TC 7-102 Operational Environment and Army Learning

Training Circular (TC) 7-102, Operational Environment and Army Learning, is a practical guide on how to integrate the conditions of an operational environment (OE) into robust, relevant, and realistic training, professional education, and leader development experiences. This TC presents critical design techniques and means that support the fundamental concepts of a continuously adaptive learner-centric model—the Army Learning Model (ALM)—for improved Army mastery to anticipate, understand, and adapt successfully to complex, uncertain, and/or ambiguous environments in decisive action.

The purpose of this TC is to guide the training developer, curriculum developer, and leader or commander on how to integrate OE conditions that enhance self-development, leader development, and unit or activity readiness. The intent is to achieve and sustain adaptive Army readiness to standards. Learning experiences range from personal one-on-one instructor-student or mentor-mentee dialogue to technology-enabled simulations and operational mission or training feedback that replicate a particular set of OE conditions in a task/action, conditions, and standards format. The Army’s Operational Environment Enterprise (OEE) delivers OE products, services and support to its Soldiers, civilians, leaders, and supported and supporting stakeholders for readiness. The OEE projects from the institutional training domain, that is, the Army’s institutional training and education system, and impacts the entire Army mission.

Introduction

Operational Environment

In planning a training scenario and its road to war, trainers need to take into consideration the entire operational environment (OE) and its impact on the Threat’s order of battle (OB). The DOD officially defines an operational environment as "a composite of the conditions, circumstances, and influences that affect the employment of capabilities and bear on the decisions of the commander" (JP 1-02 and JP 3-0). The operational environment (OE) is the synergistic combination of all the critical variables and actors that create the conditions, circumstances, and influences that can affect military operations today and in the near- and mid-term.

The OE has a direct impact on the architecture and capabilities of Threat organizations. Proper task- organizing can either mitigate or exploit the environment by the proper selection of organization and/or equipment. This enables the appropriate HTFS to perform countertasks that challenge the ability of U.S. units to perform the tasks in their mission essential task list (METL) in training environments.

The OE is the holistic view of the environment in the near- and mid-term that comprises the conditions, circumstances, and influences that affect the training and employment of military forces. Analysis of the OE focuses on eight interrelated variables:

Political.
Military.
Economic.
Social.
Information.
Infrastructure.
Physical environment.
Time.

An assessment of these critical variables and their relationships helps to understand any OE and its impact on the Army. The OE is particularly valuable in training. In order to develop adaptive leaders capable of operating in any OE, the Army requires challenging training scenarios, a Threat model, and Threat doctrine. This provides an adaptive, asymmetric Hybrid Threat in order to train, develop, and prepare Soldiers and leaders to overcome threats in a complex and adaptive OE. It also provides a benchmark to measure training effectiveness and combat development activities. See ADP 3-0 Unified Land Operations for further discussion of the OE and its application to training.

Real World

In the real world, the OE is the entire set of conditions, circumstances, and influences that U.S. Armed Forces can expect to face when conducting military operations to further the interests of the United States, its friends, and allies. The OE is “contemporary” in the sense that it does not represent conditions that existed only in the past or that might exist only in the remote future, but rather those conditions that exist today and in the clearly foreseeable near- and mid-term future. This OE consists not only of the military and/or paramilitary capabilities of potential real-world adversaries, but also of the manifestations of the seven other variables that help define any OE.

Training

In training environments, the OE is the environment created to approximate the demands of the real-world and to set the conditions for desired training outcomes. This involves the appropriate combination of a Hybrid Threat (with regular and, irregular capabilities representing a composite of a number of potential adversaries) and other OE variables in a realistic, feasible, and plausible manner. The purpose of the OE in training simulations is to produce the necessary training outcomes.

Note. The same type of OE conditions can be created to support some combat development activities that do not require simulation of a specific real-world potential adversary. However, some combat development activities may require portrayal of an environment that extends further into the future than is typical for the OE; in that case, they are dealing with the future operational environment (FOE).

Threat Force

As a training tool, the Threat must be a challenging, uncooperative sparring partner capable of stressing any or all warfighting functions and mission-essential tasks of the U.S. force. Training for the OE requires a Hybrid Threat that is “a plausible, flexible regular and/or irregular force representing a composite of varying capabilities of actual worldwide forces, used in lieu of a specific threat force, for training and developing U.S. forces” (AR 350-2). This manual introduces the baseline organizational structures of a flexible, thinking, adaptive Hybrid Threat.

As the real-world conditions and capabilities change over time, threat doctrine, organizations, and equipment capabilities will evolve along with them, to continue to provide the Army a threat appropriate for the OE. Thus, the threat will remain capable of presenting realistic and relevant challenges that are appropriate to meet evolving training requirements at any given point in time given current conditions in the OE.

Chapter 1: Hybrid Threat Roles and Relationships in Training

A Hybrid Threat Force Structure is a training tool that should allow the U.S. Army to train against a challenging and plausible sparring partner that represents the range of possible opponents the Army could face in actual conflict. It enables training of all arms of the Army and prepares the Army for potential combat operations.

Chapter 2: Hybrid Threat Force Structure

This chapter and the organizational directories to which it is linked provide the Hybrid Threat Force Structure (HTFS) to be used as the basis for a threat organization in all Army training, except real-world-oriented mission rehearsal exercises. This includes the forces of Threat actors as well as key non-state actors. In most cases, the organizations found in the HTFS will require task-organizing (see chapter 3) in order to construct a threat order of battle appropriate for a training event.

Chapter 3: Task-Organizing

The concept of task-organizing for combat is not unique to the Threat. It is universally, performed at all levels, and has been around as long as combat. The U.S. Army defines a task organization as “A temporary grouping of forces designed to accomplish a particular mission” and defines task-organizing as “The process of allocating available assets to subordinate commanders and establishing their command and support relationships” (ADRP 1-02). Task-organizing of the Hybrid Threat must follow Hybrid Threat doctrine (see TC 7-100, FM 7-100.1, and TC 7- 100.2) and reflect requirements for stressing U.S. units’ mission essential task list (METL) in training.

Chapter 4: Equipment Options

The Hybrid Threat Force Structure (HTFS) organizational directories provide example equipment types and the numbers of each type typically found in specific organizations. The purpose is to give trainers and training planners a good idea of what a Threat Force Structure should look like. However, training requirements may dictate some modifications to this baseline. Therefore, training planners have several options by which they can modify equipment holdings to meet particular training requirements.