Army Strategic Contexts and Intelligence PDF

Chapter 4 Army Strategic Contexts and Intelligence SECTION I – OVERVIEW 4-1. The Army is a globally engaged, regionally responsive force that provides a full range of capabilities to CCDRs. The Army provides the joint force with the capability and capacity for the application...

Chapter 4 Army Strategic Contexts and Intelligence SECTION I – OVERVIEW 4-1. The Army is a globally engaged, regionally responsive force that provides a full range of capabilities to CCDRs. The Army provides the joint force with the capability and capacity for the application of landpower. Army forces meet a diverse array of challenges and contribute to national objectives across a wide range of operational themes, including large-scale combat operations, limited contingency operations, crisis response, military engagement, and support to security cooperation. The Army also provides a broad range of organizations, units, and capabilities to support theater operations. 4-2. Combatant commands develop theater campaign plans that rely on the operational themes as well as campaign and operations activities. When a situation forces a branch to the campaign plan, it may eventually lead to armed conflict. In these situations, the full capability of the intelligence enterprise supports the combination of offensive, defensive, and stability operations to seize, retain, and exploit the initiative and consolidate gains to ultimately return to competition. 4-3. Army intelligence is an inherent part of any joint and multinational combined arms team; intelligence activities conducted facilitate successful joint operations. The intelligence enterprise supports the joint force across the competition continuum through the aggressive execution of information collection and intelligence production. A portion of the Army intelligence force is designated to support the joint force. (See figure 4-1.) Figure 4-1. Joint competition continuum aligned with the Army strategic contexts 01 October 2023 FM 2-0 4-1 Chapter 4 ARMY STRATEGIC CONTEXTS 4-4. Army doctrine describes the strategic situation through three contexts—competition, crisis, and armed conflict—in which Army forces conduct operations (see figure 4-1 on page 4-1). Therefore, the rest of this publication uses the Army strategic contexts as a major doctrinal construct to discuss intelligence. Supporting Army forces, as part of unified action, across the strategic contexts require an effective intelligence warfighting function that is continuously vigilant and flexible. The Army synchronizes its intelligence effort with unified action partners to achieve unity of effort and meet the commander’s intent. Intelligence unity of effort is critical in accomplishing the mission. The character of effective and flexible intelligence support transitions across the Army strategic contexts. INTELLIGENCE SUPPORT 4-5. Effective intelligence support assists in identifying and creating exploitable advantages in the OE. It is important to note—some peer threats view themselves in continual conflict, whether war in the traditional sense has begun. Intelligence professionals must consider this peer threat perspective and seek advantages to provide commanders with options against the threat across the strategic contexts. The intelligence staff must also understand how intelligence warfighting function capabilities support the tenets and imperatives of operations across the strategic contexts—doing so optimizes the integration of operations and intelligence. While some intelligence tasks and activities are specific to certain strategic contexts, many of the tasks and activities span across all three strategic contexts. Commanders and staffs must collaborate with the intelligence staff to adequately address the planning, collection and PED, storage and safeguarding, and analysis of intelligence and associated contextual data during each Army strategic context. 4-6. The intelligence staff must coordinate with the rest of the staff continuously. This coordination ensures the first imperative of operations—see yourself, see the enemy, and understand the OE—is always at the forefront of synchronizing operations and intelligence and identifying advantages against threat forces. Threat forces seek advantages in multiple domains and dimensions to overwhelm U.S. forces’ ability to react. At times, these advantages are not readily identified because threat activities, windows of opportunity, and friendly efforts to exploit those windows and reach an advantage occur over extended time windows (in some situations, over decades). Successful intelligence operations must remain agile and flexible to continuously monitor OE changes and friendly and enemy strategic and operational effects, so the commander and staff can adjust forces and capabilities when needed. Long-Term Situational Understanding Challenges The broad nature of the Army strategic contexts and long-duration time windows are challenges to Army commanders and staffs. While many aspects of the theater are inherently national- and joint-level activities, the Army also has an important role. The effort to provide continuous situational understanding across the strategic contexts and account for all domains and dimensions is carefully focused through the operational variables (PMESII-PT) and pre-mission analysis of the OE. Focusing a large volume of information and intelligence down to a manageable amount of relevant information is time-consuming and requires detailed analysis. Often, there are limitations on the conduct of information collection during competition—and sometimes during crisis. Despite these challenges, Army commanders and staffs must support the planning and execution of flexible deterrent and response options as well as defeat and stability mechanisms to achieve desired end states. Gaps and problems with gaining situational understanding during competition can result in an even greater challenge as friendly forces transition into crisis and armed conflict. 