1-10. Unity of effort cannot be attained without trust among all participants. Developing mutual trust and working partnerships among all the various organizations—especially the key leaders and staff of host-nation and international actors—is essential to the success of stability operations. Trust begins at the personal level. Partnerships between a donor nation and the host nation are important, but partnerships among host-nation actors are just as important. Trusted Army professionals understand that the combined military expertise that their organizations bring and their own adherence to the Army Ethic make the greatest positive contribution to the mission. Interpersonal relationships of key actors at the local, regional, and national levels—built on shared understanding, mutual respect, and personal trust—effectively enable accomplishing stability operations, to include security cooperation efforts. Trust also contributes to the legitimacy of the operation and those critical personal relationships assist in achieving the desired end states.

2-66. Civil security is resource intensive. As an Army stability task, establish civil security requires more manpower, materiel, and monetary support than any other task. However, civil security is a necessary precursor to success in the other Army stability operations tasks. Civil security provides the foundation for unified action across the other stability sectors. Well-established and maintained civil security enables efforts in other areas to achieve lasting results.

3-1. Unified land operations is the Army’s warfighting doctrine, and it is the Army’s operational concept and contribution to unified action. Unified land operations is an intellectual outgrowth of both previous operations doctrine and recent combat experience. It recognizes the nature of modern warfare in multiple domains and the need to conduct a fluid mix of offensive, defensive, and stability operations or DSCA simultaneously. Unified land operations acknowledges that strategic success requires fully integrating U.S. military operations with the efforts of interagency and multinational partners. Army forces, as part of the joint force, contribute to joint operations through the conduct of 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.

3-7. Army forces in the prevent role focus on support to political and developmental efforts to lessen the causes of tension and unrest. Military forces tailor these activities to meet political and developmental demands. In stability operations, including those where lethal actions are not likely, commanders understand that any accidental harm to civilians—traffic accidents, collateral damage, and so on—can severely impact their mission success. Commanders proactively plan for civilian casualty mitigation. (See ATP 3-07.6 for more information on protection of civilians.)

4-11. Successful commanders avoid planning pitfalls. Planning often proves a time-consuming and frustrating endeavor. Planning pitfalls generally stem from a common cause: the failure to appreciate the unpredictability and uncertainty of military operations. Inherently, planning for stability operations must include consideration of the local populations and their cultures. Planning for stability operations also includes collaborative efforts with many diverse participants, such as other USG organizations and agencies and nongovernmental organizations, causing more uncertainty and unpredictability. The four common planning pitfalls discussed in ADP 5-0 are—

1-4. Stabilization is a process in which personnel identify and mitigate underlying sources of instability to establish the conditions for long-term stability. Stabilization also includes efforts to counter an adversary’s attempts to consolidate its gains in a region or to reassert its influence. While long-term development requires stability, stability does not require long-term development. Therefore, stability operations tasks focus on identifying, targeting, and mitigating the root causes of instability to set the conditions for long-term development by building the capacity of local institutions.

4-45. Stability and defeat mechanisms complement planning and the Army design methodology by providing focus in framing complex problems; they offer the conceptual means to solve them. By combining these mechanisms, commanders can effectively address the human dimension of a problem while acting to reduce the security threat. Therefore, one element of a military force can focus on reestablishing security and control while another element can address the immediate humanitarian needs of the populace. Focusing on security and humanitarian needs is essential in operations conducted among a civilian population. Thus, early and deliberate combinations of the stability and defeat mechanisms are vital to success, especially in situations where actors may face active opposition. Combinations of these mechanisms serve to inhibit threats to stability, create conditions that people can live in some sort of normalcy, and set conditions for military forces to appropriately transition stability operations to other partners, the host nation, and or other actors in order to achieve USG objectives and preserve national interests.

2-62. This section only addresses some examples of those tasks for which military forces retain primary responsibility or must be prepared to execute. (FM 3-07 and ATP 3-07.5 discuss additional essential tasks.) Within each stability sector, Army stability operations tasks focus effort toward the desired end state conditions for a specific execution time frame. For example, initial response tasks executed in the security sector typically focus on establishing civil security and supporting civil control. The six Army stability operations tasks divide into major subcategories that facilitate integration and synchronization of related activities.

3-9. Peace operations are crisis response and limited contingency operations. These operations frequently include international military missions to contain conflict, restore peace, and shape an environment to support reconciliation and rebuilding as well as to facilitate the transition to legitimate governance. Peace operations may be conducted under the sponsorship of the United Nations, another international organization, within a coalition of agreeing nations, or unilaterally. They often require a higher emphasis on stability operations than on offense and defense operations.

5-45. The close proximity of civilians and Soldiers can also promote force health protection issues (such as communicable disease) through close contact with local civilians, detainees, or local foods. Stability operations are often enduring and can lead to complacency among Soldiers and result in an increase in accidents. Disciplined risk reduction efforts require effective leadership and should be continually monitored and assessed from the beginning to the end of an operation or deployment.

