1-27. Army 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 theater campaign plan 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. (see FM 30).

8-67. Divisions manage BCT’s as they establish area security and perform stability tasks throughout the division consolidation areas. +This includes performing offensive and defensive tasks to destroy or neutralize remaining threats (usually company size or smaller) that were either by-passed in combat operations or have reconsolidated following large-scale ground combat in the close area. Simultaneously, a task-organized, follow and assume BCT protects the civilian population and infrastructure from attacks by irregular forces and criminal elements within the division consolidation area.

8-72. Task-organized BCTs or task forces perform most area security tasks, and they facilitate the accomplishment of most stability tasks in concert with unified action partners. Army forces take specific actions upon culmination of large-scale combat operations against a conventional force. These actions include—

5-55. Commanders direct tactical enabling tasks to support the performance of all offensive, defensive, and stability tasks. +Tactical enabling tasks are usually employed by commanders as part of shaping operations. The tactical enabling tasks are reconnaissance, security, troop movement, relief in place, passage of lines, encirclement operations, and mobility and countermobility operations.

1-39. A stability operation is an operation conducted outside of the United States in coordination with other instruments of national power to establish or maintain a secure environment, provide essential government services, emergency infrastructure reconstruction, and humanitarian relief (ADP 3-0). These operations support governance by a host nation, an interim government, or a military government. Stability involves coercive and constructive actions. Stability assists in building relationships among unified action partners and promoting U.S. security interests. It can help establish political, legal, social, and economic institutions in an area while supporting transition of responsibility to a legitimate authority. Commanders are legally required to conduct minimal-essential stability tasks when controlling populated AOs. These tasks include providing security, food, water, shelter, and medical treatment.

8-11. When consolidating gains, establishing and sustaining security is the unit’s first priority. Without security the accomplishment of many stability tasks becomes problematic. Security operations will likely involve combat operations against enemy remnants or irregular forces fighting on or from among the local population and in remote areas, as well as criminal elements taking advantage of the lack of civil control forces in a given area. A critical consideration for Army units executing area security tasks is to avoid activities that create the perception of doing more harm than good. During the transition from large-scale ground combat to consolidation of gains, commanders may implement more restrictive rules of engagement than those used during large-scale combat operations. If commanders do not manage the application of force carefully, the perceptions of friendly forces and the local population about what constitutes acceptable levels of violence may rapidly diverge. Thus, commanders establish and maintain communications with the population to assist them in understanding the overall goal of military actions and how those actions benefit them. Capabilities such as military information support operations (MISO), public affairs, and combat camera can assist in this effort.

9-114. As planning progresses, commanders may modify lines of effort and add details while war-gaming. Operations with other instruments of national power support a broader, comprehensive approach to stability tasks. Each operation, however, differs. Commanders develop and modify lines of effort to focus operations on achieving an end state, even as the situation evolves.

3-2. The goal of unified land operations is to establish conditions that achieve the JFC’s end state by applying landpower as part of a unified action to defeat the enemy. Unified land operations is how the Army applies combat power through 1) simultaneous offensive, defensive, and stability, or DSCA, to 2) seize, retain, and exploit the initiative, and 3) consolidate gains. Military forces seek to prevent or deter threats through unified action, and, when necessary, defeat aggression.

civil-military operations – (DOD) 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. Also called CMO. (JP 3-57) Referenced in ADP 3-05, ADP 3-90, FM 2-0, FM 3-57, ATP 3-07.6, ATP 3-07.31, ATP 3-57.10, ATP 3-57.20, ATP 3-57.60, ATP 3-57.70, ATP 3-57.80, ATP 6-0.5.

