

Development LOE.24

1. Identify, locate, and classify extralegal assets (i.e., dead capital)

2. Quantify the actual and potential value of extralegal assets (i.e., dead capital)

3. Analyze the interaction of the extralegal sector with the rest of society

4. Identify the extralegal norms that govern extralegal property

5. Ensure that the highest political level assumes responsibility for capitalization of the poor

6. Put into operation agencies that will permit rapid change

7. Remove administrative and legal bottlenecks

8. Build consensus between legal and extralegal sectors

9. Design and implement field operation strategy procedures, personnel, equipment, 

offices, training, and manuals that enable government to recognize and process 

individual property rights in the extralegal sector

10. Implement communications strategies using appropriate media to encourage participation of the extralegal sector, support in the business community and government 

sector, and acquiescence among those with a vested interest in the status quo

11. Reengineer the record-keeping organizations and record-keeping processes so that 

they can pull together all the economically-significant records
15

Mandrick: Property Rights and Social Justice as an Indicator

is a desired end state that is attained through the LOEs listed in figure 3. 

In The Mystery of Capital, de Soto prescribes specific tasks that contribute 

specifically to the Support Economic and Infrastructure Development LOE 

(see table 1 for examples). 

Leveraging many of the techniques listed in table 1, the USAID Office for 

Land Tenure and Property Rights works around the world to establish and 

document property rights. They are currently involved in 29 active LTPR 

projects in South America, Africa, and the Middle East. In Colombia, for 

example, armed conflict, illegality, and the illicit economy are inextricably 

linked to weak state presence. In response, USAID and Chemonics have 

partnered to implement the Consolidation and Enhanced Livelihood Initiative–Northern and Southern Regions to strengthen state presence as the 

government of Colombia recovers territory and creates a minimum level of 

permanent territorial security. Using satellite imagery, community members 

in El Bagre work together as part of a workshop to facilitate zoning and 

identify property boundaries (see fig. 4). 

A sustainable economy, where the population has access to the legal economic sector, requires more than a set of economic documents intended 

to represent claims 

a nd o b l i g a t i on s 

between parties. Property documents need 

to be registered in a 

common registry and 

supported by laws that 

make them enforceable. Furthermore, 

there must be rule of 

law (ROL), which is 

the condition or state 

of affairs wherein the 

people of some state 

or nation “have equal 

access to just laws and 

a trusted system of justice that holds all persons accountable, protects their human rights, and ensures their safety and 

Figure 4. Mapping, documenting, and recording 

parcels of property into a consolidated record 

directly contributes to increased investment, 

productivity, and even caloric intake. PHOTO 

CREDIT: CHEMONICS INTERNATIONAL25
16

JSOU Report 17-9

security.”26 ROL requires full accountability to the laws, procedural transparency, equal enforcement, and public promulgation. According to the U.S. 

Army Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute, ROL consists of five 

necessary conditions, which include: just legal frameworks, public order, 

accountability, access to justice, and a culture of lawfulness. Each of these 

are described in table 2. 

Without ROL, property rights and land tenure issues cannot be fairly 

resolved, and individuals or groups in positions of power will prosper at the 

expense of those who lack such power, e.g., ethnic and religious minorities. 

Without ROL, people will resort to extralegal remedies to solve land disputes 

and crimes related to land tenure. This is why it is critical to identify the 

connections between individual nodes in each of the LOEs. Success in one 

LOE reinforces successes in the others. Progress along each LOE contributes 

to attaining a stable and secure environment for the HN. Once a measure 

of stability is achieved, achievements in other LOEs follow, such as popular recognition of the HN government’s legitimacy, improved governance, 

and progressive, substantive reduction of the root causes that led to the 

instability. A recent example of the importance of diplomatic achievements 

Table 2. Conditions for the ROL27

1. Just Legal Frameworks is a condition in which laws are consistent with international 

human rights norms and standards, are legally certain and transparent, are drafted 

with procedural transparency, are equitable, and are responsive to the entire population, not just powerful elites.

2. Public Order is a condition in which laws are enforced equitably; the lives, property, 

freedoms, and rights of individuals are protected; criminal and politically motivated 

violence has been reduced to a minimum; and criminal elements (from looters and 

rioters to leaders of organized crime networks) are pursued, arrested, and detained.

3. Accountability to the Law is a condition in which the population, public officials, and 

perpetrators of past conflict-related crimes are held legally accountable for their 

actions; the judiciary is independent and free from political influence; and horizontal 

and vertical accountability mechanisms exist to prevent the abuse of power.

4. Access to Justice is a condition in which people are able to seek and obtain a remedy 

for grievances through formal or informal institutions of justice that conform with international human rights standards, and a system exists to ensure equal and effective 

application of the law, procedural fairness, and transparency.

5. Culture of Lawfulness is a condition in which the general population follows the law and 

seeks to access the justice system to address its grievances.
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Mandrick: Property Rights and Social Justice as an Indicator

undermining the root causes of an insurgency can be studied in the return 

to stability and peace in Northern Ireland during the 1990s. After more than 

30 years of turmoil, “British civic action programs, political arrangements, 

and the diplomatic initiatives with the Republic of Ireland brought about a 

cessation of conflict in Northern Ireland.”28

No single list of LOEs applies to all situations. Field Manual 3-24.2, Tactics 

in Counterinsurgency, states that: 

Commanders select LOEs based on their understanding of the nature 

of the instability and what the force must do to counter it. These 

lines can be customized, renamed, changed altogether, or simply not 

used. Commanders may combine two or more of the listed LOEs 

or split one LOE into several. For example, some commanders may 

combine the LOEs Support to Governance, Conduct Information 

Engagement, and Support to Economic and Infrastructure Development into one LOE.29

The development and integration of LOEs requires a robust information management system that organizes incoming data, facilitates analysis, 

produces situational awareness, and disseminates information products to 

the appropriate consumers. Civil information management (CIM) is the 

process whereby data relating to the civil component of the OE is collected, 

collated, processed, analyzed, rendered into knowledge products, and then 

disseminated to planners and decision makers.30 The next chapter provides a 

semantic framework for CIM, which facilitates the organization of data into 

categories for faster processing: collation, analysis, and dissemination. The 

semantic framework is based upon the basic formal ontology (BFO), which 

is a small, upper-level ontology that is designed for use in supporting information retrieval, analysis, and integration in scientific and other domains.31 

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Mandrick: Property Rights and Social Justice as an Indicator

3. An Enhanced Civil Information 

Management Framework for Analyzing 

the Complex Operational Environment

In these complex settings, the U.S. military often creates and operates off of dubious facts. This is because we operate in VUCA environments: environments that are volatile, uncertain, complex, and 

ambiguous ... But without requisite knowledge and timely, reliable 

feedback mechanisms, the ability of a staff to advise a commander is 

a challenge, and course adjustments themselves may not be grounded 

in reality.32

Analysts, operations planners, and command staff members are charged 

with making sense of the complex OE, which is doctrinally defined as 

“a composite of the conditions, circumstances, and influences that affect the 

employment of capabilities and bear on the decisions of the commander.”33 

The PMESII and ASCOPE (areas, structures, capabilities, organizations, 

people, and events) mnemonics help information managers, analysts, and 

planners make sense of the countless operational variables that make up any 

OE. Combining the two mnemonics results in category terms (e.g., political 

area, military structure, economic capability, social organization, etc.), which 

act as bins for managing information. These category terms (information 

bins) can be greatly enhanced if mapped to an ontological framework with 

more precise category terms, definitions, and standardized relationships.

The practice of ontology is the disciplined process of defining entities, 

placing them into a hierarchical taxonomy, and making the relationships 

between the entities explicit—which results in the integration of other closely 

related ontologies. It is helpful to think of any ontology as an exhaustive 

nomenclature system of types or classes and intelligence processes as an 

accounting of those things in reality—i.e., the OE. An operational environment ontology (OEO) contains more precise category terms for the physical 

objects, events, capabilities, functions, and roles that the commander and 

planning staffs must come to understand. Standardized relationships then 

facilitate human and computer reasoning with the OEO elements.
20

JSOU Report 17-9

This monograph is specifically concerned with the OE variables (i.e., conditions, circumstances, and influences) that emanate from an HN’s property 

rights, associated property documents, property tracking systems, and their 

enforcement through the ROL. The information or data produced from analyzing property rights, property documents, and enforcement mechanisms 

feeds into the CIM process, which is doctrinally defined as:

the science of using procedures and information systems to collect, 

process, store, display, disseminate, and protect data that is intrinsic 

to CAO and the operations process. It is the provision of relevant 

information to the right person at the right time in a usable form to 

facilitate situational understanding and decision making.34

Information management processes are supported by ontological representations of the types (classes) of physical objects, occurrent processes, and 

realizable properties that make up any domain, such as an OE.

The OEO, fully described in Appendix A, serves as a semantic framework intended to enhance the CIM process and assist analysts in analyzing, 

defining, and representing the elements (the nodes and links) that make up 

an OE. Furthermore, the OEO provides an extendable vocabulary to which 

any data source or information element that describes some aspect of the OE 

could be translated. In order to provide coverage of any aspect of an OE, the 

chosen strategy was to build a framework which 

would both be sufficient to express generallevel facts (e.g., that some organization is the 

bearer of some capability), and that could also 

be easily, consistently, and uniformly extended 

to ontologies having finer-grained content, as 

needed (e.g., some militant organization is the 

bearer of some lethal capability).

Ultimately, the OEO is designed to assist 

analysts and planners in identifying potential 

sources of continuing violent conflict and instability, and to organize those things in a consistent framework. To do this, 

the OEO extends from the BFO, which is a genuine upper ontology designed 

to serve data integration in scientific and other domains.35 A thorough discussion of the OEO and BFO is included at the end of this monograph in 

Appendix A.

