Chapter 1: Strategic and Operational Framework
This chapter describes the State’s national security strategy and how the State designs campaigns and operations to achieve strategic goals outlined in that strategy. This provides the general framework within which the OPFOR plans and executes military actions at the tactical level, which are the focus of the remainder of this TC. See FM 7-100.1 for more detail on OPFOR operations.
Note. The State and its armed forces may act independently, as part of a multinational alliance or coalition, or as part of the Hybrid Threat (HT). When part of the HT, its regular forces will act in concert with irregular forces and/or criminal elements to achieve mutually benefitting effects. Is such cases, the national-level strategy, operational designs, and courses of action of the State may coincide with those of the HT. (See TC 7-100 for HT strategy and operations.)
National-Level Organization
The State intends to achieve its strategic goals and objectives through the integrated use of four instruments of national power:
- Diplomatic-political.
- Informational.
- Economic.
- Military.
The four instruments are interrelated and complementary. A clear-cut line of demarcation between military, economic, and political matters does not exist. The informational instrument cuts across the other three. Thus, the State believes that its national security strategy must include all the instruments of national power, not just the military. Power is a combination of many elements, and the State can use them in varying combinations as components of its overall national security strategy.
Note. The term the State is simply a generic placeholder until trainers replace it. In specific U.S. Army training environments, the generic name of the State may give way to other (fictitious) country names. (See guidance in AR 350-2.)