The point of 3-07 was to give substance to that block of full spectrum operations called stability operations. Mind you, I was forced to take 2.5 credit hours of STABOPS in undergrad a hundred years ago, so this is by no means "new".

In the years after the live fire exercise in Southeast Asia, we got exceptionally good at "two up and one back". The various MRE/MRXs made us an Army second to none in that area. But every major exercise I ever participated in, ENDEX was called, AAR, clean the gear and go home. This inculcated the misperception that in real combat, once the military force was defeated (or disappeared) we could declare victory, AAR, clean the gear and go home. Everything else was allocated to the "not my yob" box. This attitude is both wrong and dangerous, as we learned after completion of major combat operations in Iraq.

3-07 provides insight for planners and operators on what additional challenges might lurk around "2 up & 1 back" and ways to think about dealing with them.