Ultimately, the OEO 

is designed to assist 

analysts and planners 

in identifying potential 

sources of continuing 

violent conflict and 

instability, and to organize those things in a 

consistent framework.
21

Mandrick: Property Rights and Social Justice as an Indicator

4. Joint Intelligence Preparation of the 

Operational Environment

In ‘low intensity’ combat situations, property information may 

fuel the most powerful kind of intelligence able to uncover enemy 

whereabouts, associations, wealth and lines of communication.36

The following section describes how economic information, such as 

property information, feeds into intelligence processes and assists the 

analyst in identifying nodes and links (relationships) that connect disparate PMESII systems within the complex OE. Economic information is very 

important for the joint intelligence preparation of the operational environment (JIPOE), which is defined as “the analytical process used by joint intelligence organizations to produce intelligence assessments, estimates, and 

other intelligence products in support of the joint force commander’s decision-making process.”37 Property information is critical for JIPOE because 

it identifies valuable parcels of land, influential persons who control access 

to land, groups that are denied access to vital resources, the level of property 

rights enforcement (an indication of the level of ROL), and other potential 

drivers of conflict. This type of intelligence contributes to defining the total 

OE and describing the effect of the OE on adversary, friendly courses of 

action.

In order to define the complex OE, JIPOE analysts and civil information 

managers adopt a systems perspective to understand the significant relationships between nodes within the interrelated PMESII and other systems. The 

systems perspective, representable with nodes and links in a graph, facilitates 

understanding of the “continuous and complex interaction of friendly, adversary, and neutral systems.”38 For example, it is important to understand how 

the elements of a property system (property rights, property owners, parcels 

of property, attitudes and behaviors towards property, property documents, 

etc.) and the elements of a legal system (laws, policies, legal documents, persons in legal roles, etc.) are related to each other, and to the other elements 

of a stable state (economic stability, infrastructure development, human 

security, etc.). Therefore, the goal of any civil information manager or analyst 

is to disseminate products that show relationships between the elements of 
22

JSOU Report 17-9

a civil society, including assessments of sociocultural factors and network 

analysis diagrams associated with PMESII and other systems (see fig. 5).

There are hundreds of possible links/relationships between the nodes in a 

graph. Drawing a line that resembles a relationship between two nodes leaves 

out all of the details that make up that relationship, and this is where the analysts must focus their effort. For example, the line between two people or two 

organizations will represent a long history, sometimes decades, that makes 

up the relationship—think of a line that an analyst would draw connecting 

Figure 5. The connection between nodes in disparate systems. Each 

node represents some continuant entity or occurrent process. Each link 

represents the relationship between the nodes (e.g., some political leader 

is a participant-in some political process, such as passing land reforms). 

SOURCE: U.S. JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF39
23

Mandrick: Property Rights and Social Justice as an Indicator

two rival war-lords in a tribal region. To be sure, it may not be the nodes 

that are the most important thing to focus upon, but rather the relationships (history) between them. A small sample of the hundreds of possible 

relationships that can be used to link nodes in a graph are shown in figure 6.

Existing title deeds and cadastral maps provide the JIPOE analyst with 

critical nodes and links that make up PMESII systems (e.g., valuable or contested parcels of land, access issues, indications of discrimination, names 

of influential landowners, etc.). More importantly, some of the nodes will 

inevitably be linked to nodes in other PMESII systems, which may indicate 

a center of gravity (e.g., an influential political figure who controls access 

to land with valuable resources). Most operations require commanders and 

other leaders to engage key local and regional leaders in order to affect their 

attitudes and gain their support. The J-2’s JIPOE should “include identification of key enemy and neutral leaders, as well as key friendly leaders who 

are not in the commander’s usual sphere of influence.”40 Gaining situational 

awareness of property-related nodes and links will help to identify key leaders and expose drivers of conflict, such as historical grievances based upon 

ethnic or tribal discrimination. To this point, Demarest proposes a property 

intelligence methodology that seeks to: 

Figure 6. A sample of relationships between nodes in a 

graph (i.e., elements in reality) 

• familial relationship

- father of

- mother of 

- sibling of

 • brother of

 • sister of

• is about

- describes

- designates

- prescribes

- represents

• mereological relationship

- has part

- part of

- temporal part of

• professional relationship

- boss of

- commander of 

- employee of

• process relationship

- result of

- has result

• spatial relationship

- has location

- located at

• social relationship

- acquaintance of

- associate of

- enemy of

- friend of
24

JSOU Report 17-9

understand the rights and duties at issue, the rules that might apply, 

the identities of interested parties, their objectives, resources and 

vulnerabilities. It is a method not so distant from military strategy. 

It is very cognizant of physical geography, but in terms of the many 

overlapping sets of rights and duties associated with space, and of 

the many possible identities and alliances that pertain.41
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Mandrick: Property Rights and Social Justice as an Indicator

5. Operational Design and Stability 

Operations End States

Successful conflict transformation relies on the ability of intervening entities to identify and reduce the primary drivers of ongoing 

or future violent conflict and instability in a region or individual 

HN, while building regional and HN capacities to manage them.42

Information acquired and organized in accordance with the OEO framework will assist analysts in identifying drivers of conflict, and contribute 

directly to the operational design (OD) process. OD is the process of defining a military end state, as well identifying the supporting intermediate 

objectives, LOEs, and desired effects. Establishing LOEs is essential to the 

OD process when “positional references to an enemy or adversary have little 

relevance, such as in counterinsurgency or stability operations.”43 The first 

order of business for OD, prior to establishing activities that make up the 

LOEs, is to identify institutional weaknesses in fragile states. Joint Publication 3-07, Stability, states that: 

Whether that fragility is caused by the removal of state institutions 

in military actions, ongoing systemic issues of economics or governance, a sudden onset disaster, or any other circumstances that 

may upset the balance of the elements of a stable state, the Joint 

Force Commander must understand the context in which stability 

operations are executed.44

It is the job of analysts and civil information managers to help commanders and their staff understand the context 

in which stability operations are executed. 

The OEO framework is a tool to help analysts and information managers describe 

and represent the complex OE where stability operations are being conducted. This 

chapter describes stability operations end 

states and some of the indications and measurements used to assess progress 

toward stability in a failed or failing state. The chapter then describes how 

It is the job of analysts and 

civil information managers to 

help commanders and their 

staff understand the context 

in which stability operations 

are executed.
26

JSOU Report 17-9

certain special operations core activities (FID, COIN, MISO, and CAO) 

contribute to stability operations end states and supporting LOEs.

When supported by higher-level economic policies and ROL, economic 

documents indicate the existence of property rights, effective policy-making, 

and an ability to govern at various levels. In contrast, the absence of these 

documents is an indication of weak economic policies and insufficient property enforcement mechanisms/ROL. These are important factors that will 

provide insights for course of action development when planning for special 

operations core activities intended to establish desired stability operations 

end states.

End States

SOF gather intelligence, analyze the OE, and plan and conduct operations 

that contribute to the accomplishment of desired end states. A military end 

state is defined as: “The set of required conditions that defines achievement 

of the commander’s objectives.”45 In stability operations, desired end states 

include the establishment of a safe and secure environment, rule of law, stable 

governance, a sustainable economy, and overall social well-being. These end 

states are defined in the Guiding Principles for Stabilization and Reconstruction, published by the United States Institute of Peace Press, as follows: 

• A safe and secure environment is defined as the ability of the people 

to conduct their daily lives without fear of systematic or large-scale 

violence.

• ROL is defined as the ability of the people to have equal access to just 

laws and a trusted system of justice that holds all persons accountable, 

protects their human rights, and ensures their safety and security.

• Stable governance is defined as the ability of the people to share, 

access, or compete for power through nonviolent political processes, 

and to enjoy the collective benefits and services of the state.

• A sustainable economy is defined as the ability of the people to pursue 

opportunities for livelihoods within a system of economic governance 

bound by law.

• Social well-being is defined as the ability of the people to be free from 

want of basic needs and to coexist peacefully in communities with 

opportunities for advancement.46
27

Mandrick: Property Rights and Social Justice as an Indicator

Obtaining desired end states in stability operations requires the ability 

to measure progress toward clearly identified intermediate objectives. The 

Measuring Progress in Conflict Environments (MPICE) Metrics Framework 

is used for identifying goals, indications, and measurements toward their 

achievement. The MPICE provides “a system of metrics that can assist in 

formulating policy and implementing strategic and operational plans to 

transform conflict and bring stability to war-torn societies.”47 Table 3 shows 

a sample of MPICE indicators, measures, and methods of measurement 

that pertain to the establishment of ROL and property rights. These indicators, measures, and methods are derived from multiple sources, such as 

Bertelsmann Stiftung’s Transformation Index, which assesses 17 criteria 

(ROL, political and social integration, private property, etc.) and more than 

40 indicators that are required for political and economic transformation. 

Indicator Measure Method of Measuring

Do national and local law enforcement agencies enforce the law 

and maintain public order (by 

province or equivalent locality)?

Use of public/private institutions, 

such as schools, banks, etc., for 

their intended purposes

Quantitative data and 

expert knowledge

Does the legal system (formal and 

informal) provide a non-violent 

mechanism for the resolution of 

disputes (by identity group)?

Percentage of citizens who say 

that they have access to and 

are willing to use formal court 

systems to resolve criminal 

disputes (by identity group)

Survey or polling data

Are judges, prosecutors, lawyers, 

and penal system employees held 

accountable?

Perceptions of the public about 

the integrity of judges, prosecutors, lawyers, and penal system 

employees

Survey or polling data

Is the law applied equally? Perception of the population 

that the judicial system and law 

enforcement agencies apply the 

law equally to all identity groups

Survey or polling data

Are property disputes resolved 

and contracts enforced?

