1-9. Army special operations forces are postured to support Army strategic roles (shaping, preventing, stability, and the consolidation of gains) in order to prevail in all environments. They are prepared to disrupt or eliminate threats unilaterally, with partners or friendly indigenous forces, or as a component of a joint force in order to shape the deep fight and defeat forces in the close fight. During operations to consolidate gains, Army special operations forces are integral to assisting the transition of civil activities, supporting host-nation sovereignty, and setting conditions to prevent further conflict and stabilize the security environment.

1-11. Offensive, defensive, and stability tasks will take place simultaneously throughout the land component’s area of operations (AO), although subordinate elements, particularly those at brigade and lower echelons, will generally focus on one type of task at a time. Units engaged in close operations will generally focus on offensive or defensive tasks first, although they will consider long-term stability considerations while executing those tasks. Avoiding civilian casualties and unnecessary destruction of infrastructure are examples of stability considerations that all units account for during planning.

2-278. Training units and leaders to execute operations using the philosophy of mission command mitigates the effects of systems degradation while enabling subordinates to effectively execute offensive, defensive, and stability tasks in the rapid manner required to exploit opportunities that come with achieving positions of relative advantage. Effective leadership applied through a combination of education, application, and repetition develops the trust and understanding of the commander’s intent necessary to act in the absence of orders. Subordinates are unlikely to act in the absence of orders in the face of capable enemies if they cannot do so during peacetime training. Developing the climate necessary to facilitate effective mission command requires daily emphasis.

2-1. Unified land operations is the Army’s operational concept and the Army’s contribution to unified action. Unified land operations is the simultaneous execution of offense, defense, stability, and defense support of civil authorities across multiple domains to shape operational environments, prevent conflict, prevail in large-scale ground combat, and consolidate gains as part of unified action (ADP 3-0). This represents the core of Army doctrine. In unified land operations, the emphasis on each of the individual elements of the combinations varies with echelon, time, and location. (See figure 2-1.)

2-56. Corps conduct offensive, defensive, and stability tasks through a series of coordinated and integrated division and separate brigade operations. These operations achieve positions of relative advantage across multiple domains in order to destroy or defeat an enemy and achieve the overall purpose of the operations. Commanders direct decisive action tasks to create and exploit positions of relative advantage by using the appropriate combination of defeat and stability mechanisms that best accomplish the mission. (See chapter 1 for a discussion of defeat and stability mechanisms.)

1-7. The Army operational concept for conducting operations as part of a joint team is unified land operations. Unified land operations is the simultaneous execution of offense, defense, stability, and defense support of civil authorities across multiple domains to shape operational environments, prevent conflict, prevail in large-scale ground combat, and consolidate gains as part of unified action (ADP 3-0). The goal of unified land operations is to achieve the joint force commander’s end state by applying landpower as part of unified action. (See ADP 3-0 for a detailed discussion of unified land operations.)

1-25. The Army operational concept for conducting operations as part of a joint team is unified land operations. Unified land operations is the simultaneous execution of offense, defense, stability, and defense support of civil authorities across multiple domains to shape operational environments, prevent conflict, prevail in large-scale ground combat, and consolidate gains as part of unified action (ADP 3-0). The goal of unified land operations is to achieve the JFC’s end state by applying landpower as part of unified action. Commanders employ fires to set conditions for the successful employment of other elements of combat power to conduct unified land operations. The targeting process can help commanders and staffs to prioritize and integrate assets to create effects that allow for achievement of the commander’s objectives within unified land operations.

3-124. If a force achieves its objectives, and the situation makes focusing on defensive operations inappropriate, then commanders transition to a security and stability focus. The commander’s intent and concept of operations drives the design and planning for security and stability. Generally, commanders focus on meeting the minimum-essential stability tasks by providing security and ensuring the provision of essential food, water, shelter, and medical treatment services to the civilian inhabitants in their AO. This occurs in coordination with any existing civil institutions and nongovernmental organizations before addressing the other stability concerns.

5-23. BCTs and subordinate echelons concentrate on performing offensive and defensive tasks and necessary tactical enabling tasks. During large-scale combat operations they perform only those minimal essential stability tasks necessary to comply with the laws of land warfare. They do not conduct operationally significant consolidate gains activities unless assigned that mission in a consolidation area. BCT commanders orchestrate rapid maneuver to operate inside an enemy’s decision cycle and create an increasing cascade of hard choices for the enemy commander.

2-38. Commanders use lines of effort to describe their vision of operations to achieve end state conditions. These lines of effort show how individual actions relate to each other and to achieving the end state. Commanders often use stability and DSCA tasks along lines of effort. These tasks link military actions with the broader interagency or interorganizational effort across the levels of warfare. As operations progress, commanders may modify the lines of effort after assessing conditions. Commanders use measures of performance and measures of effectiveness to continually assess operations. A measure of performance is an indicator used to measure a friendly action that is tied to measuring task accomplishment (JP 5-0). A measure of effectiveness in an indicator used to measure a current system state, with change indicated by comparing multiple observations over time (JP 5-0).