4-2 FM 2-0 01 October 2023  Army Strategic Contexts and Intelligence 4-7. Intelligence support is inherently difficult and is often discussed throughout this manual as fighting for intelligence. Fighting for intelligence applies as much to intelligence support to Army units and organizations during competition (including long-term situational understanding) or crisis as it does to intelligence support to a division conducting offensive operations during a large-scale combat operation. Each strategic context discussion in this chapter concludes with a fighting for intelligence discussion. (See paragraphs 1-120 through 1-125 for a discussion on the concept of fighting for intelligence.) SECTION II – COMPETITION BELOW ARMED CONFLICT 4-8. Competition exists when two or more state or nonstate adversaries have incompatible interests but neither seeks armed conflict. Nation-states compete using all instruments of national power to gain and maintain advantages that assist them in achieving their goals. Low levels of lethal force can be part of competition. Adversaries often employ cyberspace capabilities and information warfare to destroy or disrupt infrastructure, interfere with government processes, and conduct activities in a way that does not cause the United States and its allies to respond with force. Competition provides military forces— ⚫ Time to prepare for armed conflict. ⚫ Opportunities to assure allies and partners of resolve and commitment. ⚫ Time and space to set the necessary conditions to prevent crisis or armed conflict. ADVERSARY METHODS 4-9. Conducting effective operations during competition requires a broad understanding of the strategic security environment and common adversary methods and objectives. During competition, adversaries seek to further their own interests using a variety of methods to hinder the United States from achieving its objectives. Therefore, the intelligence staff must understand adversary methods and their associated goals and desired effects. This knowledge assists the intelligence warfighting function in integrating and synchronizing with the other warfighting functions to generate combat power and apply it against adversary actions. Note. Peer threats conduct activities over prolonged time windows, so peer threat objectives, advantages, and effects may not be recognized immediately. In some situations, these advantages and effects may be observed slowly over expanded timeframes and eventually lead to crisis and possibly armed conflict. fragment ADVERSARY ACTIVITIES TO ACHIEVE STRATEGIC GOALS 4-10. By using a range of military and nonmilitary activities, peer threats use all instruments of national power to further their interests. The adversary’s use of diplomatic, economic, informational, and military activities shapes the OE to the adversary’s advantage well before armed conflict. Adversaries operate aggressively in the space or cyberspace domains during competition and crisis to influence the OE and deter or degrade friendly operations. Adversaries target foreign audiences to promote strategic messages on the international stage. At times, these messages are not legitimate or correct; the adversary’s intent is to get the messages out first, outside of the friendly forces’ ability to effectively counter these messages. Analyzing the possibility of threat and friendly forces leveraging a window of opportunity to gain or maintain human, information, and physical advantages is an important aspect of intelligence support during competition. ADVERSARY ACTIVITIES TO COUNTER A U.S. RESPONSE 4-11. An adversary may attempt to prevent or constrain the United States’ ability to project forces to the region and limit U.S. response options by using the following methods: ⚫ Conduct information warfare activities to manipulate the acquisition, transmission, and presentation of information in a manner that legitimizes adversary actions and portrays the United States as the aggressor. 01 October 2023 FM 2-0 4-3 Chapter 4 ⚫ Conduct preclusion activities through nonlethal means to undermine relationships, raise political stakes, manipulate public opinion, and erode resolve to constrain or eliminate basing rights, overflight corridors, logistics support, and concerted allied actions. ⚫ Isolate the United States from allies and partners by fostering instability in critical areas and among relevant actors to increase U.S. operational requirements. ⚫ Create sanctuary from U.S. and partner forces through international law and treaty agreements, monitoring and attacking partner forces from across international borders and using proxy forces. ⚫ Conduct systems warfare by executing cyberspace attacks against critical force projection and sustainment infrastructure nodes to delay or disrupt the United States’ ability to deploy forces. Systems warfare approaches include nonattributable attacks on domestic infrastructure and the employment of networked military capabilities that support isolation and preclusion efforts. ADVERSARY ACTIVITIES TO PRECLUDE U.S. ACCESS TO A REGION 4-12. Establishing favorable conditions by shaping an OE is critical to the United States’ success and the adversary’s success. Adversaries seek to establish conditions that limit or prevent U.S. access to a region, typically in locations close to either adversary borders or U.S. allied-partner borders. This includes but is not limited to— ⚫ Forward positioning of layered and integrated air defenses, long-range fires, and other A2 capabilities. ⚫ Positioning of systems capable of delivering conventional and nuclear munitions. ⚫ Positioning of intermediate-range ballistic missiles and cruise missiles. ⚫ Positioning of fixed-wing aircraft. ⚫ Positioning of unmanned aircraft systems (UASs). ⚫ Positioning of naval surface and subsurface forces. ⚫ Early warning surveillance radars. ⚫ Rocket artillery. ⚫ Conducting offensive cyberspace activities against friendly C2, infrastructure, and sustainment capabilities. ⚫ EW capabilities. ⚫ Counterspace capabilities. 4-13. Adversaries seek exploitable advantages in the OE; therefore, U.S. forces should expect that adversaries are observing them, including U.S. forces’ intentions and activities across all echelons within CONUS and outside the continental United States (OCONUS). Security activities and CI considerations for all echelons are important, ranging from technology protection and force modernization security to tactical unit deployments and exercises. Adversaries may reach and exploit advantages in terms of intelligence collection and then use the intelligence to cause grave harm to U.S. interests and operations. OPERATIONAL ASPECTS 4-14. Operations during competition— ⚫ Deter malign adversary action. ⚫ Set conditions to support friendly operations and the effective use of various capabilities should deterrence fail. ⚫ Shape an OE with allies and partners in ways that support U.S. strategic interests and policy aims. 4-15. Preparation for armed conflict is the primary focus of Army conventional forces during competition. Operations during competition focus on— ⚫ Setting the theater. ⚫ Building allied and partner capabilities and capacity. ⚫ Improving joint and multinational interoperability. ⚫ Protecting forward-stationed forces. 4-4 FM 2-0 01 October 2023  Army Strategic Contexts and Intelligence ⚫ Preparing to transition and execute operation plans (OPLANs). ⚫ Training and developing leaders for operations in specific theaters. ⚫ Promoting and protecting U.S. national interests and influence. ⚫ Building partner capacity and partnerships. ⚫ Recognizing and countering adversary attempts to gain positions of relative advantage across the domains and dimensions. 4-16. Competition activities are continuous within an area of responsibility (AOR). Army forces participate in and conduct numerous other activities to support the CCDR’s theater campaign plan. These activities include developing intelligence, countering weapons of mass destruction, providing support to humanitarian efforts, achieving information advantages, and organizing and participating in combined training and exercises. The CCDR uses these activities to improve security within partner nations, enhance international legitimacy, gain multinational cooperation, and influence adversary decision making. This cooperation includes exchanging information and sharing intelligence, obtaining access for U.S. forces in peacetime and crisis, and mitigating conditions that could lead to crisis and armed conflict. 