Perception of parties involved 

with property disputes that the 

process was fair and the case 

resolved satisfactorily (by identity group and province)

Survey or polling data

Table 3. A sample of indicators, measures, and methods from the MPICE, 

used to measure a country’s transformation toward ROL and property rights48
28

JSOU Report 17-9

The indicators and measurements listed in table 3 are about the people, 

organizations, processes, and attributes that make up the OE. People and 

organizations are participants in relevant events that unfold through space 

and time within the OE. All of these elements that make up the complex OE 

can be portrayed as nodes and links in a graph (see fig. 5) or on a map overlay. The OEO described in appendix A provides a framework of categories 

and relationships to organize and analyze the individual nodes that make 

up some complex OEs. The systems perspective facilitates the identification 

of nodes and links within and between systems, which are the data points 

used in planning and decision-making processes (e.g., lethal and non-lethal 

targeting). The primary reason for employing the systems perspective is to 

gain an understanding of the significant relationships between nodes that 

make up the PMESII and other systems.

Property Information Supports Special Operations Core 

Activities 

Intelligence that is gleaned from property documents feeds the planning 

and decision-making processes of special operations core activities, such 

as FID, COIN, MISO, and CAO. FID operations are planned and executed 

in order to obtain stabilization end states, as defined in Guiding Principles 

for Stabilization and Reconstruction. They include: “U.S. activities that support an HN IDAD [Internal Defense and Development] strategy designed 

to protect against subversion, lawlessness, insurgency, terrorism, and other 

threats to their security, consistent with U.S. national security objectives 

and policies.”49 A survey of property documents and associated property 

rights, as well as their enforceability, will provide insights pertaining to the 

presence of ROL, stable governance, and a sustainable economy. Property 

rights and ROL indicate the presence of just legal frameworks, public order, 

accountability to the law, access to justice, and a culture of lawfulness, which 

are end states for a successful FID campaign. Identifying gaps in a nation’s 

body of property documents and property rights enforceability, which are 

indicators of ROL, stable governance, and a sustainable economy, will provide a baseline for planning FID operations.

COIN, as a subset of FID, is defined as: “comprehensive civilian and military efforts designed to simultaneously defeat and contain insurgency and 

address its root causes.”50 Situational awareness of property rights, and their 
29

Mandrick: Property Rights and Social Justice as an Indicator

level of enforceability under the ROL, is critical for the successful planning 

and conduct of COIN operations. Knowledge of property rights provides 

valuable information pertaining to the root causes of insurgency, such as 

current land rights discrimination or long-standing historical grievances 

pertaining to land tenure. Analysis of a country’s property rights and the 

ROL will result in the identification of societal gaps that lead to corruption, 

injustice, and discrimination (drivers of instability and insurgency). Field 

Manual 3-24, Insurgencies and Countering Insurgencies, states: “Understanding the conditions that may affect the stability of a nation or region assists 

commanders as they focus on a specific operational environment to determine the root causes that led to an insurgency.”51 For example, unresolved 

land disputes are drivers of conflict, and serve as rallying cries for opposing 

ethnicities such as the Tutsi and Hutu.52

This means that one of the metrics for measuring the effectiveness of a 

COIN campaign includes the percentage of local people with secure title to 

their houses and land, and the related enforcement mechanisms created by 

ROL. COIN expert David Kilcullen states: 

A key element of public confidence and perception of stability is 

having secure title to land and other property. Therefore, the percentage of people in a given district who have secure title to their 

property can be an indication of stability, whereas a large number 

of unresolved or power-locked land or title disputes can indicate 

potential for instability and insurgent exploitation.53

In contrast, increased economic activity that is spurred by secure property rights and ROL indicates an atmosphere of enduring stability and 

security. Kilcullen also states: “Experience of Islamist insurgency in North 

Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia has shown that a revival of local 

economic activity in a given area indicates a lessening of insurgent influence.”54 As the elements of a stable state come together, the possibility of an 

enduring peace comes into focus, which provides the HN government with 

a strategic message that effectively counters the insurgent narrative. This is 

the nexus between property documents and MISO.

MISO are: “planned to convey selected information and indicators to 

foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning, 

and ultimately to influence the behavior of foreign governments, organizations, groups, and individuals in a manner favorable to the originator’s 
30

JSOU Report 17-9

objectives.”55 HN efforts toward the establishment of property rights, economic stability, and ROL create a complementary information campaign 

that will influence emotions, motives, and reasoning down to the grass-roots 

level (i.e., the same target audience that both insurgent and counterinsurgent 

need to influence). By exposing property laws to the public, and ensuring 

that they are fair and enforceable, the HN can leverage a strategic message 

that reaches down to the grass-roots level and portrays a government that 

is working toward everyone’s benefit.

As described earlier, Mr. de Soto’s prescriptions for stabilizing the economy go well beyond simply inventorying the assets (i.e., dead capital) that 

make up the extralegal sector and then creating documents to represent them 

in the legal market. Rather, stabilizing an economy requires an information 

campaign that effectively describes participation by the highest levels of government, the extralegal sector (i.e., most of the population), and the business 

community. The information campaign must also describe acquiescence 

among those with a vested interest in the status quo; economic policies that 

favor one group over another create tension and serve as drivers of conflict 

in many fragile states. The target audience will be positively affected by a 

strategic message that effectively describes the HN government’s ability to 

(a) influence those with a vested interest in the status quo, and (b) change 

the practices that prevent most people from participating in the legal sector.

Another subset of FID activities are CAO, which include actions “that 

enhance awareness of, and manage the interaction with, the civil component 

of the operational environment; identify and mitigate underlying causes 

of instability within civil society; or involve the application of functional 

specialty skills normally the responsibility of civil government.”56 Assessing property rights, the formal documentation of property, and how land 

disputes are settled under ROL are civil affairs responsibilities, and will help 

the analyst identify underlying causes of instability in a complex OE. Property intelligence will also help civil 

affairs forces coordinate with U.S. 

Government interagency partners 

to enable a whole-of-government 

approach to stabilizing the civil 

environment.57 Property intelligence 

will expose gaps in the HN government’s ability to establish property 

Property intelligence will expose 

gaps in the HN government’s 

ability to establish property rights, 

enforce property law, and stabilize 

the economy.
31

Mandrick: Property Rights and Social Justice as an Indicator

rights, enforce property law, and stabilize the economy. Identifying these 

gaps in an HN’s ability to govern is a critical first step in the planning and 

conduct of CAO.

CAO produce civil information, which is defined as “relevant data relating 

to the civil areas, structures, capabilities, organizations, people, and events of 

the civil component of the operational environment used to support the situational awareness of the supported commander.”58 The process of gathering 

and analyzing property intelligence may produce an overwhelming amount 

of civil information related to the geography, infrastructure, people, and 

institutions within the complex OE. This information needs to be organized 

into distinct nodes with a set of standardized relationships that facilitate 

both human and machine reasoning. As described earlier, CIM doctrine 

has developed several semantic frameworks (e.g., ASCOPE and PMESII) 

intended to provide analysts, planners, and operators with simple categories 

for organizing civil information. The OEO (see Appendix A) provides more 

precise categories and relationships so that it can be used to more quickly 

link nodes from disparate PMESII systems.

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Mandrick: Property Rights and Social Justice as an Indicator

6. Challenges to de Soto’s Techniques: 

The Problem of Institutional Transfer and 

the Transplant Effect

Critics of Mr. de Soto contend that he is selling a simplistic universal solution to many different, often culturally specific, obstacles 

to capitalism or sources of terrorism. What, for instance, do the 

disaffected rich Arabs of al-Qaeda, motivated by heavenly virgins, 

have in common with the brutal Marxists of the Shining Path? 

Can there be a common cure? Mr. de Soto concedes that it was 

lucky the Shining Path were so cruel to their potential supporters 

among the poor; Che Guevara would have been harder to beat, as 

“he was a nice guy”. Yet he believes that most poor people, given 

the chance to participate fairly in the capitalist system, would do so 

rather than stay outside. And although not all terrorists are from 

poor backgrounds, or motivated by materialistic goals, most tend 

to survive—as did the Shining Path—by hiding among the world’s 

excluded.59

By definition, failed and failing states require the institutional transfer 

of political, social, legal, and economic policies, and these institutions 

must be integrated to ensure mutual support. However, institutional transfers have been mostly disappointing. Some economists have argued that the 

“transplant effect” results when imported policies and laws lack effectiveness. 

In order for transplanted institutions to take hold and be truly effective, there 

must be an initial level of familiarity within the populace or the new institutions must be successfully adapted to local legal norms.60 Daniel Berkowitz, 

Katharina Pistor, and Jean-Francois Richard state that: 

Our basic argument is that for legal institutions to be effective, a 

demand for law must exist so that the law on the books will actually be used in practice and legal intermediaries responsible for 

developing the law are responsive to this demand. If the transplant 

adapted the law to local conditions, or had a population that was 

already familiar with basic legal principles of the transplanted law, 
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JSOU Report 17-9

then we would expect that the law would be used. However, if the 

law was not adapted to local conditions, or if it was imposed via 

colonization and the population within the transplant was not 

familiar with the law, then we would expect that initial demand for 

using these laws to be weak.61

Both Hernando de Soto’s prescriptions and the efforts of USAID’s Land 

Tenure and Property Rights Office call for the institutional transfer of free 

market economic principles, which are adapted to local practice and enforceable by higher-level ROL. Connecting these disparate aspects of the human 

terrain—clarifying and documenting property rights, ensuring their social 

acceptance, and making them legally enforceable—is the only way to ensure 

long-term stability. However, re-creating interdependent, transparent, and 

mutually supporting institutions in a failing state is complicated by the local 

conditions and context that led to failure in the first place. This means that 

the expeditionary economist will have to deal with local conditions that 

consist of normative dissonance, land scarcity, corruption, and historical 

grievances that drive conflict.

