Posture Model

v5.1 · generated from the control catalog by make_models.py — do not edit by hand.

Two orthogonal classifications of all 78 controls. Tower is the terrain layer a control is principally emplaced on, reusing the Defense Tower Model IDs so that a canvas node and a control share one key. Posture is new in version 5.0 and has no predecessor in the framework.

1. Why posture is a separate axis

The framework already groups forms of maneuver into Shaping, In contact and Consolidation. That is a temporal axis: when in the campaign a form does its work.

Posture is orthogonal to it and answers a different question: who initiates, and must a human be present for it to work? Two controls can sit in the same campaign band and behave completely differently at three in the morning on a federal holiday.

Why four rather than three. Passive, active and reactive describe defensive effects. A large part of the catalog does none of those things: it states intent, sets priority, measures tempo, runs the cycle and grants authority. Forcing those into one of the three would distort the ratio that makes this model useful, so they are separated as Directing.

2. The posture distribution

What this says

Only 19 of 78 controls (24%) assure a defense that operates without a human. That is the proportion of the control set an adversary meets on a holiday weekend, during a shift handover, through a hiring gap, or in any of the other conditions TA-5 requires an agency to identify. Everything else needs somebody present, awake and authorized.

30 of 78 controls (38%) are Directing. The catalog is weighted toward command, measurement and cycle machinery more heavily than toward defensive effect. This is the same finding the terrain distribution produces independently — 39 of 78 controls reference TX Cross-Cutting — and it is a property of a framework that specifies the maneuver layer rather than the control estate, so it is not necessarily a defect. It is, however, the thing a skeptical reviewer will notice first, and it should be stated rather than discovered.

All 10 Reactive controls but four arrived in version 5.0. Before the EN family the framework barely assessed the fight itself, which is the finding that drove this release.

The degradation exposure

This is the model's operational point, and it connects directly to TA-5.

Reactive controls degrade precisely when tempo degrades. Active controls are performed on the defender's timeline and are deferred rather than lost. Passive controls do not degrade at all. An agency should therefore be able to state its degraded posture — what remains operating when staffing is at its thinnest — and compare that against the windows adversaries actually select.

On the current catalog, an agency at full capability across all 78 controls holds:

• 19 controls (24%) undegraded — passive
• 19 controls (24%) deferred — active work postponed, not lost
• 10 controls (13%) degraded — reactive, dependent on the loop TA-1 measures

Recommended metric. Passive coverage of designated decisive points, computed as the share of KT-1 decisive points whose assigned operational moves are passive. An estate whose decisive points are defended entirely by reactive controls has a defense with operating hours.

3. Posture by family

ID and FC are the most passive families in the catalog; EN is entirely reactive by construction; TA, CE and CG are entirely directing. That ID is predominantly passive is the strongest argument for having built it: identity controls, once emplaced, hold the high ground without anybody watching.

4. The Tower Model — controls allocated to terrain

Allocation of every control to the terrain layer it is principally emplaced on. This is the layer the Defense Tower Model rolls coverage and residual risk up through, mirroring the way the TBM taxonomy rolls cost from asset pools to consumers.

Finding — the inherited pillars remain unequal

Every terrain layer added by ASOM-Fed has dedicated controls: T6 has FO-4, T7 has the WF family, T8 has FC, T9 has LC. Of the five ZTMM pillars inherited as T1–T5, only T1 now has a dedicated family, added in this release.

T2 Devices is now the thinnest terrain in the catalog. By the same completeness test that justified adding T7 Workforce in v3.0 — PS at a single 800-53 citation — and that justified the ID family in v5.0 — IA at a single citation — T2 is the next finding. Devices are the entry fords: the layer through which the force crosses into the estate, and the layer at which endpoint compromise begins almost every engagement the framework contemplates.

This is recorded as a v6.1 input, not a v5.0 defect. Resolving it inside this release would mean a third denominator change in one version.

5. The posture × terrain grid

Reading down a column shows what an agency retains as conditions degrade. Reading across a row shows whether a terrain layer is held by standing defense or by people.

The row worth reading first is T1 Identity: four passive controls and one active, and nothing reactive. That is the correct shape for the high ground — it should hold without anybody watching it, and M3 Envelopment's indicator is precisely that a stolen credential yields no movement whether or not the SOC is staffed.

The row worth reading second is TX: the concentration there is the framework's own structural bias, visible from a third independent direction.

6. Forms of maneuver by posture

The same axis applied to the eleven forms, for planning use. A scheme of maneuver whose named forms are all reactive has no defense outside working hours.

M2, M3 and M4 are the passive spine — depth, envelopment and canalization operate without an operator. An agency under-invested in these has bought a defense that works only while someone is watching, and TA-5 says when that is not the case.

7. What this model is for

1. State the degraded posture. What still defends the estate when staffing is thinnest, and is that enough for the terrain it must hold?
2. Balance a scheme of maneuver. A scheme naming only reactive forms concentrates the whole defense in the segment TA-1 measures and TA-5 says will degrade.
3. Argue investment. Passive coverage of decisive points is a resilience argument that does not depend on headcount, which is a different budget conversation from tooling or staffing.
4. Read the Tower Model correctly. Coverage rolled up by tower says how much; posture says whether it holds when nobody is there.

8. Companion — the Asset Register

This model classifies controls. The Asset Register classifies the ground those controls are emplaced on, and the two share the tower IDs deliberately so a canvas node, a control and a register row use one key rather than three.

The register also closes a gap this model surfaced. T2 Devices holds no dedicated control, and the v3.0 asset register held no assets at all on T6 through T9 — so four terrain layers had control families and no ground to score them against, which is why the reference agency has never reported an operational technology, workforce, facilities or supply chain posture. Fourteen assets were added in v5.0 to correct that.

Read together: posture says what holds when nobody is watching; the register says how much weight sits on that ground, and per mission what share of it is defended passively.

The doctrinal rationale for the posture axis — why it is orthogonal to the Shaping / In contact / Consolidation bands, and why four categories rather than three — is stated in Design and Philosophy §3.8. This document is the measurement; that section is the argument.