Ch. 7 Unified Actions and Unique Environments

IPOE for Unified Action and Unique Environments

• Unified action synchronizes governmental and nongovernmental efforts with military operations to achieve unity of effort
• Commanders synchronize military actions with government agencies, NGOs, unified action partners, and the private sector
• The Army’s contribution to unified action is unified land operations
• Unified land operations involve simultaneous execution of offense, defense, stability, and defense support across domains
• These operations shape environments, prevent conflict, prevail in ground combat, and consolidate gains as part of unified action.
• IPOE conducted supports unified land operations through offensive, defensive, and stability operations appropriate to the mission

Offensive Operations

• Offensive operations defeat or destroy enemy forces and gain control of terrain, resources, and population centers.
• Commanders conduct offensive operations to secure terrain, deprive resources, gain information, deceive, hold, disrupt attacks and set future successful operations
• Intelligence needs include determining the enemy's defense type such as area, maneuver, or retrograde, location, disposition, and orientation
• This includes the main battle area, battle positions, handover lines, obstacles, engagement areas, reserves, and fire support.
• Identifying specialty teams, CAS, aviation, and other assets supporting the defense is also key.
• Determining the enemy commander’s end state, objectives, decision points, decisive point, critical events, and win/lose/tie options.
• Identifying the enemy commander's intent for denial, deception, information activities, reconnaissance, surveillance, and fires
• Identify terrain and weather effects that support enemy defenses through physical areas for obstacles/battle positions
• Includes air and ground AAs, terrain that canalizes attacks, and prevailing weather conditions
• Identify terrain and weather effects that support friendly movement that includes air and ground AAs, attack routes, and landing zones
• Terrain management, and prevailing weather elements
• Determine the impact of civil considerations like rural communities, refugee camps, displaced persons and aid organizations

Movement to Contact

• Movement to contact is an offensive operation designed to develop the situation and establish or regain contact
• Actions include diversionary tactics and fire prep
• Relies on assumptions in the IPOE due to the unknown relationship between friendly and enemy forces
• Intelligence requirements during IPOE cover enemy location and intent, potential meeting engagements, and danger areas.
• It is important to know attack routes with obstacles, locations of security forces, enemy flanks, threats, and CBRN contaminated areas.

Attack

• The attack is an offensive operation defeats enemy forces, seizes terrain, or secures terrain
• Movement characterizes attacks
• Enemy main body dispositions are at least partially known
• IPOE includes the location of areas where friendly forces could become disoriented
• Most favorable routes to the objective, areas for flanking fire, and positions of known enemy forces and obstacles.

Exploitation

• Exploitation is a follow-up offensive operation that disorganizes the enemy in depth
• It completes the disintegration of the enemy
• Exploitation takes advantage of successes and friendly force continuing activities, such as locating enemy reserves
• Locating countermobility assets, forces attempting to reestablish defense, and logistics/resupply operations.

Pursuit

• Pursuit is an offensive operation that aims to catch or cut off a disorganized force attempting to escape with the aim of destroying it
• Staff must consider enemy deception
• Intelligence requirements during IPOE are possible retrograde routes, route conditions, blocking points, and critical terrain features
• Locating uncommitted forces, fire support, and air assets that can affect friendly force movement
• Key indications can be indications that the enemy can't maintain defensive positions or conduct counterattacks
• Or indications that the are increasing reconnaissance, destroying weapons, decreasing indirect fire, increasing indirect fire in sectors
• Important also is any indications of retreating forces, location of second-echelon defensive lines, and/or new forces.

Defensive Operations

• A defensive operation defeats an enemy attack, gains time, economizes forces, and develops conditions for future ops
• Intelligence needs include determining, locating, and/or tracking the enemy's efforts and reserves.
• Track reconnaissance assets and the use of CBRNE, CAS, information, and sustainment capabilities.
• Determine enemy sustainment needs and offensive endurance without reinforcement
• Identify enemy deception ops, commanders end state, objectives, decision points, and critical events
• The command's intent can be learned through identifying the enemy's-Reconnaissance, surveillance, fires, denial/deception, defensible terrain, battle positions engagement areas, indirect fire positions, and counterattack routes
• Identifying TAIs for indirect fire and CAS, and civil considerations
• And identifying threat forces using the civilian populace to cover movement is important

Area Defense

• Area defense denies enemy forces access to terrain for a specific time rather than destroying the enemy.
• Forces maintain positions and control terrain, focusing fires into engagement areas
• Reserves may take part in the decisive operation for reinforcing fires, adding depth, seizing the initiative, or destroying enemy forces.
• It's important to locate natural lines of resistance, well-defined AAs, intervisibility lines, and terrain features and analyze the effects of terrain is important

Mobile Defense

• Mobile defense concentrates on destroying the enemy through an attack by a striking force
• The defense defeats or destroys through a counterattack
• The striking force is a dedicated counterattack force
• The fixing force supplements the striking force by holding enemy forces in position and channeling them into ambush.
• Intelligence requirements during IPOE are necessary to deceive the enemy regarding the defense and to hide the striking force

