Upgrade/update to the NEW 6th Edition (AODS6)!

Upgrade/update to the NEW edition! AODS5: The Army Operations & Doctrine SMARTbook, 5th Ed. is out of date has been superseded by a newer 6th edition AODS6 (Nov 2018).

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AODS6: The Army Operations & Doctrine SMARTbook (Guide to FM/ADRP 3-0 Operations & the Elements of Combat Power) is the new sixth edition of our Army SMARTbook. In addition to unified land operations (ADRP 3-0) and large-scale combat operations (FM 3-0), the 400-pg AODS6 includes completely updated and refocused chapters on the elements of combat power: mission command (ADP/ADRP 6-0), movement and maneuver (ADPs 3-90, 3-07, 3-28, 3-05), intelligence (ADP/ADRP 2-0), fires (ADP/ADRP 3-09), sustainment (ADP/ADRP 4-0), & protection (ADP/ADRP 3-37).

Always check our website for the most current and up-to-date SMARTbook edition! The Lightning Press is committed to providing the best and most relevant doctrinal material to our readers and are vigilant in reviewing new publications, anticipating upcoming doctrinal releases, and incorporating the updated material into our SMARTbook series!

Leading, Planning & Conducting Military Operations

BSS5: The Battle Staff SMARTbook, 5th Ed. incorporates the full scope of new material from FM 6-0 (w/change 2), Commander and Staff Organization and Operations (May ‘15); ATP 2-01.3/MCRP 2-3A, Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield/Battlespace (Nov '14); ADRP 1-02, Operational Terms and Military Symbols (Feb ‘15); FM 3-09, Field Artillery Operations and Fire Support (Apr ‘14); ATP 3-60, Targeting (May ‘15); and ATP 5-19 (w/change 1), Risk Management (Apr ‘14). Chapters and topics include the operations process (ADRP 5-0); commander’s activities (Understand, Visualize, Describe, Direct, Lead, Assess); the military decisionmaking process and troop leading procedures (FM 6-0: MDMP & TLP); integrating processes and continuing activities (IPB, targeting, risk management); plans and orders (WARNOs/FRAGOs/OPORDs); mission command, command posts, liaison (ADRP 6-0); rehearsals & after action reviews; and operational terms and military symbols (ADRP 1-02).

Commanders, supported by their staffs, use the operations process to drive the conceptual and detailed planning necessary to understand, visualize, and describe their operational environment; make and articulate decisions; and direct, lead, and assess military operations. The Army’s framework for exercising mission command is the operations process: planning, preparing, executing, and continuously assessing the operation.

Planning is the art and science of understanding a situation, envisioning a desired future, and laying out effective ways of bringing that future about. Design is a methodology for applying critical and creative thinking to understand, visualize, and describe complex, ill-structured problems and develop approaches to solve them. Preparation is activities that units perform to improve their ability to execute an operation. Execution puts a plan into action by applying combat power to accomplish the mission and using situational understanding to assess progress and make execution and adjustment decisions. Assessment is continuously monitoring and evaluating the current situation and the progress of an operation.

The military decisionmaking process (MDMP) is an iterative planning methodology to understand the situation and mission develop a course of action, and produce an operation plan or order. The MDMP helps leaders apply thoroughness, clarity, sound judgment, logic, and professional knowledge to understand situations, develop options to solve problems, and reach decisions. This process, consisting of seven steps with inputs and outputs, helps commanders, staffs, and others think critically and creatively while planning.

Throughout the operations process, commanders and staffs integrate the warfighting functions to synchronize the force in accordance with the commander’s intent and concept of operations. Commanders and staffs use several integrating processes and continuing activities to do this. In addition to the major activities of the operations process, commanders and staffs use several integrating processes to synchronize specific functions throughout the operations process. The integrating processes are: intelligence preparation of the battlefield (IPB), targeting and risk management.

A product of planning is a plan or order—a directive for future action. Commanders issue plans and orders to subordinates to communicate their understanding of the situation and their visualization of an operation. Plans and orders direct, coordinate, and synchronize subordinate actions and inform those outside the unit how to cooperate and provide support.

Mission command is the exercise of authority and direction by the commander using mission orders to enable disciplined initiative within the commander’s intent to empower agile and adaptive leaders in the conduct of unified land operations. Mission command is one of the foundations of unified land operations. This philosophy of command helps commanders capitalize on the human ability to take action to develop the situation and integrate military operations to achieve the commander’s intent and desired end state.

Rehearsals allow leaders and their Soldiers to practice executing key aspects of the concept of operations. These actions help Soldiers orient themselves to their environment and other units before executing the operation. An after action review (AAR) is a guided analysis of an organization’s performance, conducted at appropriate times during and at the conclusion of a training event or operation with the objective of improving future performance. The AAR provides valuable feedback essential to correcting training deficiencies. Feedback must be direct, on-the-spot and standards-based.