4-17. The theater army and subordinate Army forces perform the following major activities during competition: ⚫ Execute flexible deterrent options and flexible response options. ⚫ Set the theater across warfighting functions, including in terms of preparing for intelligence operations and intelligence staff activities during crisis and armed conflict. ⚫ Tailor Army forces. ⚫ Project the force. (See appendix C.) 4-18. Other competition activities include but are not limited to— ⚫ Exchanging information and sharing intelligence with unified action partners. ⚫ Assisting allies and partners to improve their military capabilities and capacity. ⚫ Medical support. ⚫ Cooperative training. ⚫ Supporting local institutions. 4-19. Operations during competition consist of various long-term military engagements, security cooperation, and deterrence missions, tasks, and actions. Typically, these operations also occur to support the CCDR’s theater campaign plan or theater security cooperation plan. CCDRS use these plans as tools to organize, integrate, and execute joint operations. CONSOLIDATING GAINS 4-20. Experience proves that Army force activities conducted during competition assist in ensuring stability and reduce the potential for man-made crises or armed conflict throughout a region, even in locations where no previous combat has occurred. During competition, Army forces may consolidate gains from previous conflicts for many years as JFCs seek to maintain relative advantages against a specific adversary and sustain enduring political outcomes. Examples of consolidating gains during competition include but are not limited to— ⚫ Increasing theater supply stocks. ⚫ Developing and revising detailed contingency plans and perfecting tactical tasks to execute OPLANs for large-scale combat operations. ⚫ Promoting interoperability with host-nation units. This consideration includes intelligence agreements, exercises, interoperability agreements with unified action partners, and expedited means to revise intelligence sharing agreements, when necessary. ⚫ Promoting and facilitating civil-military integration and interorganizational cooperation between unified action partners and indigenous populations and institutions responsible for executing governance. ⚫ Infrastructure improvement. This consideration includes constant revisions and measures to improve the survivability of the intelligence architecture within the theater. 01 October 2023 FM 2-0 4-5 Chapter 4 ⚫ Assessing and improving protection measures against adversary capabilities. ⚫ SIGINT surveys and other intelligence surveys and assessments within the theater. ⚫ Leveraging Army engagements during the execution of foreign assistance, which includes humanitarian and civic assistance. FIGHTING FOR INTELLIGENCE 4-21. Intelligence is integral in supporting operations during competition. Often, this intelligence support is expressed as setting the theater among Army intelligence professionals. Continuous monitoring of the OE to determine changes that may lead to an escalation of hostilities must occur to give decision makers adequate warnings to determine and execute optimal deterrent and response actions. The intelligence staff must establish a baseline intelligence architecture to meet a broad range of requirements, to include ensuring information is available to support decision making if the strategic context transitions to crisis and armed conflict. Intelligence must be continuously developed to ensure Army and other joint forces are prepared to meet the multitude of scenarios that could possibly drive change and escalate conflict. If the situation does escalate, intelligence support must be able to focus on critical stability and defeat mechanisms for subsequent activities and operations. 4-22. Intelligence products assist the commander in countering actions by adversaries that challenge the security of forward-stationed units and the stability of a nation or region and are contrary to U.S. interests. Intelligence provides the commander and staff with the ability to— ⚫ Detect indicators of imminent threat activities and understand enemy intentions. ⚫ Track enemy activities and capabilities across the domains and dimensions. ⚫ Understand how the threat is attempting to gain and/or maintain positions of relative advantage. ⚫ Make informed decisions and realistic assessments of operational and tactical risks. ⚫ Support targeting. ⚫ Support information advantage activities. 4-23. Support to contingency plan development, which is treated as a branch to the campaign plan, is a vital activity during competition. Different situations within an AOR can cause a branch to the campaign plan, including regional instability, armed aggression, natural or man-made disasters, or humanitarian crises. Intelligence assists in identifying these potential situations and participates in developing plans to mitigate these scenarios. 4-24. Intelligence databases also have an important role in setting the theater from an intelligence perspective. Managing and creating unclassified and classified databases provide interoperable and collaborative environments for Army and joint forces, national agencies, and multinational organizations. Databases facilitate intelligence analysis, reporting, production, dissemination, sustainment, and intelligence reach. Within each theater, the development and validation of databases generally occur in a top-down manner, with significant support from regionally aligned forces and special operations forces. This allows units to maintain, populate, and continually update a thorough and accurate set of databases during subsequent Army strategic contexts. However, there may be instances when regionally aligned forces must develop and populate an authoritative database of threat signatures and associated contextual information, in conjunction with joint forces and the DIA. This is particularly true when an area quickly transitions from competition to crisis. In some scenarios, each echelon below theater army must prepare to establish localized intelligence databases during any strategic context. Unit SOPs should outline the requirements for managing, formatting and standardization, indexing and correlation, normalization, storage, security protocols, and associated applications. Note. It is critical for commands to update intelligence databases continually with actual and potential threat information to maximize the value of intelligence products and reports. 