Ch. 8 - Additional Considerations

• An OE (operational environment) encompasses domains, the information environment, the EMS (electromagnetic spectrum), and other factors, applying across Army operations.
• When defining the OE, all domains where Army and threat operations occur must be considered.

Air Domain

• The air domain is the atmosphere from the Earth's surface to where its effects on operations become negligible.
• It is the operating medium for aircraft, air defense systems, UASs, and missiles.
• Analysis of the air domain is critical for identifying air AAs (avenues of approach), associated with terrain restrictions of the land domain.
• IPOE (Intelligence Preparation of the Operational Environment) for air-based operations focuses on determining air domain characteristics that influence operations.
• Relevant aspects of the air domain: civil and military aircraft and UASs, weather monitoring systems, air corridors, fly over rights, and broadcasting rights.
• The air domain's relationship to weather, EMS, communications, and effects on performance matters (altitude, barometric pressure, and humidity).
• The air domain potentially affects maneuver, signal, psychological operations, and artillery units, similar to Army rotary-wing aircraft units.

Land Domain

• The land domain, area of Earth's surface ending at the high water mark, overlaps the maritime domain in the littorals.
• Includes subsurface and supersurface areas.
• Army operations primarily occur in the land domain.
• Analyzing military aspects of terrain (OAKOC) helps determine effects on operations and how terrain supports friendly and threat COAs (courses of action).
• Analysis covers natural and man-made features, populations, transportation systems, surface materials, ground water, cities, vegetation, and subsurface structures.
• Understanding the land domain is essential in all steps of the IPOE process.

Maritime Domain

• The maritime domain covers oceans, seas, bays, estuaries, islands, coastal areas, and the airspace above, including the littorals.
• The maritime domain critical for force projection and the application of weapons and sensors supporting Army operations due to its vastness and proximity to land.
• It's a maneuver space for tactical movement in the air, on the surface, and underwater.
• Army forces use the maritime domain for joint forcible entry, multinational exercises, information collection, sustainment, aviation sea basing, protection, humanitarian assistance, and noncombatant evacuation.
• The maritime domain facilitates most of the world's trade and is vital for maintaining the global economy
• Army operations in the maritime domain may increase due to global economics and maritime security interdependencies

Relevant Aspects of the Maritime Domain

• Intelligence staffs must maintain situational awareness of possible contingencies where the maritime domain becomes relevant.
• Considerations include:
  • Sea lines of communication (LOCs) and seaports (including chokepoints and naval bases).
  • Coastal defenses.
  • Threat vessels (civilian and military).
  • Natural harbors and anchorages.
  • Infrastructure (ports, shipping yards, dry-docks).
  • Friendly forces.
  • Threat forces.
  • Surface/subsurface effects.
  • Weather and tidal/current impacts
  • Transportation networks
• Intelligence staffs should consult outside organizations and other Services to enhance knowledge of the maritime domain.

Trade

• 80% of global trade involves the maritime domain due to low shipping costs.
• Threat groups may leverage maritime routes to gain power and control, making it understandable when considering global trade agreements and their effects.
• Illicit activities like trafficking of narcotics, weapons, money, people, and counterfeit goods occur in the maritime domain.

Threat Forces

• Threat forces in the maritime domain range from naval forces to criminal groups like pirates. Determining the types present requires intelligence staffs to assess their capability to impact operations.
• The OE influences which threats are present, requiring a holistic view. Isolated, poorly patrolled littoral waters are attractive to threat forces.

Space Domain

• The space domain is the area at altitudes of 100 kilometers or more above mean sea level critical for multiple systems/subsystems required to conduct military operations.
• Space is essential to information collection, missile tracking, launch detection, environmental monitoring, communications, navigation, global positioning, and timing.
• Analysis of threat capabilities affecting the space domain and the effects of a degraded space domain must be considered.
• Space-based resources offer freedom of action, global reach, responsiveness, and insights, unconstrained by geographic borders.
• All countries and actors can access space and its satellite capabilities.
• Threats forces contest the U.S. presence in space to gain advantages in other domains like cyberspace.
• Military, civil, and commercial sectors rely on space capabilities, creating exploitable opportunities and vulnerabilities.
• Staff and commanders synchronize space aspects into COAs, which affects communications, navigation, weather support, and surveillance.
• The G-2 and space staff officer ensure space IPOE is performed and incorporated into the overall IPOE.

