Quote Originally Posted by Bill Jakola View Post
FM 3-0 and the Tennessee chart depicting full spectrum operations (FSO) tends to constrain thinking into thematically exclusive bins of Offense, Defense, Stability and Civil Support Operations. However, the AOC now provides further expansion of FSO with the addition of two roles--Wide Area Security (WAS) and Combined Arms Maneuver (CAM). WAS is providing security, over wide areas so as a progenitor or condition setter of other missions e.g., COIN, Foreign Internal Defense, Counter Terror, or Humanitarian Operations. CAM is familiar to most as the archetypical Fulda Gap Army the U.S. possessed in the 1980s; but we may need to update this view in light of both technological and organization changes we have made specifically the interconnectivity, transparency, and speed of information and all the tools we now possess to collect, manage, and employ data, and the development of the modular Brigade force.
Do we need two more roles in the FSO, let alone two new terms? Constantly changing the terminology, when it's not really broken is a real pain, creates a ton of extra work updating publications and makes the teaching side of the house harder than it needs to be.

I much prefer CAM over warfighting which I think is a little narrow but does WAS add any value over the broader definition of Stability. Stability is those actions/operations conducted in order to maintain a stable environment from the point of view of domestic/national self-interest/objectives - what the UK have been calling countering irregular activity; CAM/warfighting crosses a line where the primary tool in use is the application of military force. Within either of these, you can have offense/defensive actions - I really don't like the depiction of off/def/stab as different functions i.e. stab being on a par with off/def.

I really look forward to the insights bound to come out of the TSLC.