4-6 FM 2-0 01 October 2023  Army Strategic Contexts and Intelligence Two Key Aspects of Building Databases and Intelligence to Support Crisis and Armed Conflict Intelligence enterprise units and organizations should carefully use a federated analytical approach in developing and maintaining authoritative databases of threat indicators and key capability signatures and associated contextual information across all the domains and dimensions. Army intelligence units and organizations, in coordination with the intelligence enterprise, should use a federated analytical approach in analyzing threat systems similarly to joint TSA. Note. Army analysis of threat systems is not conducted to joint standards and is not captured in the same format as joint TSA and target development. When working as part of or to support the joint force, Army forces perform joint TSA and conduct target development to joint standards. SECTION III – CRISIS 4-25. Crisis is an emerging incident or situation involving a possible threat to the United States, its citizens, military forces, or vital interests that develops rapidly and creates a condition of such diplomatic, economic, or military importance that commitment of military forces and resources is contemplated to achieve national and/or strategic objectives (JP 3-0). During crisis, armed conflict has not yet occurred, but it is either imminent or a distinct possibility that requires a rapid response by forces prepared to fight if deterrence fails. A crisis can be long in duration, but it can also reflect a near-simultaneous transition to armed conflict. Leaders do not assume that a crisis provides additional time for a transition to armed conflict. Crisis is different from crisis response, which can result from a natural or human disaster. ADVERSARY METHODS 4-26. When conducting activities in an OE, peer threats seek to gain or maintain advantages against opponents. As a crisis develops, a peer threat uses information warfare and preclusion to shape the situation. This may include the adversary escalating or de-escalating its activities based on an assessment of the situation, which includes a calculation of the risk. During crisis, adversary methods include but are not limited to— ⚫ Shaping a crisis. ⚫ Controlling escalation. ⚫ Mitigating U.S. deterrence. ADVERSARY ACTIVITIES TO SHAPE A CRISIS 4-27. Peer threats shape a crisis to their benefit by seeking to exploit real or perceived advantages, which can be local, regional, and/or global. Peer threats use information warfare and preclusion to gain an information advantage against U.S. messaging and further isolate U.S forces and capabilities from allies. 4-28. Units and organizations, at and across echelons, conduct continuous information collection (including ISR within the joint force) to gain situational understanding of threat activities, capabilities, intent, and COAs. Threat forces seek to employ capabilities and conduct operations faster than friendly forces can act to gain and maintain a position of relative advantage. Threat forces can gain this advantage by finding a window of opportunity where friendly forces are either denied or delayed by specific circumstances from using the dynamics of combat power (leadership, firepower, information, mobility, survivability). 01 October 2023 FM 2-0 4-7 Chapter 4 ADVERSARY ACTIVITIES TO CONTROL ESCALATION 4-29. Peer threats may attempt to control the escalation of a crisis to avoid armed conflict with the United States by initiating actions to prevent or counter a U.S. response. These actions may focus on the United States and its allies by using the instruments of national power. These actions may include creating conditions on the ground designed to make U.S. military responses either too expensive to employ or too late to affect the political situation. A peer threat may also— ⚫ Accelerate its operational timeline. ⚫ Employ information warfare. ⚫ Increase support to proxy forces. ⚫ Increase the number of forward deployed units in the region. ⚫ Initiate crisis in other theaters to distract U.S. forces and diffuse U.S. response in the area of greatest interest. Note. In extreme situations to control escalation, an adversary may conduct a limited attack in response to U.S. reactions to the activities that precipitated the original crisis. ADVERSARY ACTIVITIES TO MITIGATE U.S. DETERRENCE 4-30. As an adversary plans for operations during crisis, there are several key actions the adversary considers to mitigate U.S. deterrence efforts and ensure U.S. operations do not significantly interfere with adversary interests. These actions may include— ⚫ Conducting limited attacks to expose friendly force vulnerabilities. These attacks may also degrade the deterrence value of deployed forces and destroy credibility among current and potential partners. ⚫ Disrupting or delaying the deployment of Army and joint forces through cyberspace attacks and denial of space capabilities. ⚫ Exploiting gaps in national interests among the United States, partner nations, and potential partners by attacking weaker countries whom the United States has no treaty obligations to defend. ⚫ Conducting deception operations to conceal real intent. ⚫ Increasing the use of proxy forces to coopt, coerce, or influence the local population, organizations, and governments within a crisis region. ⚫ Creating multiple dilemmas for the United States by attacking or threatening the use of force against potential partner nations in regions outside of the crisis region. ⚫ Impacting the will of the public through information warfare, including cyberspace attacks. ⚫ Threatening the use of nuclear weapons to prevent intervention by the United States, allies, and partners. OPERATIONAL ASPECTS 4-31. A crisis can result from one or a multitude of events/actions such as adversary actions/indicators of an imminent action or natural or human disasters. Examples of events/actions that can lead to a crisis include but are not limited to— ⚫ Aggressive behavior by an adversary to coerce and intimidate an opponent with the threat of force. ⚫ The presence of indicators foreshadowing a military coup or change of political power. ⚫ Increased dissemination of disinformation or misinformation targeted toward a country’s population and the international community. ⚫ Disease outbreak. ⚫ Build-up of military forces at an international border. ⚫ Failed elections. ⚫ Famine. 4-8 FM 2-0 01 October 2023  Army Strategic Contexts and Intelligence 4-32. Although an opponent has not yet used lethal force as its primary means of achieving objectives, crisis can escalate to armed conflict. Combat power derived from the intelligence warfighting function, in conjunction with the other warfighting functions, is critical in providing credible lethal capabilities to assist in deterring further provocation and compelling an adversary to cease aggressive action. 4-33. Some peer threats view conflict as a continuous condition in which sharpened or reduced periods of violence occur and recur. Additionally, adversaries may perceive themselves in a different context or state of conflict than U.S., allied, and partnered forces—what is viewed by one side as crisis might be perceived by the other side as armed conflict or competition. 