text: Threats
  PHYSICAL DIMENSION
  Enemies operate within complex terrain to evade U.S. weapon systems and advanced, combined arms
  air-ground capabilities while trying to gain a tactical advantage. Even with regular forces, the enemy can
  operate in and among populations to evade detection, preserve combat power, and retain freedom of
  movement. The enemy looks to gain the same tactical advantages as U.S. forces such as control of key terrain
  and the civil populous.
  To achieve and maintain any tactical advantage, the enemy resorts to a multitude of tactics to include
  establishing relationships with local, regional, and transnational criminal organizations and contract military
  organizations to finance their operations and gain access to illicit trafficking networks for the movement of
  weapons, munitions, people, narcotics, or money. The enemy also can use these organizations to conduct
  reconnaissance and early warning to preserve the combat power of regular forces.
  COGNITIVE AND INFORMATIONAL DIMENSION
  Enemies recognize the importance of public perception and its impact on the conduct of operations.
  The enemy attempts to influence the will of the American people, key allies, and the conflicting populations
  through enemy information activities and attacks on U.S. and allies’ assets at home or abroad. The enemy
  uses information for effect. The enemy spreads misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda to shape
  local and international public opinion and perception against the United States, host-nation, or coalition
  forces by undermining ongoing stabilization efforts, marginalizing friendly successes or exaggerating enemy
  successes, exploiting instances of friendly force missteps, and fabricating or exaggerating friendly force
  cultural shortcomings. Enemy organizations attempt to manipulate local, regional, and worldwide news and
  social media outlets to achieve their goals. The psychological operations planners assigned or attached to the
  BCT or squadron have the resources to analyze and counter the enemy’s actions. Functioning cell phone
  networks are key terrain within the information dimension. The population can use smartphones to document
  friendly operations that may aid enemy collection or propaganda efforts.
  COUNTERING ADAPTATIONS AND RETAINING THE INITIATIVE
  Countering enemy adaptations and retaining the initiative in future, armed conflict requires forces that
  understand the threat and the operational environment. Reconnaissance operations must overcome
  increasingly sophisticated area-denial actions and capabilities to develop the situation. Combined arms and
  joint capabilities must be integrated effectively to seize the initiative and dominate an increasingly
  challenging and complex environment.
  Commanders and staffs must understand the tactical, human, and political dynamics associated with
  current and future armed conflict because of the requirements and challenges of the near, close, and deep
  operational environment. They must understand enemy organizations’ dynamics and capabilities within all
  operational environments. Identifying and distinguishing these groups and the associated dynamics is
  extremely difficult and requires a detailed, in-depth information collection effort through every phase of the
  operation. Only through an effective information collection effort can the BCT gain the understanding
  necessary to defeat an adaptive and determined enemy on current and future battlefields.
  SECTION III − RECONNAISSANCE DISRUPTION, TACTICS, AND TECHNIQUES
  The enemy employs combinations of lethal (for example, offensive and defensive tasks, assassination,
  and ambushes) and nonlethal (political subversion, propaganda, and intimidation) actions to disrupt U.S.
  forces to shape the environment, influence key actors, and to consolidate gains and efforts to accomplish the mission.
  The following vignette demonstrates how a peer-threat employed a new and effective reconnaissance-strike
  model during recent military operations in the Russo-Ukrainian War’s Donbas campaign. The Donbas
  campaign was a conflict between Ukrainian forces and Russia-backed separatist groups. The 2014 Russo-Ukrainian
  War was an unconventional approach of warfare for Russia. Russia used irregular fighters, disinformation
  tactics, conventional military support, and Russian troops to destabilize the Donbas Region. The following
  vignette introduces new and emerging threat tactics that near peer threats have brought forth on today’s battlefield.