From Battlefield to Beat: Adapting Order of Battle Analysis for Organized Crime Assessment

Abstract

This paper adapts the military Order of Battle (OOB) analytical framework to improve law enforcement agencies’ assessments of organized crime. Although some police departments and federal agencies have sporadically used OOB-inspired methods, inconsistent application and a lack of standardization have limited their effectiveness. As organized crime groups have become more complex and existing analytic methods often remain fragmented or retrospective, this study demonstrates that OOB—focused on composition, disposition, and capabilities—offers a systematic, comparative, and forward-looking approach to criminal intelligence. Rather than empirically testing operational outcomes, the paper uses comparative analysis and an illustrative application to show how OOB may help analysts organize intelligence, identify gaps, and communicate assessments more consistently. The paper should therefore be read as a conceptual framework-building study rather than an empirical test of operational outcomes; its purpose is to show how a military-derived analytic logic can be adapted for civilian intelligence analysis without importing military tactics, equipment, or command culture into policing.