Existing land registration systems may be too complex and expensive for 

people to participate in, meaning that most parcels of land remain subject 

to local custom rather than formal representation. To make matters worse, 

many failing states have a growing population, exacerbated by returning 

refugees who may have claim to some occupied parcel of land. In addition to overly complicated land registration systems, high tax schemes, and 

bulging populations, the perception of ethnically motivated, discriminatory economic policies results in polarization and the increased potential 

for conflict. In countries where property rights are obscure, the acquisition 

of land by one group from another creates resentment. Keenan states that, 

“Murky, controversial land policies have at times led to interethnic violence. 

In 2013, riots broke out in Bujumbura when the police tried to evict a Tutsi 

family from the house it had owned for 40 years in order to give the house 

back to its previous Hutu residents.”62

Normative Dissonance

Normative dissonance happens when coexisting bodies of law of different 

origins are poorly harmonized, and are leveraged by parties in contention. Property disputes may be caused when newly forming state-level laws 
35

Mandrick: Property Rights and Social Justice as an Indicator

come into conflict with local practices. 

For example, there may be normative dissonance between evolving state-level institutions and local customary norms, such 

as tribal codes, like Pashtunwali, which 

literally means “the way of the Pashtuns.” 

Pashtunwali consists of the rules, regulations, and laws of the Pashtun tribe, 

which is the world’s biggest tribal society. This set of rules is responsible for 

the survival of the Pashtun tribes for more than 2,000 years.63 Therefore, any 

newly codified laws in the Pashtun region of Afghanistan must be harmonized with this longstanding set of rules, regulations, and laws.

Normative dissonance can be a driver of conflict, as it was in the failure 

of successive Liberian governments to recognize customary land rights. 

According to a USAID Issue Brief, this was an important factor that contributed to the overthrow of the civilian government by the military in 1980, and 

the issue remains divisive in Liberia.64 However, the tension between evolving 

state-level policies and local norms may not be insurmountable. When carefully crafted, there are ways to harmonize state-level policies—intended to 

connect with the global economy—with local-level norms intended to keep 

a tribe safe from outside forces. Peter Tomsen states: 

Before the communist era, which began in 1978, Afghanistan enjoyed 

four decades of stability and slow but steady modernization. The 

country owed its progress largely to a unique relationship between 

the central government and traditional tribal structures in the 

regions. The government in Kabul did not possess a monopoly of 

power in the country but shared it with moderate tribal groups 

and clerics in rural areas. The government provided services such 

as schools, clinics, and roads to the regions, whose tribal elders 

administered their communities according to ancient codes and 

customs, maintained security, and participated in parliamentary 

conclaves in Kabul.65

The USAID Land Tenure and Property Rights Office is conducting institutional transfer in Afghanistan, whereby they are harmonizing nationallevel economic policies, which are outward-facing to the global economy, 

with local norms intended to serve tribal-level interests. Property documents 

at the tactical level are being aligned with higher-level economic policies 

Property disputes may be 

caused when newly forming 

state-level laws come into 

conflict with local practices.
36

JSOU Report 17-9

that support their enforcement. In turn, these higher-level economic policies 

emanate from an even higher-level constitution, which provides the legal 

foundation for their enforcement. Furthermore, there is a thread that connects the Afghan population’s worldview, and all of the associated sentiments 

that come with it, to its constitution; the constitution of any population 

should be an expression of its closely held beliefs and sentiments.

More specifically, the Afghan constitution’s legal framework for property 

rights is explicitly supported by an Islamic worldview. This support can be 

found in their sacred documents. For example, the Islamic view on property rights is clearly presented in the Prophet Muhammad’s Last Sermon, 

wherein he states, “O Men, your lives and your property shall be inviolate 

until you meet your Lord. The safety of your lives and of your property shall 

be as inviolate as this holy day and holy month.”66 Furthermore, the Qur’an 

states: “And do not wish for that by which Allah has made some of you 

exceed others. For men is a share of what they have earned, and for women 

is a share of what they have earned. And ask Allah of his bounty. Indeed 

Allah is ever, of all things, Knowing.”67 These passages appear to directly 

support the enactment of the 2004 Afghan constitution described in the 

USAID Country Profile: 

A new Constitution enacted in 2004 established a legal framework 

for property rights that safeguards the right of individuals to own 

property. A 2007 Land Policy addressed bottlenecks in land rights 

administration and the overlapping authority of institutions, and 

was followed by the 2008 Law on Managing Land Affairs, which 

lays out principles of land classification and documentation, governs 

settlement of land-rights, and encourages commercial investment in 

state owned agricultural land with opportunities for long leases. The 

Ministry of Justice, however, estimates that 90% of Afghans continue 

to rely on customary law and local dispute-resolution mechanisms. 

More than 30 years of conflict have decimated the centuries-old 

customary land dispute resolution mechanisms. Those systems 

that are functioning are stressed by the need to manage the layers 

of competing interests: populations have moved to urban areas to 

avoid conflict, and populations displaced by earlier conflicts have 

made efforts to reclaim both rural and urban properties.68
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Mandrick: Property Rights and Social Justice as an Indicator

The preceding quote describes a hierarchical structure for creating institutional facts that emanate from Afghanistan’s national-level constitution. 

The constitution describes the rights of Afghan citizens, and Article 40 of 

Afghanistan’s Constitution, which was ratified in 2004, covers individual 

property rights, stating: 

Property shall be safe from violation. No one shall be forbidden 

from owning property and acquiring it, unless limited by the provisions of law. No one’s property shall be confiscated without the 

order of the law and decision of an authoritative court. Acquisition 

of private property shall be legally permitted only for the sake of 

public interests, and in exchange for prior and just compensation. 

Search and disclosure of private property shall be carried out in 

accordance with provisions of the law.69

Notice that this constitutional mandate starts with wording that is 

quite similar to wording in the Prophet Muhammad’s Last Sermon, where 

it describes the inviolate nature of property. This wording in the constitutional mandate harmonizes deeply held sentiments while providing the 

lead-in for Chapter 2 of the Land Management Law of the Islamic Emirate 

of Afghanistan. These prescriptive writings serve as the foundation for title 

deeds, which include the following documents:

1. A deed issued by a court in respect of purchase, conveyance, gift, 

inheritance, division, land exchange, letter of quittance, letter of correction as well as document of the ultimate decision issued on the basis 

of property deeds and containing the following conditions: 

a. To have been registered with a judicial court. A legal deed without 

being registered with a judicial court can be valid if confirmed by 

a competent court.

b. A valid legal deed or a decree without superseding deed or 

documents.

c. The land under legal deed, if subject to Emirate taxation, shall be 

recorded in the tax book.

2. Emirate (State) decree, council of ministers (prime ministry’s) decree 

and a deed in respect of purchasing land from Emirate’s (State) landed 

properties with the following conditions: 
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JSOU Report 17-9

a. To have been issued by a competent organization.

b. Legal deed and other valid documents without superseding deed 

or documents.

c. To have been recorded in the tax book if the land is subject to tax 

payment.

3. The tax payment document having the following conditions:

a. Legal deed or a valid decree without a superseding deed or decree.

b. To have been registered in the principal book of properties and tax.

4. The water rights document having the following conditions:

a. It is without a superseding document.

b. Is registered in principal book of properties and tax.70

Land Scarcity

Due to legal constraints on access, skewed distribution among users, 

or an absolute shortage of land in relation to demand, scarcity can 

leave many with little or no land and create intense competition for 

land. This scarcity can result from generally very high person/land 

ratios but can also be distributional, where one group has appropriated most land, leaving land a scarce good for most others. It can 

be influenced by demographic shifts and factors such as climate 

change and can be either national or local. Resentment and economic hardship related to land scarcity in Rwanda are often cited 

as contributing factors to the 1994 genocide.71

Even if a nation’s constitution enumerates property rights, and its property laws are represented by property documents, there may simply be too 

little land to support the demand. Bulging populations can be caused by 

unfettered birthrates and the return of formerly displaced persons after years 

or decades. For example, in Burundi, the population growth rate is more 

than twice the average global pace, and the average Burundian woman has 

6.3 children. Moreover, roughly half a million refugees who fled the country’s 1993–2005 civil war or previous ethnic violence had come back as of 

late 2014.72
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Mandrick: Property Rights and Social Justice as an Indicator

The problems associated with land scarcity 

and growing populations are further exacerbated by direct investment. According to a 

USAID report, the last decade has seen a dramatic increase in the global demand for land, 

driven by growing demand for agricultural 

products, biofuels, carbon sequestration, and 

conservation uses. This creates an opportunity 

for the governments of developing countries to 

attract direct investment. The problem is that many governments in developing countries consider unregistered lands to be allocated for investors. 

However, sometimes, what appears to be vacant and sparsely settled lands 

are, in fact, claimed by local communities.73

Historical Grievances

Land-related conflicts also find expression in ways that fail to capture international headlines, or that play out in more local, more 

systemic ways. In Cameroon, local political authorities expel “nonindigenous” farmers from localities so that ethnic insiders can take 

their land, and prevent them from voting. Across the Sahel, the 

incidence of farmer-herder conflict has increased steadily over the 

past two decades. In parts of Ghana, chiefs who sell off communities’ land can stoke protest against the abuse of political authority 

for private gain.74 

A grievance is any prior action, deemed to be a wrong, which forms the 

basis for a complaint. Most often rooted in earlier displacements and land 

takings, historical grievances can generate a demand for redress that can 

fuel conflict. Grievances that focus upon land rights, expulsion, or exclusion serve as propaganda for all parties involved, and drive groups toward 

conflict. For example, a USAID issue brief reports that, “After 2000, in Zimbabwe, earlier colonial land takings and the resentment these engendered 

sparked widespread land occupations. Post-conflict situations are often rife 

with grievances based on displacements of some communities during the 

conflict.”75 The root causes of land-related grievances (e.g., a land taking) 

can be graphically portrayed with nodes and links, which will help analysts 

visualize drivers of conflict in time and space. The persons, groups, events, 

Even if a nation’s constitution enumerates 

property rights, and 

its property laws are 

represented by property 

documents, there may 

simply be too little land 

to support the demand.
40

JSOU Report 17-9

and relationships that make up an injustice will become visual, and gaps in 

our understanding can be filled in or at least identified.