4-34. Changing the intensity of its actions, even when that intensity reduces tension, does not end an adversary’s campaign to oppose U.S. interests. Intelligence professionals must continuously assess the OE and demonstrate flexibility in determining adversary actions, the changes they cause, and how information and intelligence can be used to de-escalate the situation or further prepare U.S. and allied partners for armed conflict. Regardless of the capabilities employed, there are generally two broad outcomes from a crisis: ⚫ Deterrence is maintained and de-escalation occurs. ⚫ Armed conflict begins. CONSOLIDATING GAINS 4-35. During and after a crisis response, Army forces consolidate gains to deny adversary forces the means to extend the crisis or create a similar crisis in the future. This often entails maintaining an enhanced force posture in a joint operations area for a time to demonstrate U.S. willingness to defend allies and partners. Continuous intelligence operations to support U.S. forces, allies, and partners are essential during any crisis. Commanders must emphasize information collection before and during the transition from competition to crisis to maintain a detailed understanding of the threat and continuously assess the situation, positioning their forces to retain the initiative. 4-36. During these transitions, threat forces attempt to exploit perceived vulnerabilities by conducting lethal and nonlethal activities against U.S. forces, allies, and partners. The threat’s use of disinformation and misinformation can be used to shape threat narratives to justify ongoing or pending actions, including the use of force. Commanders and staffs should focus on potential threat and friendly strengths, vulnerabilities, and advantages across the domains and dimensions. Continuous information collection and intelligence analysis are critical in ensuring flexible deterrent and/or flexible response options. FIGHTING FOR INTELLIGENCE 4-37. Operations during crisis place increasing demands on the intelligence warfighting function. The intelligence staff increases its knowledge of the threat and the specific OE, focuses the commander and staff with relevant information and intelligence, and expands various intelligence capabilities as part of the intelligence architecture. With the shift from competition to crisis, the theater army shifts to refining contingency plans and preparing estimates for the phased increase of ground forces and capabilities. During crisis, intelligence operations focus on the following: ⚫ Support theater openings in terms of finding and exploiting advantages. ⚫ Gain and maintain situational understanding of threat intent and COAs, activities, and the nature of those activities and effects across the theater. ⚫ Provide support to noncombatant evacuation operations, when needed. ⚫ Provide support to targeting and prepare for targeting during armed conflict. ⚫ Provide support to force projection and prepare for the possibility of a contested deployment. ⚫ Provide support to information advantage activities, as appropriate. ⚫ Provide support to protection activities. ⚫ Provide focused analysis of the domains and human, information, and physical dimensions, then properly focus that into analysis of the operational variables. ⚫ Provide support to identify and implement flexible deterrent and response options and follow-on activities and operations. 01 October 2023 FM 2-0 4-9 Chapter 4 ⚫ Significantly modify the intelligence architecture to prepare for the possibility of armed conflict. ⚫ Set conditions to reset theater intelligence and the intelligence architecture. 4-38. The intelligence staff must understand threat intent and COAs as well as ongoing activities in terms of the threat’s perspective, which often includes an extended time window. Leveraging the intelligence enterprise, including allies and partners, assists in understanding the threat’s perspective. This situational understanding is essential in gaining and maintaining advantages against the threat’s use of the five broad peer threat methods—information warfare, systems warfare, preclusion, isolation, and sanctuary (see paragraph 2-21). 4-39. Truly understanding the OE across the domains and dimensions, including important interrelationships, significantly increases the likelihood that commanders and staffs can accurately predict when, where, and how the threat will conduct actions. When commanders and staffs can predict threat actions, friendly force capabilities can be used to quickly gain positions of relative advantage. However, intelligence is rarely perfect. When commanders and staffs have a lower level of situational understanding, it is important to develop and rely on detailed indicators of possible threat intent and COAs and continually track those indicators. SECTION IV – ARMED CONFLICT 4-40. Armed conflict encompasses the conditions of a strategic relationship in which opponents use lethal force as the primary means for achieving objectives and imposing their will on the other. The employment of lethal force is the defining characteristic of armed conflict, and it is the primary function of the Army. Entering and terminating armed conflict are political decisions. Army forces may enter conflict with some advanced warning during a prolonged crisis or with little warning during competition. How well Army forces are prepared to enter an armed conflict ultimately depends on decisions and preparations made during competition and crisis. Army forces provide landpower to the joint force and conduct limited contingency or large-scale combat operations to ensure enduring political outcomes favorable to U.S. interests. Note. Large-scale combat operations are the focus of Army readiness and reflect the most intense and destructive form of armed conflict. Therefore, the rest of this section will focus on large-scale combat operations. WARFARE 4-41. The object of war is to impose a nation or group’s will on its enemy in pursuit of policy objectives. Regardless of the specific objectives, the decision to wage war represents a major policy decision and changes how Army forces use military capabilities. The nature of war, its principles, and its elements remain consistent over time. However, warfare, the conduct and characteristics of war, reflects changing means and contexts. The Army’s multidomain operations concept accounts for the constant nature of war and the changing character of warfare. Its balanced approach guides how Army forces operate across the competition continuum given the prevailing characteristics of anticipated OEs now and in the near future. 