1-9. The Army’s operational concept—the central idea that guides the conduct of Army operations—is unified land operations. Unified land operations is the simultaneous execution of offense, defense, stability, and defense support of civil authorities across multiple domains to shape operational environments, prevent conflict, prevail in large-scale ground combat, and consolidate gains as part of unified action (ADP 3-0). Army forces do this with combined arms formations possessing the mobility, firepower, protection, and sustainment to defeat an enemy and establish control of areas, resources, and populations. Army forces depend on the capabilities of the other Services as the joint force depends on Army capabilities across multiple domains. The goal of unified land operations is to achieve the joint force commander’s end state by applying land power as part of unified action. During the conduct of unified land operations, Army forces support the joint force through four strategic roles:

2-6. Figure 2-1 shows the taxonomy of the Army’s tactical doctrine for the four elements of decisive action and their subordinate operations or tasks. While an operation’s primary element is offense, defense, stability, or defense support of civil authorities, different units involved in that operation may be conducting different types and subordinate variations of operations. Commanders rapidly shift emphasis from one element to another to maintain tempo and keep enemy forces off balance. Maintaining tempo and flexibility through transitions contributes to successful operations.

2-25. Civil-military operations is activities of a commander performed by designated military forces that establish, maintain, influence, or exploit relations between military forces and indigenous populations and institutions by directly supporting the achievement of objectives relating to the reestablishment or maintenance of stability within a region or host nation (JP 3-57). Commanders conduct civil-military operations to coordinate and integrate joint, single-Service, and multinational operations with the operations of other U.S. government departments and agencies, nongovernmental organizations, intergovernmental organizations (for example, the United Nations), and the private sector.

3-8. Security cooperation encourages regional stability. Security cooperation tasks are key peacetime military preventative actions that enhance bonds between potential multinational partners, increase understanding of the region, help ensure access when required, strengthen future multinational operations, and prevent crises from developing. Security cooperation in peacetime comprises all military activities that involve other nations and are intended to shape an operational environment. It includes programs and exercises that the U.S. military conducts with unified action partners to improve mutual understanding and improve interoperability with treaty partners or potential coalition partners. Military engagement activities support a combatant commander’s objectives within the theater security cooperation plan. These activities may be long term, such as training teams and advisors assisting land forces, or short term, such as multinational exercises. Commanders may not expect combat, although terrorist attacks against deployed forces are always possible. Policy, regulations, and security cooperation plans—rather than doctrine— typically govern military engagement activities in peacetime. Units usually conduct bilateral military engagement activities, but they may involve multiple nations. Examples of joint operations and activities that fall under security cooperation in peacetime include the following:

2-9. The elements of decisive action are not discrete, mutually exclusive operations. Tactical missions can contain elements of the offense, defense, and stability or defense support of civil authorities. The lower the echelon, the less a formation can focus on more than one of the elements. During large-scale combat operations, it is unlikely that units performing close combat also conduct stability tasks.

3-67. Sustainment plays a key role in enabling the simultaneous offensive, defensive, and stability or defense support of civil authorities tasks that occur as part of unified land operations. For example, general engineering support provides construction support to protect key assets such as personnel, infrastructure, and bases. Horizontal and vertical construction enables assured mobility of transportation networks and survivability operations to alter or improve cover and concealment to ensure freedom of action, extend operational reach, and endurance of the force. Legal personnel supporting rule of law activities may find themselves working closely with HN judicial, law enforcement, and corrections systems personnel.

2-37. Police operations are conducted across the range of military operations and are fundamental to the consolidation of gains in large-scale ground combat. As the operation transitions and the OE stabilizes, civil control efforts are implemented and the rule of law is established. The closer the OE moves toward stability and full implementation of host nation governance under the rule of law, the more general policing activities transition to law enforcement activities.

3-1. Operations to shape consist of various long-term military engagements, security cooperation, and deterrence missions, tasks, and actions intended to assure friends, build partner capacity and capability, and promote regional stability. Operations to shape typically occur in support of the geographic combatant commander’s (GCC’s) theater campaign plan (TCP) or the theater security cooperation plan. These operations help counter actions by adversaries that challenge the stability of a nation or region contrary to U.S. interests. Operations to shape occur across the joint phasing model. (See paragraphs 1-51 through 1-60.) Ultimately, operations to shape focus on four purposes:

9-92. In troop-to-task analysis for stability and defense support of civil authorities, staffs determine relative combat power by comparing available resources to specified or implied stability or defense support of civil authorities tasks. This analysis provides insight as available options and needed resources. In such operations, the elements of sustainment, movement and maneuver, nonlethal effects, and information may dominate.

8-65. As large-scale combat operations conclude in a corps AO, the corps headquarters reorganizes the AO into areas appropriate for the operational and mission variables to facilitate the most rapid consolidation of gains. Operations primarily focus on providing area security in high threat areas, followed by the performance of stability tasks in lower threat areas. As shown in figure 8-4, a corps can simultaneously attack and consolidate gains during this transitional period. Subordinate divisions may still have BCTs conducting large-scale combat operations while committing one or more BCTs to conduct consolidation of gains in the consolidation area. Ideally, the corps headquarters task-organizes follow and support divisions to execute stability related tasks.