It may be argued that land takings, conducted by one group at the expense 

of another, can only be prevented through the establishment of property 

rights, the documentation of private property, and the registering of property in a common registry that is enforceable by the ROL. Certainly, this is 

how land disputes and land-related grievances are mitigated, and altogether 

avoided, in most developed states. However, in failed states, where ROL and 

property rights may be weak or non-existent, there are problems associated 

with sorting out the history of land tenure. A violent history, where valuable 

parcels of land changed hands numerous times, will not be easily resolved 

through the creation of property documents and a common cadastre. Some 

populations may even point to newly minted property rights policies, title 

deeds, and cadastre as evidence of continued mistreatment.

Lawlessness and Disorder

The 21st century ... could well become a period of lawlessness and 

disorder—a century in which states are in long-term decline; new 

violent actors challenge states and one another; resources such as 

food, water, and energy become a central focus of violent competition and of large illicit markets; demographic and environmental 

trends pose challenges to sustainability, security, and stability; and 

the severity of problems is significantly increased by the interconnections and often perverse interactions among them.76

In his book, The Pentagon’s New Map, Thomas Barnett describes a bifurcated world consisting of a core of economically advanced states and a gap 

where failing and failed states reside. He goes on to prescribe an optimistic 

strategy for leveraging market-globalism to reach into “gap” states and pull 

them into the extended global economy. Similar to de Soto’s prescriptions, 

Barnett argues that gap states in South America, Africa, and the Middle 

East can be integrated into the core of advanced economies via the forces 

of globalism and fixed rule sets, which will result in lasting political and 

economic stability.

In contrast, other theorists describe a world where lawlessness and 

disorder are increasing. Whereas core states are characterized by expanding network connectivity, freedom of the press, economic stability, stable 
41

Mandrick: Property Rights and Social Justice as an Indicator

governments, and rising standards of living, gap states suffer from increased 

illicit activities, collapsing civil order, and reduced political legitimacy. 

Robert D. Kaplan, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, states: 

West Africa is becoming the symbol of worldwide demographic, 

environmental, and societal stress, in which criminal anarchy 

emerges as the real “strategic” danger. Disease, overpopulation, 

unprovoked crime, scarcity of resources, refugee migrations, the 

increasing erosion of nation-states and international borders, and 

the empowerment of private armies, security firms, and international 

drug cartels are now most tellingly demonstrated through a West 

African prism. West Africa provides an appropriate introduction 

to the issues, often extremely unpleasant to discuss, that will soon 

confront our civilization.77

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Mandrick: Property Rights and Social Justice as an Indicator

7. Conclusion 

This monograph prescribes methods for assessing the stability of a 

nation-state by analyzing its body of economic documents, and their 

connection to higher-level economic policies and the ROL. Property documents contain information pertaining to the presence of unseen drivers of 

conflict, such as a lack of property rights and ROL. Mr. de Soto argues that 

most people in developing countries operate within an informal economy, 

which consists of extralegal arrangements based upon informal consensus. 

The result is that their physical assets—land, buildings, and other facilities—are not formally represented by economic documents, which are tied 

into a formal system of property laws. In every country that de Soto’s team 

researched, they found that some 80 percent of the land parcels were not 

protected by up-to-date records or held by legally accountable owners.

As SOF work toward the long-term stabilization of a failed or failing 

state, they require a constant flow of information for planning and decision 

making. A state’s body of economic documents 

provides a treasure trove of information that can 

be used by SOF for intelligence, planning, and 

OD. Economic documents portray social realities 

such as ownership of valuable parcels of land, 

influential persons or organizations, discriminatory practices, normative dissonance, and other 

drivers of conflict and instability. These elements 

can be portrayed as nodes and links within political, economic, and social systems. Such analysis is a critical step in identifying centers of gravity, and helps planners formulate stability operations end 

states and the metrics used to determine success.

In order to gain situational understanding of the unseen drivers of conflict (normative dissonance, lacking property rights, oppressive bureaucracies, etc.) the special operations enterprise will need enhanced tools and 

methods for gathering, analyzing, and rendering vast amounts of information. This monograph also provides a framework to be used for gathering, 

analyzing, and rendering such information. If gathered in accordance with 

this framework, property information can inform intelligence processes, 

enhance systems-nodal analysis, and provide data for predictive analytics.

A state’s body of 

economic documents 

provides a treasure 

trove of information 

that can be used by 

SOF for intelligence, 

planning, and OD.

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Mandrick: Property Rights and Social Justice as an Indicator

Appendix A. Operational Environment 

Ontology

This appendix describes the OEO, which is a semantic framework 

intended to enhance the CIM process and assist analysts, planners, 

and decision makers in analyzing, defining, and relating the elements that 

make up an OE. It is designed to assist analysts and planners in organizing 

information and identifying potential drivers of violent conflict and instability. Civil information that is organized in accordance with this semantic 

framework will be in a format that will assist analysts in identifying critical 

nodes (persons, organizations, events, locations, etc.) and analyzing the 

relationships that make up the complex OE.

The OEO proposed here consists of a small set of ontologies, which are 

more effective for organizing information because they consist of more specific categories than those that make up the PMESII and ASCOPE mnemonics. For example, one of the rules for developing a BFO-compliant ontology 

prohibits the use of mass terms (conflict, economics, extremism, terrain, 

infrastructure, etc.), and instead requires the use of singular nouns (act of 

conflict, economic process, act of violence, terrain feature, infrastructure 

artifact, etc.). This simple rule results in the ability to develop proper hierarchical taxonomies—the basic frameworks of any ontology. The addition of 

standardized relationships then facilitates human and computer (automated) 

reasoning.

Ontology is the disciplined study of what is, of the kinds and structures 

of objects, properties, events, processes, and relations in every area of reality. 

From this philosophical perspective, ontology seeks to provide a definitive 

and exhaustive classification of entities in all domains of being. As a theoretical discipline, it is concerned with accurately rendering the taxonomy of 

all things that exist. Applied ontology offers “a strategy for the organization 

of scientific information in computer-tractable form, drawing on concepts 

not only from computer and information science but also from linguistics, 

logic, and philosophy.”78

The OEO extends from the BFO, which is a small, upper-level ontology 

that is designed for use in supporting information retrieval, analysis, and 

integration in scientific and other domains. BFO is a genuine upper ontology 
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JSOU Report 17-9

designed to serve data integration in scientific and other domains.79 It consists of only 40 classes, 17 of which are employed in the OEO, as depicted 

in figure 7. BFO depicts reality as consisting of (1) continuants, which are 

entities that continue or persist through time, such as objects, qualities, 

and functions, and (2) occurrent events (i.e., happenings) in which the continuants participate. The subtypes of continuant and occurrent entities are 

represented in BFO as shown in figure 7. 

The BFO provides the categories needed to decompose and analyze the 

complex OE. Analysis starts with decomposition, which is the process of 

separating some composite entity (e.g., some economy, organization, violent 

activity, etc.) into constituent parts or elements. Decomposition of the OE is 

done by (a) layers and (b) categories (types) of entities that would be found 

on each layer. This decomposition exposes individual elements, which serve 

as nodes in a graph, as well as the relationships between them. The result 

is a semantic framework that facilitates the organization of data about the 

OE. It is populated with instance-level data that refers to the actual objects, 

Figure 7. The BFO categories that form the foundation for an OEO. All 

OEO categories extend from this framework. Standardized relationships 

then facilitate human and computer reasoning.

• Entity (bfo)

- Continuant Entity (bfo)

 • Independent Continuant Entity (bfo)

 - Material Entity (bfo)

 • Physical Object (bfo)

 • Object Aggregate (bfo)

 - Site (bfo)

 • Dependent Continuant Entity (bfo)

 - Generically Dependent Continuant Entity (bfo)

 • Information Content Entity (Information Artifact Ontology)

	 	 	 - Specifically Dependent Continuant Entity (bfo)

 • Quality (bfo)

 • Realizable Entity (bfo)

 - Disposition (bfo)

 - Function (bfo)

 - Role (bfo)

- Occurrent Entity (bfo)

 • Process (bfo)

 • Process Aggregate (bfo)
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Mandrick: Property Rights and Social Justice as an Indicator

attributes, events, and relationships within the OE. Its purpose is to assist in 

the organization of data in such a way that it becomes useful for reasoning 

and decision-making. The semantic framework will also help to identify gaps 

in the analyst’s knowledge of the OE.

As already stated, development of the OEO starts with a layered, or 

stratified, approach to representing the OE. The layered approach is directly 

related to map layers used to depict (a) physical elevation, (b) terrain features, 

(c) land use or human terrain, and (d) other geospatially tied phenomena (see 

fig. 8). Where map layers provide graphic symbols that represent landforms 

or terrain features, the OEO consists of the terms and the relationships used 

to describe and reason about the elements that make up the layers. Each layer 

is further decomposed into categories for material (physical) entities, object 

aggregates, processes, and realizable entities (e.g., the disposition of a field 

to flood, contractual agreements, person roles such as commander, artifact 

functions, and organizational capabilities). 

Put another way, each layer or stratum consists of physical objects, object 

aggregates, processes, and realizable entities such as states of affairs, capabilities, qualities, and dispositions. The first layer (base layer) above the map 

Figure 8. Each map layer represents physical objects and object aggregates that make up the physical terrain. SOURCE: CHRIS EVAVOLD80

Roads

Land Use

Boundaries

Hydrography

Elevation

Image Base
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JSOU Report 17-9

image consists of (1) elevation landforms (BFO: physical objects), (2) the 

geologic processes or events (BFO: processes) that form them, and (3) the 

attributes, properties, and dispositions (BFO: realizable entities) of the landforms and geologic processes. The second layer consists of the physical terrain features (hydrographic features, forests, etc.) and natural processes that 

take place on top of the base layer. The third layer consists of the human terrain, or social reality, where human agents act and interact to create physical 

artifacts, aggregate artifacts, and social facts; the kind that constitute states 

of affairs such as marriages, obligations, contractual agreements, business 

partnerships, etc. Each layer will be discussed in order.