4-42. There are several important aspects of warfare discussed in FM 3-0. These aspects include the methods of warfare. There are many different methods of warfare, depending on the situation and actors, but they generally fall into two broad categories: ⚫ Conventional warfare is a violent struggle for domination between nation-states or coalitions of nation-states (FM 3-0). Conventional warfare is generally executed by two or more military forces through armed conflict. It is commonly known as conventional warfare because it means to fight enemy forces directly, with comparable military systems and organizations. ⚫ Irregular warfare is the overt, clandestine, and covert employment of military and nonmilitary capabilities across multiple domains by state and non-state actors through methods other than military domination of an adversary, either as the primary approach or in concert with conventional warfare (FM 3-0). Irregular warfare may include the use of indirect military activities to enable partners, proxies, or surrogates to achieve shared or complementary objectives. 4-10 FM 2-0 01 October 2023  Army Strategic Contexts and Intelligence 4-43. Offensive, defensive, and stability operations are inherent elements of conventional and irregular warfare. Divisions and higher echelons typically perform some combination of all three elements in their operations simultaneously. However, the lower the echelon, the more likely it is for that formation to be focused on one element at a time. The three types of operations differ: ⚫ An offensive operation is an operation to defeat or destroy enemy forces and gain control of terrain, resources, and population centers (ADP 3-0). Offensive operations are how commanders impose their will on an enemy. The offense is the most direct means of seizing, retaining, and exploiting the initiative to gain a physical and psychological advantage. Offensive operations typically include a sudden action directed toward enemy vulnerabilities, capitalizing on speed, surprise, and shock. ⚫ A defensive operation is an operation to defeat an enemy attack, gain time, economize forces, and develop conditions favorable for offensive or stability operations (ADP 3-0). Typically, the defense cannot achieve a decisive victory. However, it sets conditions for a counteroffensive or a counterattack that enables forces to regain the initiative. Defensive operations are a counter to an enemy offensive action, and they seek to destroy as many of the enemy forces as possible. Defensive operations preserve control over land, resources, and populations, and they protect lines of communications and critical capabilities against attack. Commanders can conduct defensive operations in one area to free forces for offensive operations elsewhere. ⚫ 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 and provide essential governmental 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 action. Note. Offensive, defensive, and stability operations are important doctrinal constructs across many of the Army intelligence doctrinal publications. LARGE-SCALE COMBAT OPERATIONS 4-44. Large-scale combat on land occurs within the framework of a larger joint campaign, usually with an Army headquarters forming the base of a joint force headquarters. These operations typically entail high tempo, high resource consumption, and high casualty rates. Large-scale combat introduces levels of complexity, lethality, ambiguity, and speed to military activities not common in other operations. 4-45. During large-scale combat operations, Army forces should expect deployments to be contested by enemy actions in all domains. In a contested deployment, the first challenge during large-scale combat operations is defeating a network of sophisticated A2 and AD systems. Enemy forces will attempt to deny U.S. and multinational forces access to the AO by contesting U.S. and multinational forces in each of the domains and dimensions of the OE. The joint force may even have to fight for intelligence to identify threat locations, strengths, and vulnerabilities to gain an initial lodgment. 4-46. Once joint and Army forces achieve an initial lodgment, they must be prepared to immediately conduct tactical operations. As a lodgment is formed, the threat will likely employ a variety of new capabilities to deny friendly forces freedom of maneuver. Friendly forces must be prepared to operate quickly across each domain and dimension. These multidomain efforts must entail joint synchronization, Service interdependencies, and the cross-domain convergence of capabilities at a time and place to create an operational advantage. Army forces must account for constant enemy observation, including the threat from cyberspace, space-based, and unmanned systems that saturate the OE. Army forces take measures to defeat the enemy’s ability to effectively mass effects while creating exploitable advantages to mass effects against enemy capabilities and formations. 01 October 2023 FM 2-0 4-11 Chapter 4 4-47. The challenge for and requirements on the intelligence warfighting function from deployment to initial lodgment and subsequent operations are substantial. Developing effective collection management plans and tasking collection assets (in depth and with redundancy) are essential. Intelligence support identifies windows of opportunity to counter the threat’s capabilities and enable the joint force to maintain freedom of action and gain positions of relative advantage. (The advantage can be a human, information, or physical advantage.) (See appendix C for intelligence support to force projection operations.) ADVERSARY METHODS 4-48. Although peer threats mainly seek to obtain their strategic objectives during competition, they will engage in armed conflict if they view the rewards are worth the risk. During armed conflict, peer threats employ combinations of threat methods to render U.S. military power irrelevant whenever possible and inflict unacceptable losses on the United States, its allies, and its partners. Peer threats use diplomatic, economic, informational, and military means to facilitate meeting their objectives. CHINA 4-49. China considers three aspects in the country’s view of conflict: ⚫ Comprehensive national power comprises hard power (military capability and capacity, defense industry capability, intelligence capability, and related diplomatic actions such as threats and coercion) and soft power (economic power, diplomatic efforts, foreign development, global image, and international prestige). Ultimately, all forms of conflict must enhance China’s comprehensive national power. ⚫ Deception is essential to China’s tactics to achieve desired perceptions by its opponents. These perceptions are ultimately exploited to further China’s objectives. Central to deception is having opponents make decisions not based on what is occurring in an OE. When doing so, opponents are faced with making decisions and conducting actions regarding situations or circumstances in which China has already set the conditions to have an advantage. ⚫ The Three Warfares are designed to unbalance, deceive, and coerce opponents to influence their perceptions in ways that create advantage. The Three Warfares are universally nonlethal, do not involve direct combat operations, and are designed to support and reinforce the traditional military operations of the People’s Liberation Army. The Three Warfares are— ▪ Public opinion warfare—China’s high-level information campaign designed to set the terms of political discussion. ▪ Psychological warfare—the deliberate manipulation of psychological reactions in targeted audiences designed to create and reinforce attitudes and behaviors favorable to China’s objectives and guide adversary behavior toward China’s preferred outcomes. ▪ Legal warfare—the setting of legal conditions to unbalance potential opponents by exploiting international or domestic law in order to hinder their military operations, create legal justification for People’s Liberation Army operations worldwide, and support Chinese interests through a valid framework. 