Relevant Aspects of the Space Domain

• Relevant aspects within the IPOE process: space environment, space weather, and space weather phenomena.

Space Environment

• Space environment: the environment corresponding to the space domain, affects EMS
• Solar wind is ionized gas from the Sun that continuously erupts.
• Solar activity can cause particle streams enhancing solar wind, causing storms which impact the EMS.
• The disturbance of ions, atoms, and electrons affects radio wave propagation.
• Army space support teams and Air Force weather officers help understand and articulate the impact of atmospheric layers on EMS and space-based capabilities.

Space Weather

• Space weather is conditions and phenomena in the near-Earth environment that may affect space assets or operations.
• Space weather is driven by changes in the Sun's solar emissions.
• Understanding space weather conditions and implications on operations is essential for identifying when mitigation is needed.
• G-2/S-2 and Air Force staff weather officer provide tailored weather effects from the surface to space on both space assets and Army operations
• Situational awareness on weather effects from the surface to space includes impacts on units, threat systems, operations, and COAs.

Space Weather Effects

• Sources of space weather effects:
  • X-rays, electronic ultraviolet radiation, and radio bursts that cause satellite communications interference, radar interference, high frequency radio blackout, geolocation errors, and satellite orbit decay.
  • Energetic particle events which cause high altitude radiation hazards, spacecraft damage, satellite disorientation, launch payload failure, false sensor readings, and degraded high frequency communications.
  • Scintillation causing degraded satellite communications and Global Positioning System errors
  • Geomagnetic storms which may cause spacecraft charging and drag, geolocation errors, space track errors, launch trajectory errors, radar interference, radio propagation anomalies, and power grid failures.

Determining Relevant Aspects of the Space Domain

• Intelligence staffs determine if there are aspects of the space domain that must be considered for the mission.
• Relevant aspects that can affect capabilities through the space domain:
  • Orbital mechanics: the orbit a satellite moves in space.
  • Propagation: the spread of radio signals through the EMS to and from the Earth to orbiting satellites.
  • Orbital density and debris: the number of satellites and amount of space debris in the same orbital path.
  • Solar and geomagnetic activity: atmospheric activity impacting radio wave propagation.
  • EMS dependency: radio wave frequency and amplitude as it moves and characteristics that determine radio wave propagation.

Cyberspace Domain

• Cyberspace is a global domain within the information environment of interdependent networks, infrastructures, and data.
• Multiple entities depend on cyberspace, requiring consideration during IPOE.

The Information Environment

• Includes social, cultural, linguistic, psychological, technical, and physical factors affecting how humans and automated systems derive meaning from information
• A unit's information operations officer supports IPOE with a focus on the information environment.
• The information environment includes physical(C2 systems and supporting infrastructure), informational (collection, processing, storage and dissemination of information), and cognitive dimensions (minds of those who transmit, receive, and respond to information)
• IPOE considers where and how information and information capabilities reside, are employed, and disseminated.

The Electromagnetic Spectrum

• The electromagnetic spectrum is the entire range of electromagnetic radiation from zero to infinity, divided into 26 alphabetically bands.
• The radio spectrum (10 kilohertz to 300,000 megahertz) is a frequency range suitable for radio transmission split into bands.
• Maritime radar systems usually operate in the S and X bands, while satellite navigation system signals are found in the L band.
• Radio Frequency bands:
  • L band: 1 to 2 gigahertz
  • S band: 2 to 4 gigahertz
  • C band: 4 to 8 gigahertz
  • X band: 8 to 12 gigahertz
  • Ku band: 12 to 18 gigahertz
  • K band: 18 to 27 gigahertz
  • Ka band: 27 to 40 gigahertz

EMS-Based Operations

• EMS-based operations must be understood to accurately depict possible threat COAs and their impact on friendly operations.
• EMS effects and systems are critical IPOE considerations highlighting the multi-domain nature of friendly and threat operations.
• SIGINT, cyberspace operations, EW, and spectrum management operations operate within the EMS which is maximized when performing IPOE.
• SIGINT: interception and collection of signals in the EMS which helps to determine the DST detailed during the MDMP (Military Decision-Making Process) to determine capabilities for electronic systems throughout the AO.
• EMS considerations are integrated into DSTs during the MDMP by depicting critical points on the battlefield and identifying high-payoff targets.

Questions on understanding the maritime domain's importance for trade and security. Covers threat groups' use of maritime routes, vessel classifications, intelligence preparation, and illicit trade. Focuses on SLOCs and infrastructure.