Base Layer: Landforms and Geologic Processes

A common approach to decomposing the “conditions, circumstances, and 

influences” that make up a complex OE starts with analysis of the physical layers, which are representable 

on map overlays or other graphic 

depictions. The OE’s base layer 

consists of landforms, which are the 

physical expression or contours of 

the land surface, including plains, 

plateaus, hills, and mountains composed of different types of soil and 

rock. Landforms such as these are 

BFO: independent continuants, 

and within each of these categories 

of landform, there are surface features of a smaller size, such as flat 

lowlands and valleys. Minor terrain 

features include high ground (e.g., 

swell, knoll, mound, knob, hummock, spur, ridge, butte, mesa, and 

dune) and depressions (e.g., gully, 

draw, gulch, wadi, ravine, gorge, 

arroyo, canyon, and basin).81 In 

addition to the landforms, there are the naturally occurring geologic processes or events that produce changes to the geographic features. A sample 

Figure 9. Landform categories with 

instances depicted by triangles.

• Independent Continuant Entity (bfo)

– Material Entity (bfo)

 • Physical Object (bfo)

 – Landform (oeo)

 • High Ground Landform (oeo)

 – Hill (oeo)

 – Knoll (oeo)

 – Mountain (oeo)

	 	 	 	 	 	 � Mount Noshaq, 	 	

 Afghanistan

 • Geographic Depression 

 Landform (oeo)

 – Canyon (oeo)

 – Ravine (oeo)

 – Valley (oeo)

	 	 	 	 	 	 � Diyala River Valley, Iraq

 • Plain (oeo)

	 	 	 	 	 	 � Al Ghab Plain, Syria
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Mandrick: Property Rights and Social Justice as an Indicator

landform framework is represented in a taxonomical hierarchy in figure 

9, where BFO terms are in black, OEO terms are in gray, and instances are 

designated by a diamond. 

The next major category in BFO is dependent continuant, which includes 

entities that are dependent upon independent continuant entities (bearers) 

for their existence (they inhere in, or are borne by, other entities). Dependent 

continuants may be specific or general. Specifically dependent continuants 

(SDCs) exist as an attribute of some specific independent continuant. In 

other words, an SDC is dependent upon a specific independent continuant 

for its existence. Examples include the mass of a vehicle, the elevation of a 

hilltop, or the volume of a container. It is always the case that an SDC has 

some independent continuant as its bearer. This means that has bearer is 

one of the standardized relationships in the OEO. The sample taxonomy in 

figure 10 lists examples of SDCs that fall under the type quality. 

A process is an occurrent entity that has temporal parts that happen, 

unfold, or develop through time. It is always the case that an occurrent process will have a continuant object as a participant, so that the relationships 

has-participant and participant-of are standardized in the OEO. For example, 

an earthquake (BFO: occurrent process) has-participant some terrain feature 

(BFO: continuant object). The sample taxonomy in figure 11 lists examples of 

BFO: occurrent processes that pertain to the base layer of the complex OE.

• Entity (bfo)

– Continuant Entity (bfo)

 • Dependent Continuant Entity (bfo)

	 	 	 – Specifically Dependent Continuant Entity (bfo)

 • Quality (bfo)

 – Circumference

 – Elevation

 – Mass

 – Shape

 – Temperature

 – Volume

 – Weight 

Figure 10. SDCs that fall under the quality type.
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JSOU Report 17-9

The next BFO category to be considered pertains to information that is 

produced when observing, assessing, measuring, or rendering elements that 

make up the base layer of any OE. An 

individual datum or piece of information is categorized as an information 

content entity (ICE), which is a generically dependent continuant (GDC) in 

the BFO hierarchy. GDCs are entities 

that can exist in more than one object 

at the same time (e.g., a certain PDF 

that exists in several different hard 

drives at the same time). ICEs are 

the subject of their own information 

artifact ontology, which is currently 

being developed.83 Figure 12 provides 

a sample of ICEs that are about geographic features, as well as their specifically 

dependent attributes.

Figure 11: A sample of geological 

processes82 that occur upon the base 

layer.

• Occurrent Entity (bfo)

– Process (bfo)

 • Natural Process (bfo)

 – Geological Process (bfo)

 • Avalanche (oeo)

 • Earthquake (oeo)

 • Landslide (oeo)

 • Volcanic Eruption (oeo)

 • Tsunami (oeo)

Figure 12: A sample of ICEs that are about the base layer (i.e., landforms).

• Dependent Continuant (bfo)

– Generically Dependent Continuant Entity (bfo)

 • Information Content Entity (iao)

 – Descriptive Information Content Entity (iao)

 • Landform Description (iao)

 • Natural Process Description (iao)

 – Designative Information Content Entity (iao)

 • Name (iao)

 – Landform Name (iao)

 – Geologic Process Name (iao)

 • Location Designation (iao)

 – MGRS Grid Coordinates (iao)

 – Latitude and Longitude Coordinates (iao)

 • Time Designation (iao)

 – Date (iao)

 – Time Stamp (iao)

 – Measurement Result (iao)

 • Depth Measurement Result (iao) 

 • Temperature Measurement (iao) 

 • Width Measurement Result (iao) 
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Mandrick: Property Rights and Social Justice as an Indicator

Second Layer: Terrain Features and Natural Processes

The second layer of the complex OE consists of naturally occurring terrain 

features and occurrent processes, such as the weather events, that take place 

upon the landform base layer. These things are often portrayed on information artifacts such as a modified combined obstacle overlay,84 or other 

types of map overlays intended to show physical terrain features and natural 

events. A sample of naturally formed terrain features is shown in figure 13.

These naturally formed terrain features are participants in, perhaps the 

location of, occurrent natural processes such as weather events, which are 

depicted in the sample taxonomy in figure 14. For example, rivers are participants in flooding events and pastures are the location of germination 

processes. The terrain features, as well as the occurrent processes they participate in, can be rendered on maps or described in reports, which results 

in the creation of terabytes of data.

Geographic terrain features such as those listed in figure 13 are also the 

bearers of SDC qualities. For example, a valley will have the disposition to 

flood during rainstorms and a pasture will have the disposition to germinate 

Figure 13. A sample of terrain features that make up 

the second layer of an OE.

• Material Entity (bfo)

– Physical Object (bfo) 

 • Geographic Terrain Feature (oeo)

 – Hydrographic Feature (oeo)

 • Harbor (oeo)

 • Lake (oeo)

 • Water Course (oeo)

 – River (oeo)

 – Stream (oeo)

 – Natural (Terrestrial) Habitat (oeo)

 • Grassland (oeo)

 – Meadow (oeo)

 – Pasture (oeo)

 • Woodland (oeo)

 – Forest (oeo)

 • Rainforest (oeo) 
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JSOU Report 17-9

and blossom in the spring. Furthermore, a river, forest, or desert may also 

serve as a fiat boundary between tribes, states, or kingdoms. A sample of 

geography-related SDCs are depicted in figure 15.

Naturally formed terrain features, their SDC attributes, and the processes 

they participate in can be described with various types of data. The GDC 

ICEs for the second layer include 

geospatial coordinates, descriptions in drop-down menus, 

images, symbols, time stamps, 

place names, event names, measurement results, terrain feature 

names, etc. These individual bits 

of information describe, designate, measure, and represent 

geographic terrain features, 

their attributes, and related 

occurrent processes. A sample 

taxonomy is depicted in figure 

16. 

Figure 14. A sample of natural processes (weather events).

• Occurrent Process (bfo)

– Natural Process (oeo) 

 • Growth Process (oeo)

 – Germination Process (oeo)

 – Budding Process (oeo)

 – Flowering Process (oeo)

 • Weather Event (oeo)

 – Drought (oeo)

 – Flood (oeo)

 – Heat Wave (oeo)

 – Storm (oeo)

 • Hurricane (oeo)

 • Snowstorm (oeo)

 – Blizzard (oeo)

 – Ice Storm (oeo)

 • Thunderstorm (oeo) 

 • Tornado (oeo)

Figure 15. A sample of SDCs for the 

second layer of the OE.

• Specifically Dependent Continuant (bfo)

– Quality (bfo)

 • Capacity

 • Depth

 • Velocity

– Realizable Entity (bfo)

 • Disposition (bfo)

 – Disposition to Dehydrate 

 – Disposition to Flood 

 – Disposition to Flourish 

 • Role (bfo)

 – Boundary Role

 – Food Source Role
53

Mandrick: Property Rights and Social Justice as an Indicator

Third Layer: The Human Terrain and Human Actions

[There is a] continuous line that goes from molecules and mountains 

to screwdrivers, levers, and beautiful sunsets, and then to legislatures, money, and nation-states. The central span on the bridge 

from physics to society is collective intentionality, and the decisive 

movement on that bridge in the creation of social reality is the collective intentional imposition of function on entities that cannot 

perform these functions without that imposition.85

The third layer is commonly referred to as the human terrain or social 

layer. It consists of the human-created continuant objects that rest upon, 

and human-involved occurrent processes that unfold upon, the two physical 

layers. This layer is where human agents participate in intentional human 

actions and interactions, which results in the creation of physical artifacts, 

Figure 16. A sample of ICEs for the second layer of the OE. 

