Defense One's top 10 neighbors form a tight cluster of policy-adjacent media and journalism — no single neighbor dominates, and the scores span a narrow 0.95 to 0.91 range, the hallmark of a flat shape.

The mix is predominantly News Publishers and Journalists. Four of the top 10 are News Publishers: CNN NationalSecurity (0.95), Capital Journal (0.94), National Journal (0.92), and Axios (0.91). Two are Magazines: Foreign Affairs (0.91) and POLITICO Magazine (0.91). One is a Research Organization: Brookings Institute (0.93). One is a Journalist: Mike Allen (0.92). One is a Blog: Morning Consult (0.91). And one is a Website: Tech.co (0.91).

The cross-kind finding worth noting is Tech.co — a general technology website sitting at 0.91 alongside foreign-policy magazines and national-security news outlets. Its presence suggests the audience shape Defense One shares with its neighbors is not purely defined by defense or policy content, but by a broader professional-reader profile that also maps onto tech-sector media. Brookings Institute at 0.93 reinforces this: the nearest non-publisher in the set is a research organization, not another defense-specific outlet.

The flat shape means no single neighbor is structurally dominant — the audience Defense One shares with CNN NationalSecurity at the top is only marginally stronger than the one it shares with Tech.co at the bottom of the ten.