U.S. Army Operations Field Manual

by Department of the Army

Overview

The U.S. Army believes our nation’s future is one of “persistent conflict”— protracted confrontation among state, nonstate, and individual actors willing to use violence to achieve their political and ideological ends. Operations, required reading for Army leadership, provides the intellectual core of how our Army will organize, train, equip, and conduct operations in this environment. In other words, this manual explains how to run the best army in the world.

Operations breaks down:

• The Army’s expeditionary and campaign capabilities, its personnel as its most important advantage.
• “Conflict” from stable peace to general war, and establishes five operational themes.
• The Army’s operational concept—full spectrum operations, which seize, retain, and exploit the initiative and achieve decisive results through offense, defense, and stability or civil support operations.
• Combat power, the means by which Army forces conduct full spectrum operations.
• The principles of command and control and how they affect the operations process—plan, prepare, execute, and assess.
• The divide between military theory and practice.
• Information superiority.
• And, the requirements for Army forces in international joint campaigns.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780762781973
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	01/15/2013
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

This is the fifteenth edition of the Army’s capstone operations manual. Its lineage goes back to the first doctrine written for the new American Army, Baron von Steuben’s 1779 Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States.

Table of Contents

List of Figures and Tables v

Foreword vii

Preface ix

Introduction xii

Chapter 1 The Operational Environment 1

Instability and Persistent Conflict 2

Influences on the Operational Environment 6

The Changing Nature of the Threat 7

Operational and Mission Variables 10

Unified Action 18

The Nature of Land Operations 28

Soldiers 34

Summary 39

Chapter 2 The Continuum of Operations 40

The Spectrum of Conflict 40

Operational Themes 44

Summary 62

Chapter 3 Full Spectrum Operations 64

The Operational Concept 64

The Elements of full Spectrum Operations 76

Combining the Elements of Full Spectrum Operations 97

Summary 102

Chapter 4 Combat Power 103

The Elements of Combat Power 103

Leadership 105

Information 106

Warfighting Functions 108

Combined Arms 114

Summary 120

Chapter 5 Command and Control 121

Exercise of Command and Control 121

Battle Command 123

Control 143

The Operations Process 148

Summary 158

Chapter 6 Operational Art 159

Understanding Operational Art 159

The Levels of War 160

Applying Operational Art 164

The Elements of Operational Design 168

Summary 193

Chapter 7 Information Superiority 194

Information Superiority and Full Spectrum Operations 194

Army Information Tasks 197

Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance 208

Knowledge and Information Management 212

Summary 217

Chapter 8 Strategic and Operational Beach 219

Strategic Reach 219

Operational Reach 227

Basing 227

Summary 231

Appendix A Principles of War and Operations 232

Appendix B Command and Support Relationships 240

Appendix C The Army Modular Force 262

Appendix D The Role of Doctrine and Summary of Changes 282

Source Notes 292

Glossary 293