1-32. Commanders and staffs at all levels synchronize intelligence with the other warfighting functions to maximize their ability to visualize the operational environment and disrupt the threat simultaneously throughout the area of operations (AO) or perform the necessary stability tasks to consolidate gains. Collecting the intelligence required is often more complex and requires leveraging national to tactical intelligence capabilities. Commanders must be more involved in and knowledgeable of the intelligence warfighting function due to the complexity of operations. The following list provides some basic aspects of intelligence (discussed in more detail in subsequent chapters):

5-33. A stability operation is an operation conducted outside the United States in coordination with other instruments of national power to establish or maintain a secure environment, provide essential governmental services, emergency infrastructure reconstruction, and humanitarian relief (ADP 3-0). While stability tasks are tasks conducted as part of operations outside the United States in coordination with other instruments of national power to maintain or reestablish a safe and secure environment and provide essential governmental services, emergency infrastructure reconstruction, and humanitarian relief (ADP 3-07).

8-68. Divisions perform the stability tasks necessary to create conditions within an AO that allow for transition to a legitimate civilian authority or a unified action partner to act as a transitional authority. Divisions also manage brigades as they conduct security force assistance to build the capability and capacity of foreign security forces. Finally, divisions dissuade adversaries from reinitiating hostile or disruptive operations and persuade them to abide by sanctions, laws, or international dictates.

1-6. In operations short of armed conflict, the United States has adversaries. An adversary is a party acknowledged as potentially hostile to a friendly party and against which the use of force may be envisaged (JP 3-0). During these operations, commanders may shape the OE with fires to promote regional stability or set conditions in the event of escalation to conflict. They may also prevent conflict, deterring the actions of an adversary escalating towards conflict by using fires to change an adversary’s risk calculus and raising the costs of continuing activities that threaten U.S. interests. For example, deploying a Patriot battery to a forward location can reduce the ability of the adversary to create effects with long range fires and demonstrate U.S. resolve to support an ally or partner.

2-39. Commanders use lines of operations and lines of effort to connect objectives to a central, unifying purpose. The difference between lines of operations and lines of effort is that lines of operations are oriented on physical linkages, while lines of effort are oriented on logical linkages. Combining lines of operations and lines of effort allows a commander to include stability or DSCA tasks in the long-term plan. This combination helps commanders begin consolidating gains and set the end state conditions for transitions in an operation. (See chapter 3 for a discussion of consolidating gains.)

3-76. Successful execution of security cooperation activities help achieve strategic and operational objectives during operations short of armed conflict. Professionalizing police forces early, inculcating the rule of law in military forces, enforcing discipline, and assisting with building strong governance are parts of the continuum of consolidating gains that ultimately result in regional stability.

2-9. The pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and its potential use by actors of concern poses a threat to U.S. national security and peace and stability around the world. Army special operations forces’ capabilities include—

10-27. The concept of operations describes how the leader envisions the operation unfolding from its start to its conclusion or end state. It determines how accomplishing each task leads to executing the next. It identifies the best ways to use available terrain and to employ unit strengths against enemy weaknesses. Fire support considerations make up an important part of the concept of operations. Planners identify essential stability tasks. Leaders develop the graphic control measures necessary to convey and enhance the understanding of the concept of operations, prevent fratricide, and clarify the task and purpose of the main effort.

3-84. During operations to consolidate gains, sustainment priorities continue to focus on support to combat operations. Priorities include establishing security, restoring combat power, and preparing for continued operations to destroy remaining enemy forces. However, as the area becomes more stable and security increases, sustainment priorities include conducting stability tasks, providing medical treatment, and repairing line of communications.

3-50. Units conduct offensive operations until they defeat the enemy forces in their AOs. Once major combat operations cease, units may transition to consolidate gains. Commanders clearly articulate to their subordinates this transition by changing the rules of engagement and allocating combat power complementary to the shift in the operational environment from one characterized principally by offensive and defensive operations, to another with greater emphasis on stability tasks.

4-35. An operational approach conceptualizes the commander’s visualization for establishing the conditions that define a desired end state. Commanders who conduct operations among a population accept military interaction with the local population as part of the mission. In those operations, the most effective operational approach achieves decisive results through combinations of stability and defeat mechanisms. While the stability mechanisms leverage the constructive capabilities inherent to combat power, the defeat mechanisms allow commanders to focus the coercive capabilities of U.S. forces to provide security, public order, and safety for the local population.