4-50. During armed conflict, China employs systems warfare in combination with the other threat methods, such as preclusion, isolation, and sanctuary. China employs these threat methods throughout the domains and at all levels of warfare. Systems warfare involves— ⚫ Bypassing enemy systems’ areas of strength, gaining a combat advantage by approaching them asymmetrically. ⚫ Developing systems that excel at exploiting perceived vulnerabilities in enemy systems, thereby offsetting their strengths by undermining their systems’ ability to perform assigned missions. ⚫ Undermining international alliances through diplomatic efforts. ⚫ Conducting cyberspace attacks to disable air or seaports. ⚫ Using special operations forces to undermine civilian morale through covert operations. 4-12 FM 2-0 01 October 2023  Army Strategic Contexts and Intelligence 4-51. At the tactical level, systems warfare centers largely on targeting high-value battlefield systems such as radars, command and communications nodes, field artillery and air defense systems, and critical logistics support means. (For Chinese tactics, see ATP 7-100.3 and FM 3-0.) RUSSIA 4-52. Russian forces seek to shape the OE to gain and maintain relative advantages across the domains and dimensions. Russia seeks to do this by synchronizing capabilities and their effects simultaneously to overwhelm U.S. and allied force capabilities and capacity and weaken the United States’ national will to continue a conflict. (For Russian tactics, see FM 3-0.) 4-53. Russian goals are centered on creating constraints that prevent success of the United States’ campaign by using methods that focus on four key areas: ⚫ Disrupt or prevent understanding of the OE. Russian information warfare activities manipulate the acquisition, transmission, and presentation of information in a manner suitable to Russia’s preferred outcomes. ⚫ Target stability. Russia may foster instability in key areas and among key groups so regional security conditions do not support U.S. operational requirements. ⚫ Disaggregate partnerships. Russia acts upon U.S. allies and partners to reduce the United States’ ability to operate in its preferred combined, joint, and interagency manner. ⚫ Prevent access. Russia employs preconflict activities to deny access to U.S. forces, using nonlethal means initially and transitioning to lethal means if necessary. Russia seeks to undermine relationships, raise political stakes, manipulate public opinion, and attack resolve to constrain or deny basing rights, overflight corridors, logistics support, and concerted allied action. 4-54. Similar to U.S. forces, Russian forces operate combined arms forces to exploit the effects of both precision strikes and massed fires. Russian forces also— ⚫ Employ all available national elements of power both before employing conventional warfare and maneuver forces and after employing conventional warfare. ⚫ Employ deep maneuver against lesser opponents, when possible, to defeat an enemy’s will to resist early in a conflict. ⚫ Mass capabilities in pursuit of more limited objectives while fixing their adversary along a broad front. ⚫ Employ denial and deception to mask the true intent of operations. ⚫ Use the effects of strike actions to create the condition for military success. ⚫ Apply intelligence methods and decision making that are scientifically based to— ▪ Understand the conditions of an OE that will impact operations. ▪ Determine the tactical functions required and calculate the required allocation of combat power needed to accomplish a mission in a specific time and location. ▪ Understand the psychological and cognitive issues among competing friendly forces, aggressor forces, the local population, and other actors in an OE. CONSOLIDATING GAINS 4-55. During armed conflict, Army forces deliberately plan to consolidate gains throughout an operation. This is part of defeating the enemy in detail to accomplish overall policy and strategic objectives. From a small unit perspective, consolidating gains can be actions on the objective and preparing for enemy counterattacks, while from a theater army perspective, it can be incorporating partner-nation forces into ongoing operations. From the intelligence perspective, intelligence support to consolidating gains often focuses on situational understanding, warning intelligence, support to force protection, identity activities, and cultural understanding; it also assists in determining termination criteria or when it is operationally acceptable to transition from large-scale combat operations to post-conflict competition. 01 October 2023 FM 2-0 4-13 Chapter 4 4-56. Consolidating gains initially focuses on the exploitation of tactical success to ensure enemy forces cannot reconstitute any form of resistance in areas where they were initially defeated, or that enemy forces have not successfully conducted a deception operation to create a friendly force vulnerability or achieve a position of relative advantage. While the deep and close areas of the operational framework are important, the rear area has a special importance during consolidating gains due to bypassed, stay-behind, or infiltrated enemy forces; airborne, air assault, or special operations forces; terrorist cells; guerilla, partisan, or insurgent forces; the use of chemical weapons; or an effective combination of these forces and capabilities can significantly degrade friendly force operations. The impact of these types of threat operations can create crippling logistics, C2, civil population, and worldwide and U.S. public opinion issues. 4-57. Army forces must continuously consolidate gains to make temporary gains enduring. Like many activities, success is far more likely when the intelligence effort is carefully integrated and synchronized with operations. Typical operational functions and their reporting intelligence requirements include— ⚫ Locating bypassed enemy forces, bypassed or abandoned munitions and weapons, and stay- behind special purpose and proxy forces. ⚫ Populace and resource control measures. ⚫ Reestablishing law and order. ⚫ Providing humanitarian assistance. ⚫ Restoring key infrastructure. 