2-10. Defeat is to render a force incapable of achieving its objectives. Defeat has a temporal component and is seldom permanent. When developing an operational approach, commanders consider methods to employ a combination of defeat mechanisms and stability mechanisms. Defeat mechanisms relate to offensive and defensive operations; stability mechanisms relate to stability operations, security, and consolidating gains in an area of operations.

4-119. Planning also reduces the amount of time and confusion that arises when a unit is unsuccessful in its defensive efforts and must transition to retrograde operations. Commanders designate units to conduct denial operations and to evacuate casualties and equipment. Commanders use retrograde operations to preserve their forces as combat-capable formations until they can establish those conditions necessary for a successful defense. Plans should account for both failure and success, and they should account for a transition to offensive or stability operations.

3-65. Often, the presence of military forces alone influences human behavior; demonstrating the potential for lethal action helps to maintain order. Maintaining order is vital to establishing a safe, secure environment. Even though stability operations emphasize nonlethal actions, the ability to engage potential enemies with decisive lethal force remains a sound deterrent and a key to success. The successful application of lethal capabilities in stability operations requires a thorough understanding of when the escalation of force is necessary and when it might be counterproductive. It requires discretionary professional judgment supported by a constant assessment of the security situation and an intuitive sense of timing with respect to the actions of enemies and adversaries. Adversaries may curtail their activities to avoid engaging military forces that they perceive as capable and willing to use lethal force. This allows military forces to extend the scope and tempo of nonlethal actions.

2-53. It is through operational art that commanders develop and translate their operational approach—a description of the broad actions required to achieve the end state—into a concept of operations. An operational approach is the result of the commander’s visualization of what needs to be done in broad terms to solve identified problems. It is the main idea that informs detailed planning. When developing an operational approach, commanders consider ways to employ a combination of defeat mechanisms and stability mechanisms. Defeat mechanisms relate to offensive and defensive operations; stability mechanisms relate to stability operations.

2-64. Establishing civil security involves providing for the safety of the host nation and its population, including protection from internal and external threats. This is essential to providing a safe and secure environment. Without a reasonable level of civil security, other stability operations tasks are not effective. Civil security requires four necessary conditions:

1-15. Ultimate responsibility for stability rests with the host nation. Commanders must clearly respect the views and interpretations of the host nation regarding what it perceives the stability solution should be. The host nation takes ownership of its stability based on its perception of threats and its broader security needs. Stability activities nest within existing host-nation social, political, and economic institutions and structures. Commitment and constructive engagement by the host nation’s leaders ensures that institutions, capabilities, and forces developed in stability operations will endure, fit the needs of the host nation, and have trust from the host-nation government and its population. Legitimacy builds trust and confidence in the host-nation government among its people. Additionally, stability helps develop partnerships that encourage and enable a host nation to act in support of aligned U.S. objectives. (See JP 3-07 for a detailed discussion of host-nation ownership.)

4-13. Understanding is fundamental to a commander’s ability to establish a situation’s context. It is essential to ethical and effective decision making and the development of plans. Analysis of the operational and mission variables provides the information used to develop understanding and frame a problem. In planning for stability operations, active collaboration with military and civilian partners assists commanders in developing their initial understanding of an operational environment and problem. Civil affairs capability is designed to understand and engage the factors and actors that comprise the civilian component of the operational environment. Thus, civil affairs is integral to a commander’s ability to conduct stability planning. (See ADP 5-0 for more information on the operational and mission variables.)

4-110. Commanders plan for dislocated civilians and the effect that they have on the defense. Civil affairs units help commanders in planning population and resource control measures. A defending unit uses host-nation and international organizations as much as possible to minimize the effects of disaster or conflict on dislocated civilians and thereby avoid diverting unit resources to conduct stability operations.

2-18. Generally, the responsibility for providing for the basic needs of the people rests with the host-nation government or designated civil authorities, agencies, and organizations. Morally and legally, all operations require U.S. forces to conduct minimal-essential stability operations tasks to provide for the protection and well-being of civilian populations. Depending on the executing echelon, this normally occurs as part of consolidation of gains. Leaders make every effort to ensure that if no civilian or host-nation agency is present, capable, and willing, then the U.S. forces or organizations conduct the tasks.

1-21. During large-scale ground combat operations, commanders and staffs deliberately plan and integrate protection capabilities to protect the force, preserve combat power, reduce risk, mitigate identified vulnerabilities, and act on opportunity. Commanders also develop a scheme of protection for the transition of each phase of an operation or major activity. Transitions mark a change of focus between phases or between the ongoing operation and execution of a branch or sequel. Shifting protection priorities between offensive, defensive, and stability operations also involves a transition. Transitions require planning and preparation well before their execution so that a force can maintain the momentum and tempo of operations. A force is vulnerable during transitions. Commanders and staffs identify potential threats and hazards during planning and identify protection priorities during the transition and follow-on operations.