Guide to Terrorism, Hybrid and Emerging Threats

CTS1: The Counterterrorism, WMD & Hybrid Threat SMARTbook topics and chapters include: the terrorist threat (characteristics, goals & objectives, organization, state-sponsored, international, and domestic), hybrid and future threats (forces, organization, operations & tactics), forms of terrorism (tactics, techniques, & procedures), counterterrorism (strategy, fundamentals, command, planning, and operations) critical infrastructure (identifying weaknesses, risk management, and cyber threats), protection (warfighting function, supporting tasks, and planning), countering WMD (WMD weapons, planning, and execution), and consequence management (all hazards response, domestic, international and DoD-led CM).

* This is the second printing of CTS1 (Jul 2017), incorporating an updated DNI World Threat Assessment and additional materials from START/GTD. An asterisk marks changed pages.

Terrorism has evolved as a preferred tactic for ideological extremists around the world, directly or indirectly affecting millions of people. Terrorists use many forms of unlawful violence or threats of violence to instill fear and coerce governments or societies to further a variety of political, social, criminal, economic, and religious ideologies. Terrorists threaten the national power, sovereignty, and interests of the United States and our allies. Terrorists organize and operate in a number of ways. Some operate within transnational networks, others operate as small independent groups, and others operate alone.

A hybrid threat is the diverse and dynamic combination of regular forces, irregular forces, and/or criminal elements all unified to achieve mutually-benefiting effects. Hybrid threats are innovative, adaptive, globally connected, networked, and embedded in the clutter of local populations. They can operate conventionally and unconventionally, employing adaptive and asymmetric combinations of traditional, irregular, and criminal tactics and using traditional military capabilities in old and new ways.

Counterterrorism activities and operations are taken to neutralize terrorists, their organizations, and networks in order to render them incapable of using violence to instill fear and coerce governments or societies to achieve their goals. The purpose of CT is to disrupt, isolate, and dismantle terrorist organizations and networks to render them incapable of striking the homeland, US facilities and personnel, or US interests abroad. CT also includes crisis response operations to respond to imminent terrorist threats or incidents when preemption and preclusion are not successful. In addition to increasing law enforcement capabilities for counterterrorism, the United States, like many nations, has developed specialized, but limited, military CT capabilities.

Weapons of mass destruction (WMD) are chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear (CBRN) weapons or devices capable of a high order of destruction and/or causing mass casualties. The terrorist threat is amplified by the proliferation of WMD and their potential use by terrorists. The existence of these materials and the potential for use by actors of concern precipitates the need to plan, prepare for, and counter their use.

Critical infrastructure is a term used by governments to describe assets that are essential for the functioning of a society and economy - the infrastructure. Protection is the preservation of the effectiveness and survivability of mission-related military and nonmilitary personnel, equipment, facilities, information, and infrastructure deployed or located within or outside the boundaries of a given operational area.

Consequence management refers to measures to protect public health and safety, restore essential government services, and provide emergency relief to governments, businesses, and individuals affected by the consequences of terrorism. Incidents involving CBRN material produce a chaotic and hazardous environment requiring immediate response to minimize pain and suffering, reduce casualties, and restore essential infrastructure. Responders at the local, state, and federal levels may be overwhelmed by the magnitude of the incident, and U.S. DoD forces may be requested to provide additional support through the national response framework (NRF).

Train, Advise, & Assist

TAA2: The Military Engagement, Security Cooperation & Stability SMARTbook is the re-titled and re-focused second edition of The Stability, Peace & Counterinsurgency SMARTbook. Chapters and topics include the Range of Military Operations (JP 3-0); Train, Advise & Assist (SFA/FID/IDAD/HN/FSF); Stability Operations (JP & ADRP 3-07); Peace Operations (JP & FM 3-07.3); Counterinsurgency Operations (JP & FM 3-24); Civil-Military Operations (JP 3-57); Multinational Operations (JP 3-16); and Interorganizational Coordination (JP 3-08).

In the complex, dynamic operational environments of the 21st century, significant challenges to sustainable peace and security exist. Sources of instability that push parties toward violence include religious fanaticism, global competition for resources, climate change, residual territorial claims, ideology, ethnic tension, elitism, greed, and the desire for power. These factors create belts of state fragility and instability that threaten U.S. national security.

Throughout U.S. history, U.S. forces have learned that military force alone cannot secure sustainable peace. U.S. forces can only achieve sustainable peace through a comprehensive approach in which military objectives nest in a larger cooperative effort of the departments and agencies of the U.S. Government, intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations, multinational partners, the private sector, and the host nation.

Military engagement, security cooperation, and stability missions, tasks, and actions encompass a wide range of actions where the military instrument of national power is tasked to support OGAs and cooperate with IGOs (e.g., UN, NATO) and other countries to protect and enhance national security interests, deter conflict, and set conditions for future contingency operations.

