The
US Joint Chiefs of Staff has released the Joint Concept for Integrated
Campaigning (JCIC) dated 16 March 2018. “The
foundational idea of the JCIC is to enable an expanded view of the operating
environment by proposing the notion of a competition continuum. This competition continuum offers an
alternative to the obsolete peace/war binary with a new model of cooperation,
competition below armed conflict, and armed conflict. These are not mutually exclusive conditions.” “The central idea consists of four
interrelated elements that broadly describe how the Joint Fore and its partners
can effectively campaign: Understand the Operating Environment, Design and
Construct the Campaign, Employ the Integrated Force & Secure Gains, and
Assess & Adapt the Campaign.”
Intelligence is “The directed and coordinated
acquisition and analysis of information to assess capabilities, intent and
opportunities for exploitation by leaders at all levels to further national
interest.”[1]
The Operational Environment is: “A composite of
the conditions, circumstances and influences that affect the employment of
military forces and bear on the decisions of commanders.”[2] Simplistically, the study of the Operational
Environment needs to provide the following:
·
What is the current state of the Operational
Environment (context)?
o
Who are the actors? Are they cooperative, competitive or an adversary
in some or all issues?
o
Why?
o
What are their goals?
o
What are their capabilities?
o
What is their intent?
o
What and How are their relationships with
others?
o
What are their strengths and weaknesses?
o
What is their culture, religion, societal
structure etc?
o
What are their operational concepts, doctrine,
and tactics, techniques and procedures?
·
What is happening in the operational
environment (horizon scanning)?
o
What is changing?
o
Why is it changing?
o
How could it develop? Is it a risk, threat or an opportunity?
·
That can then lead integrated campaigning
design.
o
How do we want the Operational Environment to
be (desired outcome)?
o
How do we change the Operational Environment
(strategy)?
o
What are the activities of the actors? Why?
o
To who, what, where, when and how do we apply national
instruments of power to influence the actors in order to achieve our desired
outcome (ways)?
o
What are our military objectives?
o
What military capabilities and resources do we require
(means)?
o
How did our actions influence the operational
environment? (Complexity requires continuous assessment for adaptive planning)
“Gray Zone challenges are defined as
competitive interactions among and within state and non-state actors that fall
between the war and peace duality.”[3] Therefore, Gray Zone challenges are
activities that occur before armed conflict.
Political agitation, terrorist incidents and/or criminal acts etc will
be conducted to appear as unrelated activity to each other and the
sponsor. These activities are designed
to achieve the maximum progress towards the adversaries political desired outcome
below the threshold of conflict. Care
should be taken to detect a “fig-leaf[4]” and Denial[5] and Deception[6].
“Hybrid Warfare incorporates a range of
different modes of warfare including conventional capabilities, irregular
tactics and formations, terrorism acts including indiscriminate violence and
coercion, and criminal behaviour.”[7] Therefore, they are activities conducted during
armed conflict.
Increasing complexity requires intelligence assessment
of increasingly greater resolution of the operational environment to enable
understanding, rather than just situational awareness.
Integrated
campaigning and multi-domain operations will require timely, detailed, and
accurate intelligence, in order to achieve desired national outcomes. The intelligence community needs to adapt to
these circumstances.
[4] A minor action that could be used as a
justification for a larger action.
[5] Actions taken to prevent or impair
intelligence collection.
[6] Actions taken to influence an actor as
to the wrong adversary course of action.
[7] Frank Hoffman, Potomac Institute of
Policy Studies “Conflict in the 21st Century: The Rise of Hybrid
Wars” dated December 2007.
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