• Dependent Continuant (bfo) 

– Generically Dependent Continuant Entity (bfo) 

 • Information Content Entity (iao) 

 – Descriptive Information Content Entity (iao) 

 • Geographic Feature Description 

 • Measurement Result 

 – Length Measurement Result 

 – Mass Measurement Result 

 – Temperature Measurement Result 

 • Natural Process Description 

 – Weather Event Description 

 – Designative Information Content Entity

 • Name

 – Extreme Weather Event Name

 – Geographic Feature Name

 • Location Designation

 – MGRS Grid Coordinates

 – Latitude and Longitude Coordinates

 • Time Designation

 – Time Stamp

 – Date

 – Graphic Representation 

 • Geographic Feature Symbol 

 • Weather Event Symbol 
54

JSOU Report 17-9

aggregate artifacts, social facts, and ultimately, institutional reality. Individual actions may result in works of fine art, implements, or tools. Collective 

intent can result in the design 

and creation of physical entities 

such as buildings, urban areas, 

and high-tech artifacts. Decomposition of this layer starts by 

representing the human and 

organizational elements of the 

human terrain in a taxonomical 

structure as shown in figure 17. 

Persons and organizations 

participate in activities that 

result in the creation of physical products, artifacts, social 

arrangements, and institutions. 

Artists paint, sculpt, and compose; engineers design new artifacts; and lawyers establish contracts between parties. The creation of non-physical social 

facts takes place every time one person borrows money from a friend and 

promises to repay the loan. In this 

simple transaction, a new state of 

affairs (social fact) is created—a new 

claim and obligation exists until the 

loan is repaid. A sample of creative 

activities is rendered in the figure 

18 taxonomy.

The intentional human actions 

and interactions listed in figure 18 

always have some output or product (some physical artifact or collectively created object). While some of 

these products are physical artifacts 

created by an individual, others are 

the result of collective interaction 

between numerous people. These interactive acts of creation may result 

in humanly constructed geographic features, geopolitical territories, and 

• Material Entity (bfo)

– Agent

 • Person

 • Organization

 – Political Organization

 • Government 

 – Islamic Shura

 – Military Organization 

 – Economic Organization 

 – Social Organization 

 – Non-Governmental Organization

Figure 17. Agents who act and interact 

on the third (human) layer. 

• Process (bfo)

– Intentional Human Act

 • Act of Planning 

 – Act of Design 

 • Act of Production 

 – Act of Artifact Creation

 – Act of Building (Construction) 

 • Social Act (Interaction) 

 – Act of Entering an Agreement 

 • Act of Contracting

 • Act of Promising 

 • Act of Organizing

Figure 18. A sample taxonomy of 

creative activities.
55

Mandrick: Property Rights and Social Justice as an Indicator

organizations. These types of objects have a physical structure, as well as a 

social, or fiat, structure. Searle describes collective creation as follows:

Consider for example a primitive tribe that initially builds a wall 

around its territory ... [S]uppose the wall gradually evolves from 

being a physical barrier to being a symbolic barrier. Imagine that the 

wall gradually decays so that the only thing left is a line of stones. 

But imagine that the inhabitants and their neighbors continue to 

recognize the line of stones as marking the boundary of the territory 

in such a way that it affects their behavior ... The line of stones now 

has a function that is not performed in virtue of sheer physics but in 

virtue of collective intentionality ... The line of stones performs the 

same function as a physical barrier but it does not do so in virtue of 

its physical construction, but because it has been collectively assigned 

a new status, the status of a boundary marker.86

Artifacts are things created by humans usually for a practical purpose, 

resulting from a particular human institution, period, trend, or individual. 

As Searle’s example illustrates, artifacts can be physical or intangible. The 

wall is a physical barrier and it has the status of fiat boundary. Both the wall 

and its intangible properties are artifacts. Physical artifacts can be placed on 

a spectrum, which includes: (a) simple implements created by individuals 

(e.g., a stick used to gather and eat bugs), (b) works of art, (c) collectively created use-objects such as shelters, 

and (d) high-tech gadgets. Such 

artifacts are represented in the 

OEO as shown in figure 19.

Still another category of artifact is the human constructed 

geographic feature. Such artifacts are of particular importance for CIM in the OE. Human 

constructed geographic features 

have a dual nature whereby they 

occupy physical space, but they 

also bear institutional realities 

such as customs, laws, language, 

and borders. A sample of human 

• Material Entity (bfo)

– Artifact

 • Implement 

 – Instrument

 – Tool

 • Facility 

 – Building

 – Road 

 • Technical Artifact 

 – Improvised Explosive Device 

 – Vehicle

 • Work of Fine Art 

Figure 19. A sample taxonomy of physical 

artifacts.
56

JSOU Report 17-9

constructed geographic features is represented in a sample taxonomy in 

figure 20.

Human interaction can also result in the creation of institutional facts, 

which are intangible states of affairs. In the case of social artifacts, the spoken 

or written word does more than simply describe the world, ask a question, or 

express some thought. This point was made by the late J. L. Austin when he 

described performative speech acts that do not describe anything, but rather 

create some new state of affairs (knighthood, marriage, property, claim, 

obligation, etc.).88 Similarly, Oakley and Tobin state, “The written word and 

technologies for producing, saving, and sharing written artifacts are tools for 

extending thought and agency into the world. They are not just the outcome 

of cognition, but a site in which thinking and meaning take place.”89 These 

performative speech acts create something new in the world, and they are 

represented with various documents that act as records of the act.

Figure 20. A sample of human-constructed geographic features, 

as defined by UNESCO.87

• Object Aggregate (bfo) 

– Human Constructed Geographic Feature 

 • Agricultural Area 

 – Cropland 

 – Plantation 

 – Vineyard

 • Industrial Complex 

 • Marketplace 

 • Urban Area 

 • Megacity 

 • Land Parcel (Lot) 

 – Residential Land Parcel 

 – Commercial Land Parcel 

 – Public Land Parcel 

 • Fiat Boundary 

 – Property Line 

 – State Boundary 

 • Geopolitical Territory 

 – Formally Governed Territory 

 • State Territory 

 – Informally Governed Territory

 • Ethnic Enclave

 • Tribal Area 
57

Mandrick: Property Rights and Social Justice as an Indicator

Social facts are BFO: realizable entities 

that come into existence when two or more 

people enter into an agreement, such as a 

promise to repay a debt. From this type of 

transaction, one person has a claim over 

the other, who has incurred an obligation 

to pay off the debt. It is from these simpler 

transactions, resulting in social facts, that 

institutional reality is built. Individuals 

and groups enter into agreements, creating 

social facts that are the building blocks of 

institutional reality. Ultimately, statehood is 

obtained when all social facts, institutions, 

regulations, norms, and laws cohere into a 

politically organized body of people occupying a definite territory. A sample of realizable entities (social facts) are arranged into 

a taxonomy in figure 21.

The Taxonomy of Socio-Economic Documents

As durable, reproducible, and quotable linguistic artifacts, embedded in social structures of circulation, documents enact cultural 

practices across time and space.90

Through the performance of speech acts—acts of promising, announcing, 

marrying, accusing, baptizing, etc.—we change the world by creating claims, 

obligations, rights, relations of authority, debts, permissions, names, and a 

variety of other sorts of entities that make up the social world. In most cases, 

it is not enough to simply speak social facts into existence, such as when I 

promise to repay my debt. In the case of more complex social facts, such as 

the fact that I own my house, some type of physical document serves as a 

representation of the social act (a real estate transaction) and the resulting 

social fact. We must distinguish between the physical document (the bearer 

of information) and its content (what the document is about). The information artifact ontology distinguishes between the class of information bearing 

entity, which is some physical medium, and the class of information content 

entity, which is the actual information. Likewise, the Merriam-Webster.com 

Figure 21. A sample 

taxonomy of social facts.

• Realizable Entity (bfo)

– Social Fact

 • Agreement 

 – Treaty 

 • Claim

 • Obligation

 • Promise

 • Right 

 – Human Right

 – Property Right 

 • Agent Role 

 – Politician 

 – Military Commander 

 • Warlord 

 – Religious Leader 

 • Mullah 

 • Cleric 

 – Elder
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JSOU Report 17-9

Dictionary makes this same distinction between the information bearer 

and information content in the following set of definitions for “document”:

• an original or official paper relied on as the basis, proof, or support 

of something

• something (as a photograph or a recording) that serves as evidence 

or proof 

• a writing conveying information, or 

• a material substance (as a coin or stone) having on it a representation 

of thoughts by means of some conventional mark or symbol.91

Documents have a dual nature where their physical makeups, consisting of 

paper and ink (or a magnetic disc 

and digital byte arrays), are the 

bearers of meaning. Documents 

also have a structure consisting 

of headers, sections, margins, 

conclusions, effective dates, titles, 

subject lines, directives, etc. Furthermore, they serve numerous 

functions, such as describing the 

world, reporting events, providing instructions, confirming obligations, establishing a contract, 

or prescribing behavior. Document elements denote time and 

location or designate by name or 

unique identifier.

Some documents create social 

facts, such as claims and obligations. Black’s Law Dictionary

defines a legal instrument as “a 

formal or legal document in writing, such as a contract, deed, will, 

bond, or lease.”92 We distinguish here the physical bearer of information 

(paper, digital, etc.) from its content (the set of statements that create a claim 

or obligation). These types of information aggregate documents are represented in a sample taxonomy shown in figure 22. 

Figure 22. Information aggregate documents that create new states of affairs such 

as claims, obligations, rights, etc. 

• Generically Dependent Continuant (bfo) 

– Information Aggregate 

 • Document 

 – Legal Instrument 

 • Bond 

 • Contract 

 – Employment Contract 

 – Purchase Contract 

 • Copyright 

 • Deed 

 • Identity Document

 • Incorporation Document

 • Lease 

 • License 

 • Partnership Agreement

 • Patent 

 • Receipt 

 • Statement of Accounts 

 • Title 

 • Trademark 

 • Will 
59

Mandrick: Property Rights and Social Justice as an Indicator

Legal instruments alone do not create claims, obligations, rights, etc. 

