This document describes how future Army forces conduct operations as part of the joint force to deter conflict, prevail in war, and succeed in a wide range of contingencies in the future operational environment. It describes the employment of Army forces in the 2016-2028 timeframe.

This book describes how future Army forces, as part of joint, interorganizational, and multinational efforts, operate to accomplish campaign objectives and protect U.S. national interests. It describes the Army's contribution to globally integrated operations, and addresses the need for Army forces to provide foundational capabilities for the Joint Force and to project power onto land and from land across the air, maritime, space, and cyberspace domains. The Army Operating Concept guides future force development through the identification of first order capabilities that the Army must possess to accomplish missions in support of policy goals and objectives.

The Army is the Nation's principal military force organized, trained, and equipped for prompt and sustained operations on land. As one of the critical elements in our national defense strategy, the Army must continually adapt to changing conditions and evolving threats to our security. An essential part of that adaptation is the development of new ideas to address future challenges. TRADOC Pam 525-3-1, The Army Operating Concept, describes how future Army forces conduct operations as part of the joint force to deter conflict, prevail in war, and succeed in a wide range of contingencies in the future operational environment. It describes the employment of Army forces in the 2016-2028 timeframe with emphasis on the operational and tactical levels of war. In addition to describing broadly how Army headquarters organize and direct the employment of their forces, the concept describes the major categories of Army operations and identifies the capabilities required of Army forces to guide and prioritize future force development. The ideas discussed in this document will guide revisions in Army doctrine, organizations, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel, and facilities. These ideas will also enhance the integration of Army forces with a wide array of domestic and international partners. The challenges of future armed conflict make it imperative for the Army to produce leaders and forces that exhibit a high degree of operational adaptability. Achieving the necessary level of operational adaptability requires the Army to build upon a foundation of two broad responsibilities within the framework of full-spectrum operations: 1) Army forces conduct combined arms maneuver to gain physical, temporal, and psychological advantages over enemy organizations. Applying an expanded understanding of combined arms, Army forces integrate the combat power resident in the Army's six warfighting functions with a wide array of related civil and military capabilities to defeat enemies and seize, retain, and exploit the initiative. 2) Army forces conduct wide area security to consolidate gains, stabilize environments, and ensure freedom of movement and action. Wide area security operations protect forces, populations, infrastructures, and activities, predominantly in protracted counterinsurgency, relief, and reconstruction efforts, and sustained engagement focused on the development of partner capabilities. Army forces capable of combined arms maneuver and wide area security operations are an essential component of the joint force's ability to achieve or facilitate the achievement of strategic and policy goals.

ADP 3-0, Operations, constitutes the Army's view of how to conduct prompt and sustained operations across multiple domains, and it sets the foundation for developing other principles, tactics, techniques, and procedures detailed in subordinate doctrine publications. It articulates the Army's operational doctrine for unified land operations. ADP 3-0 accounts for the uncertainty of operations and recognizes that a military operation is a human undertaking. Additionally, this publication is the foundation for training and Army education system curricula related to unified land operations. The principal audience for ADP 3-0 is all members of the profession of arms. Commanders and staffs of Army headquarters serving as joint task force (JTF) or multinational headquarters should also refer to applicable joint or multinational doctrine concerning the range of military operations and joint or multinational forces. Trainers and educators throughout the Army will use this publication as well.

“If you want peace, prepare for war.” “A buildup of offensive weapons can be purely defensive.” “The worst road may be the best route to battle.” Strategy is made of such seemingly self-contradictory propositions, Edward Luttwak shows—they exemplify the paradoxical logic that pervades the entire realm of conflict.In this widely acclaimed work, now revised and expanded, Luttwak unveils the peculiar logic of strategy level by level, from grand strategy down to combat tactics. Having participated in its planning, Luttwak examines the role of air power in the 1991 Gulf War, then detects the emergence of “post-heroic” war in Kosovo in 1999—an American war in which not a single American soldier was killed.In the tradition of Carl von Clausewitz, Strategy goes beyond paradox to expose the dynamics of reversal at work in the crucible of conflict. As victory is turned into defeat by over-extension, as war brings peace by exhaustion, ordinary linear logic is overthrown. Citing examples from ancient Rome to our own days, from Barbarossa and Pearl Harbor down to minor combat affrays, from the strategy of peace to the latest operational methods of war, this book by one of the world’s foremost authorities reveals the ultimate logic of military failure and success, of war and peace.

Impending technological advances will widen an adversary’s attack plane over the next decade. Visualizing what the future will hold, and what new threat vectors could emerge, is a task that traditional planning mechanisms struggle to accomplish given the wide range of potential issues. Understanding and preparing for the future operating environment is the basis of an analytical method known as Threatcasting. It is a method that gives researchers a structured way to envision and plan for risks ten years in the future. Threatcasting uses input from social science, technical research, cultural history, economics, trends, expert interviews, and even a little science fiction to recognize future threats and design potential futures. During this human-centric process, participants brainstorm what actions can be taken to identify, track, disrupt, mitigate, and recover from the possible threats. Specifically, groups explore how to transform the future they desire into reality while avoiding an undesired future. The Threatcasting method also exposes what events could happen that indicate the progression toward an increasingly possible threat landscape. This book begins with an overview of the Threatcasting method with examples and case studies to enhance the academic foundation. Along with end-of-chapter exercises to enhance the reader’s understanding of the concepts, there is also a full project where the reader can conduct a mock Threatcasting on the topic of “the next biological public health crisis.” The second half of the book is designed as a practitioner’s handbook. It has three separate chapters (based on the general size of the Threatcasting group) that walk the reader through how to apply the knowledge from Part I to conduct an actual Threatcasting activity. This book will be useful for a wide audience (from student to practitioner) and will hopefully promote new dialogues across communities and novel developments in the area.