Treadstone 71 / Founder's briefs
How does Treadstone 71 score adversaries and grade evidence?
Treadstone 71 LLC scores 42 state and non-state adversaries each quarter in The Adversary Index (TAI), first released July 15, 2026, with the next release on October 5, 2026. Every score rests on the ASA Evidence Standard, Public Edition 1.0 (DOI 10.5281/zenodo.23137881), which grades evidence across 30 factors in 9 clusters and returns three scores: evidence quality, deception likelihood, and endgame confidence.
Ask ten vendors who the most dangerous adversary is. Expect ten answers and no math.
I built The Adversary Index because clients kept asking a fair question. Which adversaries deserve next year's budget, and how do you know? Case studies never answered. A recurring score, built on a published rubric, does.
The Index
The Adversary Index scores 42 adversaries every quarter. Tier 0 is free. Paid tiers run from $25,000 to $250,000 a year and add depth, dossiers, and analyst access. The inaugural release went out July 15, 2026. A Q3 refresh lands October 5, 2026, alongside the first Cognitive Warfare Threat Report.
Each adversary is profiled through STEMPLES Plus, the framework I developed to take apart an actor's whole operating environment: social, technical, economic, military, political, legal, environmental, and security factors, plus culture and organization. Capability alone misleads. A crew with modest tools and a patient sponsor outlasts a gifted crew with no money.
Why the old grading scale failed
The Admiralty code has two axes. Source reliability runs A through F. Information credibility runs 1 through 6. Analysts have leaned on the grid since the Second World War, and the grid still belongs at the front door. The grid has holes. A well-built denial and a corroborated attribution land on the same grade. Nothing checks for deception. No factor asks whether the source profits from the claim, and synthetic media goes unexamined.
One assessment, three numbers
The ASA Evidence Standard keeps the classic axes as the entry anchor, printed apart with the NATO STANAG 2511 definitions. Then the standard works the item through thirty factors, arranged in nine clusters.
- T-Score: Evidence quality. Caps the likelihood a product is allowed to print.
- D-Score: Deception likelihood, stated as a probability with a floor of 25. Holds the decision when the number climbs.
- F-Score: Confidence in the most-likely achieved endgame. Decides whether an endgame gets named at all.
Each score carries a band, and every band carries an action.
Self-serving claims grade no higher than fairly reliable.
Use it, cite it
Public Edition 1.0 is free to cite and to adopt for internal analytic work. Commercial reproduction and AI ingestion need a written license. Zenodo holds the archival copy: DOI 10.5281/zenodo.23137881.
For one named actor in depth, order an adversary dossier. Readers who want the full field start at Tier 0 of the Index.
Next scores post October 5, 2026.
Questions buyers ask
What is The Adversary Index?
The Adversary Index (TAI) is Treadstone 71's quarterly ranking of 42 adversaries, state-backed and criminal. First published July 15, 2026. Tier 0 costs nothing, and paid access ranges between $25,000 and $250,000 annually.
What is the ASA Evidence Standard?
The ASA Evidence Standard, Public Edition 1.0, is a methodology Treadstone 71 released on September 15, 2026, archived at DOI 10.5281/zenodo.23137881. Thirty factors, grouped in nine clusters, produce a T-Score for evidence quality, a D-Score for deception likelihood, and an F-Score for endgame confidence.
Who wrote the ASA Evidence Standard?
Jeff Bardin, founder and Chief Intelligence Officer of Treadstone 71 LLC.