Their enforceability requires the ROL, which is defined as “the authority and 

influence of law in society, especially when viewed as a constraint on individual and institutional behavior; hence the principle whereby all members 

of a society, including those in government, are considered equally subject 

to publicly disclosed legal codes and processes.”93 Joint Publication 3-07, 

Stability, states that the ROL function:

refers to programs conducted to ensure all individuals and institutions, public and private, and the state itself are held accountable 

to the law, which is supreme. The rule of law in a country is characterized by just legal frameworks, public order, accountability to 

the law, access to justice, and a culture of lawfulness. Rule of law 

requires laws that are publicly promulgated, equally enforced, and 

independently adjudicated, and that are consistent with international 

human rights principles. It also requires measures to ensure adherence to the principles of supremacy of law, equality before the law, 

accountability to the law, fairness in applying the law, separation 

of powers, participation in decision making, and legal certainty. 

Such measures also help to avoid arbitrariness as well as promote 

procedural and legal transparency.94 

The Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary defines a law as: “a rule of conduct 

or action prescribed or formally recognized as binding or enforced by a controlling authority.”95 Individual laws make up bodies or sets of laws, which 

can be categorized by type (see fig. 23). For example, criminal laws are the 

rules and statutes that define prohibited conduct and establish the punishment for the commission of such acts.96 Administrative laws are intended 

to regulate the operation and procedures of government agencies. Property 

laws are the “principles, policies, and rules by which disputes over property 

are to be resolved and by which property transactions may be structured.”97

Titles, leases, wills, and other legal documents that represent changes in the 

social world are founded upon formal laws.
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JSOU Report 17-9

Figure 23. A small sample of prescriptive information content entities, 

which emanate from some authority and prescribe behaviors. They 

include organizational directives, medical prescriptions, commands, 

orders, and state laws. As depicted here, Article 40 of the Afghan 

Constitution is an instance of a property law.

• Dependent Continuant (bfo)

– Generically Dependent Continuant (bfo)

 • Information Content Entity 

 – Descriptive Information Content Entity

 • Landform Description 

 • Natural Process Description 

 – Designative Information Content Entity 

 • Name 

 • Location Designation 

 • Time Designation 

 – Prescriptive Information Content Entity

 • Law 

 – Administrative Law 

 – Criminal Law

 – Property Law

	 	 	 	 	 	 � Afghan Constitution, Article 40
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Mandrick: Property Rights and Social Justice as an Indicator

Appendix B. List of Acronyms

ASCOPE areas, structures, capabilities, organizations, people, 

 and events

BFO basic formal ontology

CAO civil affairs operations

CIM civil information management

COIN counterinsurgency

FID foreign internal defense

GDC generically dependent continuant

HN host nation

ICE information content entity

JIPOE joint intelligence preparation of the operational environment

LOE line of effort

LTPR land tenure and property rights

MISO military information support operations

MPICE measuring progress in conflict environments

OD operational design

OE operational environment

OEO operational environment ontology

PMESII political, military, economic, social, infrastructure, 

 and informational

ROL rule of law

SDC Specifically Dependent Continuant

SOF Special Operations Forces

63

Mandrick: Property Rights and Social Justice as an Indicator

Endnotes

1. Hernando de Soto, The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West 

and Fails Everywhere Else (New York: Basic Books, 2000), 156.

2. Geoffrey Demarest, Property & Peace: Insurgency, Strategy and the Statute of 

Frauds (Fort Leavenworth, KS: U.S. Army Foreign Military Studies Office, May 

2009), 9. Demarest argues that “the most defensible goals of human development: 

freedom of expression, association, movement, worship, material prosperity, 

and non-violent resolution of conflict, are more likely achieved where rights and 

duties associated with land are formalized—regardless of the name given the 

overall system.”

3. Jillian Keenan, “The Blood Cries Out: Murder and Malthus in Africa’s Great 

Lakes,” Foreign Policy Magazine, 27 March 2015, accessed 11 July 2015, http://

foreignpolicy.com/2015/03/27/the-blood-cries-out-burundi-land-conflict/.

4. U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, JP 5-0, Joint Operation Planning (Washington, D.C.: Joint 

Chiefs of Staff, 11 August 2011), xiv. Strategic communications are defined as the 

focused United States Government efforts to understand and engage key audiences to create, strengthen, or preserve conditions favorable for the advancement 

of United States Government interests, policies, and objectives through the use 

of coordinated programs, plans, themes, messages, and products synchronized 

with and leveraging the actions of all instruments of national power.

5. U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, JP 3-24, Counterinsurgency (Washington D.C.: Joint 

Chiefs of Staff, 22 November 2013), V-1.

6. U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, JP 3-22, Foreign Internal Defense (Washington D.C.: 

Joint Chiefs of Staff, 12 July 2010), ix.

7. “Governance, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance,” USAID Land Tenure and 

Property Rights, U.S. Agency for International Development, accessed 11 June 

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9. Barack Obama, National Security Strategy, February 2015, 10, https://www.

whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/2015_national_security_strategy.pdf.

10. Beth Cole and Emily Hsu, Guiding Principles for Stabilization and Reconstruction

(Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2009).

11. U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, JP 3-57, Civil-Military Operations (Washington, D.C.: 

Joint Chiefs of Staff, 11 September 2013), C-3.

12. U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, JP 3-07, Stability (Washington D.C.: Joint Chiefs of 

Staff, 3 August 2016), I-1.

13. Ibid., I-9.

14. Demarest, Property & Peace, 9.
64

JSOU Report 17-9

15. “Why Land Rights Matter,” U.S. Agency for International Development, accessed 

20 June 2015, http://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1865/USAID_

Infographic_Why_Land_Rights_Matter_Print.pdf.

16. Demarest, Property & Peace, 2.

17. Hernando de Soto, “The Destruction of Economic Facts,” Bloomberg Businessweek, 28 April 2011, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-04-28/

the-destruction-of-economic-facts.

18. De Soto, The Mystery of Capital, 37.

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14 May, 2015, http://www.economist.com/node/1559905.

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22 February 2011), 7-10. Commanders use LOEs to visualize, describe, and direct 

operations when positional reference to enemy forces has little relevance, such as 

an insurgency. FM 3-0 defines a line of effort as a line that links multiple tasks and 

missions using the logic of purpose—cause and effect—to focus efforts toward 

establishing operational and strategic conditions. A plan based on LOEs unifies 

the efforts of all actors participating in a counterinsurgency toward a common 

purpose.

21. U.S. Army, FM 3-24.2, Tactics in Counterinsurgency, (Washington, D.C.: Department of the Army, 21 April 2009), 3-8.

22. Fernand Braudel, The Wheels of Commerce (Berkeley: University of California 

Press, 1992), 248.

23. Cole and Hsu, Guiding Principles, 9-132.

24. De Soto, Capital, 160-161.

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26. Cole and Hsu, Guiding Principles, 7-64.

27. Ibid., 7-65.

28. Thomas H. Henriksen, What Really Happened in Northern Ireland’s Counterinsurgency: Revision and Revelation (Hurlburt Field, FL: JSOU Press, October 

2008), 47.

29. U.S. Army, FM 3-24.2, Tactics in Counterinsurgency, 3-8.

30. U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, JP 3-57, Civil-Military Operations (Washington, D.C.: 

Joint Chiefs of Staff, 11 September 2013), GL-6.

31. Barry Smith, “Ontology,” in The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Computing and Information, ed. Luciano Floridi (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 

2004), 155–166. Ontology as a branch of philosophy is the science of what is, of 

the kinds and structures of the objects, properties and relations in every area of 

reality.
65

Mandrick: Property Rights and Social Justice as an Indicator

32. Christopher Varhola, “Foreigners in a Foreign Land: Complexity and Reductionist Staff Approaches in Stability Operations,” Small Wars Journal, 5 November 

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of Staff, 11 August 2011), GL-14.

34. U.S. Army, ATP 3-57.50, Civil Affairs Civil Information Management (Washington, 

D.C.: Department of the Army, 6 September 2013), 1-2.

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36. Demarest, Property and Peace, 3-4.

37. U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, JP 2-01.3, Joint Intelligence Preparation of the Operational 

Environment (Washington D.C.: Joint Chiefs of Staff, 16 June 2009), xi.

38. Ibid., I-4.

39. Ibid., II-45.

40. U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, JP 3-0, Joint Operations, III-17.

41. Demarest, Property & Peace, 6.

42. U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, JP 3-07, Stability Operations (Washington D.C.: Joint 

Chiefs of Staff, 29 September 2011), I-1.

43. U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, JP 5-0, Joint Operation Planning, III-28.

44. U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, JP 3-07, Stability Operations, I-9.

45. U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, JP 3-0, Joint Operations, GL-9.

46. Cole and Hsu, Guiding Principles.

47. John Agoglia, Michael Dziedzic, and Barbara Sotirin, eds., Measuring Progress 

in Conflict Environments (MPICE): A Metrics Framework (Washington, D.C.: 

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48. Ibid., 39–46.

49. U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, JP 3-22, Foreign Internal Defense, I-2.

50. U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, JP 3-24, Counterinsurgency, GL-5.

51. U.S. Army, FM 3-24, Insurgencies and Countering Insurgencies (Washington, 

D.C.: Department of the Army, 2 June 2014), 2-1.

52. Jillian Keenan, “The Blood Cries Out.”

53. David Kilcullen, Counterinsurgency (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 

62–63.

54. Ibid., 225.

55. U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, JP 3-05, Special Operations (Washington, D.C.: Joint 

Chiefs of Staff, 16 July 2014), xi.
66

JSOU Report 17-9

56. U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, JP 3-57, Civil-Military Operations, GL-6.

57. Ibid., IV-3.

58. Ibid., GL-6.

59. “The economist versus the terrorist,” The Economist.

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67

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and of man’ designated in Article 1 of the Convention. They are illustrative of the 

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