2-8. Army shaping operations bring together all the activities intended to promote regional stability and to set conditions for a favorable outcome in the event of a military confrontation. Army shaping operations help dissuade adversary activities designed to achieve regional goals short of military conflict. Army shaping operations are continuous throughout a geographic combatant commander’s area of responsibility and occur before, during, and after a joint operation within a specific joint operations area. As part of shaping operations, the Army provides trained and ready forces to geographic combatant commanders in support of their theater campaign plan. The theater army and subordinate Army forces conduct stability activities most often in the form of security cooperation to assist the geographic combatant commanders in building partner capacity to promote stability across an area of responsibility.