4-58. When consolidating gains during armed conflict, the role of intelligence is vital in assessing relevant aspects of the OE, including but not limited to— ⚫ Detecting both positive and negative trends. ⚫ Discrediting disinformation and misinformation. ⚫ Determining the effectiveness of friendly operations. ⚫ Identifying actions that could threaten hard-won gains. ⚫ Assisting with the difficult transitions between offensive, defensive, and stability operations and the transition to post-conflict competition. TRANSITIONS BETWEEN OFFENSIVE, DEFENSIVE, AND STABILITY OPERATIONS 4-59. A main goal of defensive operations is defeating the enemy’s attacks and transition, or threaten to transition, to the offense. Units must deliberately plan for transitions to identify and establish the necessary friendly and enemy conditions for a successful transition. As friendly forces meet their defensive objectives, forces consolidate and reorganize for offensive operations or prepare to facilitate forward passages of lines for fresh formations. Units should do everything possible to prevent enemy forces from reinforcing their forward echelons, consolidating, or reorganizing while friendly forces prepare for follow-on operations. 4-60. Intelligence is critical to supporting the commander and staff as they— ⚫ Assess when they have enough combat power to maintain pressure on the enemy. ⚫ Identify opportunities to complete the defeat of enemy formations in order to reduce the risk of future casualties fighting the same enemy formations after recovery. ⚫ Assess the effects of battle on enemy forces relative to their own unit. 4-61. When offensive operations culminate before enemy forces are defeated, friendly forces rapidly transition to the defense. Commanders may deliberately transition to the defense when enemy forces are incapable of fully exploiting an opportunity, or when they believe they can build combat power to resume the offense before enemy forces can react effectively. Depending on where culmination occurs, friendly forces may have to reposition forces on defensible terrain and develop a form of defense and scheme of maneuver based on an assessment of the mission variables (METT-TC [I]). 4-62. Successful offensive operations end because Army forces have achieved their assigned objectives. A successful offense can also require a transition to a defensive posture dominated by stability operations and a strategic environment moving toward post-conflict political goals. These operations have the goal of transitioning responsibility for security and governance to legitimate authorities other than U.S. forces. 4-14 FM 2-0 01 October 2023  Army Strategic Contexts and Intelligence 4-63. As a transition to stability operations occurs, leaders focus on stability operations tasks and information advantage activities to inform and influence populations and conduct security force assistance. Effective collaboration with diplomatic and humanitarian organizations enhances the ability to achieve stability mechanisms. Army forces play a key role in enabling the joint force to establish and conduct military governance until a civilian authority or government is given control of its assigned areas. TRANSITION TO POST-CONFLICT COMPETITION 4-64. Army forces conclude armed conflict by establishing conditions favorable to the United States; they consolidate gains and prosecute operations with this desired end state. As hostilities end, stability operations tasks dominate operations with the purpose of transitioning responsibilities to legitimate authorities in a secure environment. Army forces provide the joint force with the option of establishing a military transitional government before transitioning full governing responsibility to host-nation or other provisional governments. 4-65. Standards for transitioning governance responsibility depend on the credibility, capability, and capacity of the governing organization to maintain the favorable conditions established during armed conflict. Strategic leaders determine the broad conditions for transition at the outset of operations and refine them based on how the situation changes. Army forces play a key role in understanding the host-nation culture, understanding critical infrastructure, assisting strategic leaders in developing realistic transition goals and timings, and determining the duration and scale of U.S. commitments required to maintain stability. 4-66. In some situations, operations may rapidly transition from large-scale combat operations to stability operations with the requirement to maintain continuous security while grappling with a new and very different set of challenges. Army units and organizations may modify their task organizations and priorities to meet additional tasks associated with stability operations. Some of the typical tasks associated with stability operations include the following: establish civil security, establish civil control, restore essential services, support to governance, support economic and infrastructure development, and conduct security cooperation. 4-67. This transition is very complex and difficult for the intelligence warfighting function. Intelligence must support all six tasks; it must often support combatting terrorism, arms control, counterinsurgency, counterdrug operations, and foreign internal defense in a larger context. Essential to intelligence support during the transition to the enable civil authority phase of operations is determining how intelligence units can support enabling the sustainability of civil authority. During these operations, intelligence staffs and units have a different focus, organize in a different manner, and perform unique tasks: ⚫ Many unique aspects of the OE—such as sociocultural factors, regional and local politics, and financial intelligence—become important. ⚫ For special operations forces, integration and interoperability with conventional forces become critical. (See FM 6-05.) ⚫ Fusion centers and other unique analytical centers are formed. ⚫ Certain aspects of operations—such as counter-improvised explosive devices, counterterrorism, and screening local hires—become more important. FIGHTING FOR INTELLIGENCE 4-68. Of all the Army strategic contexts, armed conflict creates the greatest challenge for the intelligence warfighting function, and large-scale combat operations against a peer threat is the most challenging form of armed conflict. The demands of large-scale combat operations consume all staff elements to provide the necessary support in the level of detail and at the tempo—the relative speed and rhythm of military operations over time with respect to the enemy (ADP 3-0)—these types of operations require. During large-scale combat, intelligence support is continually conducted to provide commanders and staffs the detailed knowledge of threat strengths, vulnerabilities, organizations, equipment, capabilities, and tactics to plan for and execute operations during unified action. An intense focus on the critical elements of intelligence support—such as supporting the commander and staff’s understanding, visualization, and ability to direct operations as well as assisting to drive the unit’s battle rhythm—is required. Chapter 8 details the roles and techniques associated with fighting for intelligence during large-scale combat operations. 01 October 2023 FM 2-0 4-15