text: Fundamentals of Operations
  See the Enemy
  3-43. Commanders see the enemy in terms of its combat power, advantages, and intentions within the
  operational environment and broader strategic context. Commanders develop their understanding of enemy
  forces from their individual knowledge, experience, and judgment honed through self-study, training, and
  education. From this base of knowledge commanders and staffs build shared understanding of enemy forces
  and environment through intelligence preparation of the battlefield. Intelligence preparation of the battlefield
  is the systematic process of analyzing the mission variables of enemy, terrain, weather, and civil
  considerations in an area of interest to determine their effect on operations (ATP 2-01.3).
  3-44. Intelligence preparation of the battlefield provides commanders with awareness of information gaps
  about enemy forces and the operational environment. Staffs translate these gaps into information
  requirements and assist the commander in determining priority intelligence requirements. A priority
  intelligence requirement is the intelligence component of commander’s critical information requirements
  used to focus the employment of limited intelligence assets and resources against competing demands for
  intelligence support (JP 2-0). More importantly, priority intelligence requirements (known as PIRs) identify
  information about the threat and operational environment that a commander considers most important to
  making decisions in a specific context. Intelligence about civil considerations may be as critical as
  intelligence about enemy forces in some cases. The intelligence officer, in coordination with the rest of the
  staff, manages priority intelligence requirements for the commander.
  3-45. Enemy forces attempt to hide from, deceive, disrupt, and deny friendly collection efforts to prevent
  friendly forces from perceiving the enemy’s true intentions. This requires commanders plan to develop the
  situation through action and fight for information. Information collection operations may require the
  commander to assume significant risk to determine enemy dispositions and anticipate enemy intentions.
  3-46. Leaders do not limit their understanding of the enemy to those forces in their assigned area. Enemy
  forces are capable of employing capabilities from great distances and multiple domains. Leaders must be
  aware of those capabilities so they can take appropriate action. (See paragraphs 3-75 through 3-79 for more
  information on making enemy contact.)
  Understand the Operational Environment
  3-47. Leaders view the operational environment in terms of domains, dimensions, operational variables, and
  mission variables that are relevant to their decisions. The most difficult aspect of an operational environment
  to understand is how the different factors interact to affect operations.
  3-48. Understanding is, in the context of decision making, knowledge that has been synthesized and had
  judgment applied to comprehend the situation’s inner relationships, enable decision making, and drive action
  (ADP 6-0). Understanding is judgment applied to knowledge in the context of a particular situation.
  Understanding is knowing enough about a situation to make an informed decision. Judgment is based on
  experience, expertise, and intuition—and it informs what decision to make.
  Situational Understanding
  3-49. Successful operations demand timely and effective decisions based on the information available. As
  such, commanders and staffs seek to build and maintain situational understanding throughout an operation.
  Situational understanding is the product of applying analysis and judgment to relevant information to
  determine the relationships among the operational and mission variables (ADP 6-0). Situational
  understanding allows commanders to make effective decisions and enables commanders and staffs to assess
  operations accurately. Commanders and staffs continually strive to maintain their situational understanding
  and work through periods of uncertainty, accepting that they cannot eliminate them. They train their staffs
  and subordinates to function in uncertain environments.
  Shared Understanding
  3-50. A critical challenge for commanders, staffs, and unified action partners is creating common
  understanding of an operational environment, an operation’s purpose, its challenges, and the approaches to