Retrograde

• A retrograde is a defensive operation which is an organized movement away from the enemy often needing approval before initiating
• Primary intelligence products support planning that include MCOO, weather effects and threat information matrixes
• And also COA statements, event and target value matrixes, HVT lists, and intel requirements

Stability Operations

• Stability operations outside the U.S. coordinate instruments of national power to maintain security and provide essential services
• Stabilization actions occur across the conflict continuum and are conducted to support other government entities
• Commanders combine stability actions with offensive and defensive actions.
• The purpose is to provide a secure environment, gain support for the host nation, and shape the interagency environment
• IPOE is important to gaining understanding of cause, support, how insurgents appeal to the population, influences
• Also motivations , conditions, identities, and organizations
• Identifying the means to gain legitimacy, need assessments for operations, and the effects of friendly operations

Establish Civil Security

• Establish civil security in stability operations to promote host nation safety, including protection from enemy forces
• The subtasks are protecting borders, combating internal threats, and separating insurgents
• The assessment requires intelligence regarding actors, objectives, tactics, locations, aiding organizations

Protect External Borders

• Do so in stability operations not needing prep for regional power attacks, but focus on special, terrorists, irregulars, and criminals.
• Focus on infiltration, movement of resources, and smuggling is important to counter
• Develop friendly COAs, and intelligence regarding these forces assists commanders in gaining support

Combat Internal Threats

• In stability operations, U.S. forces can be contested by one or more armed and organized groups
• Groups may seek to achieve goals through violence
• Characterized as unlocatable, unidentified, decentralized chains of command and being adaptable
• They also target different groups from political, to military and civilian agencies
• Sustain through external mechanisms and establish sanctuaries

Separate Insurgents from General Population

• Terrorists, militias, and other insurgent forces depend on the cooperation of the general population
• Armed insurgent operation groups draw strength from the support the population yields
• These groups can establish sanctuary, communications, and transportation for operations
• They win funding through coercive means or positive appeasement

Support to civil control

• US forces can support implementing rules over the local population
• That is achieved through military authority and governments, criminal justice systems or policing reforms
• Working with host-nation political and civil leaders, and Department of State provincial reconstruction teams is important
• In the process, determine methods for behavior activities and groups to reduce risk to the general population
• Determine reliability and capability of the key individuals in control

Restore Essential Services

• Military in this case needs to generally support populations and aid organizations for humanitarian events
• They can provide initial needs of food, water, shelter and support transformations with partner capabilities
• Identify location of civilians, food, water, shelter, delivery support and any other organization services

Support to Governance

• Supports to governance has a limited role when legitimate governance is adequate
• Support to Governance is the fourth stability operations task requiring possible analysis during IPOE is needed
• The assessments provide information pertaining to the host nation government, council elections and civil administration and their security

Support to Economic and Infrastructure Development

• The best long term success is the sustainment of a meeting with a working government
• An understanding of the economy and AO infrastructure are important to ensure conditions improve
• Intelligence focuses on problem sets for the remainder of the operation to assess economic conditions
• And this is conducted through border crossing, cross border movements, private status of services in the AO
• Assess the ongoing local governments, and economical impacts, distributions and similar programs

Unique Environments

• IPOE considerations differ in littoral, urban, and subterranean areas

Littoral Environments

• Littoral environments include the area from ocean to shore, the open segment to support the operations through supporting and defending operations
• Globalization and trade emphasize importance to both friendly and enemy forces
• IPOE must account for littoral securement from threat forces
• Integrating different external centers like combatant centers are useful in formulation of statements and assessment
• Littoral products address relevant aspects that affect trading groups, infrastructure, water bodies, trade, tides information channels
• IPOE analyzes characteristics of the OE and determining and portraying staff must also have additional tools

Military Aspects of Terrain in Littoral Environments

• OAKOC applies in littorals based on terrain variances that are very diverse due to weather and use
• Analysis of relationship is good to know affects of different phases in varying terrain and time

Observation and Fields of Fire (littoral)

• Diversity can create huge changes along short distances requiring MCC’s to represent correct impacts and where vegetation hinders observation

Avenues of Approach (littoral)

• Seaward and Landward area provide flexibility.
• Seaward area offers support to larger vessels and impede ports.
• Land ward is canalizing moving into rivers.
• The location has ports waterways vary and facilitate movement to trad routes
• The AA also consists of open sea leading to ports.and railroad networks
• The highways facilitate trade and infrastructure

Key Terrain (littoral)

• Key terrain contains financial hubs important for both economic and military forces
• The terrain essential mission helps analyzing harbors and canals supporting radar developments
• And helps with shipping lanes

Obstacles (littoral)

• Those preventing force closer to land from offshore mines and waterways and levers
• And wave tidal surges

Concealment (littoral)

• The littoral environment ranges from urban and concealment which can be unlimited

Evaluating Aspects of The Threat in Littoral Environment It can be difficult to understand the area If friendly forces and treat all of a threat forces.May use force as friendly forces.

This quiz covers Intelligence Preparation of the Operational Environment (IPOE) in the context of various military operations, including area defense, mobile defense, retrograde operations, and stability operations. It emphasizes the importance of terrain assessment, force roles, planning considerations, and intelligence products.