Use of joint capabilities in these and related activities such as Security Force Assistance and Foreign Internal Defense helps shape the operational environment and keep the day-to-day tensions between nations or groups below the threshold of armed conflict while maintaining US global influence.

Stability operations are various military missions, tasks, and activities conducted outside the US in coordination with other instruments of national power to maintain or reestablish a safe and secure environment, provide essential governmental services, emergency infrastructure reconstruction, and humanitarian relief.

Peace Operations are crisis response and limited contingency operations conducted by a combination of military forces and nonmilitary organizations to contain conflict, redress the peace, and shape the environment to support reconciliation and rebuilding and to facilitate the transition to legitimate governance.

A counterinsurgency campaign is a mix of offensive, defensive, and stability operations conducted along multiple lines of operations. It requires military forces to employ a mix of familiar combat tasks and skills more often associated with nonmilitary agencies and to be nation builders as well as warriors.

Civil-military operations are a primary military instrument to synchronize military and nonmilitary instruments of national power, particularly in support of stability, counterinsurgency and other operations dealing with asymmetric and irregular threats.

Leading, Planning & Conducting Tactical Operations

SUTS2: The Small Unit Tactics SMARTbook, 2nd Ed. (with Change 1*) is the second revised edition of The Small Unit Tactics SMARTbook, featuring the full scope of new material and Doctrine 2015 updates to include ADP/ADRP 3-90 Offense and Defense, ADP/ADRP 5-0 The Operations Process, ADP/ADRP 6-0 Mission Command and more than 20 additional references. Chapters and topics include tactical mission fundamentals, the offense, the defense, stability and counterinsurgency operations, tactical enabling tasks (security, reconnaissance, relief in place, passage of lines, encirclement, and troop movement), special purpose attacks (ambush and raid), urban and regional environments (urban, fortified areas, desert, cold region, mountain, and jungle operations), patrols and patrolling.

* Change 1 to SUTS2 (Mar 2017) incorporates additional material from ADRP 3-0 (Nov 2016), FM 6-0 (Chg 2, Apr 2016) and Train, Advise, Assist (chap 4). An asterisk marks changed pages.

Tactics is the employment and ordered arrangement of forces in relation to each other. Through tactics, commanders use combat power to accomplish missions. The tactical-level commander uses combat power in battles, engagements, and small-unit actions.

Establishing a common frame of reference, doctrine provides a menu of practical options based on experience. It provides an authoritative guide for leaders and Soldiers but requires original applications that adapt it to circumstances.

The Small Unit Tactics SMARTbook translates and bridges operational-level doctrine into tactical application -- in the form of tactics, techniques and procedures -- and provides the “how to” at the small-unit level, providing a ready reference at the battalion, company, platoon, squad and fire team level.

Guide to Joint, Multinational & Interorganizational Operations

Announcing a new FIFTH revised edition! JFODS5: The Joint Forces Operations & Doctrine SMARTbook, 5th Ed., incorporates the full scope of new material from the latest editions of JP 3-0 Joint Operations (Jan ‘17), JP 5-0 Joint Planning (Jun ’17), JP 1 Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States (Change 1, Jul ‘17), and JP 3-08 Interorganizational Cooperation (Oct ‘16). Additional chapters and topics include Joint Task Force Headquarters (Jun ‘12), JP 4-0 Joint Logistics (Oct ‘13), JDN 2-13 Commander’s Communication Synchronization (Dec ‘13), JP 3-13 Information Operations (Nov ‘14), and JP 3-16 Multinational Operations (Jul ‘13).

The nature of the challenges to the United States and its interests demand that the Armed Forces operate as a fully integrated joint team across the conflict continuum.

Joint operations are military actions conducted by joint forces and those Service forces employed in specified command relationships with each other, which of themselves do not establish joint forces. The potential range of military activities and operations extends from military engagement, security cooperation, and deterrence in times of relative peace up through major operations and campaigns that typically involve large-scale combat.

Joint planning is the deliberate process of determining how (the ways) to use military capabilities (the means) in time and space to achieve objectives (the ends) while considering the associated risks.

Joint logistics is the coordinated use, synchronization, and sharing of two or more Military Departments’ logistics resources to support the joint force. Sustainment provides the joint force commanders freedom of action, endurance, and the ability to extend operational reach.

A joint task force (JTF) is established when the scope, complexity, or other factors of the contingency or crisis require capabilities of Services from at least two Military Departments operating under a single joint force commander.

Information-Related Capabilities (IRCs) are the tools, techniques, or activities that affect any of the three dimensions of the information environment.

Achieving national strategic objectives requires effective unified action resulting in unity of effort -- to include interagency, intergovernmental, nongovernmental and multinational partners. This is accomplished by interorganizational cooperation, synchronization, and coordination in the use of the diplomatic, informational, military, and economic instruments of national power.