text: Operations During Competition Below Armed Conflict
  (cid:122) Isolate the United States from allies and partners by fostering instability in critical areas and among
  relevant actors to increase U.S. operational requirements.
  (cid:122) Create sanctuary from U.S. and partner forces through international law and treaty agreements,
  monitoring and attacking partner forces from across international borders, and using proxy forces.
  (cid:122) Conduct systems warfare by executing cyberspace attacks against critical force projection and
  sustainment infrastructure nodes to delay or disrupt the United States’ ability to deploy forces.
  Systems warfare approaches include nonattributable attacks on domestic infrastructure and the
  employment of networked military capabilities that support isolation and preclusion efforts.
  ACTIVITIES TO PRECLUDE UNITED STATES ACCESS TO A REGION
  4-10. Adversaries seek to establish conditions that limit or prevent U.S. access to a region, typically in
  locations close to their borders. This includes forward positioning of layered and integrated air defenses,
  early warning surveillance radars, rocket artillery, electronic warfare capabilities, and counter-space
  capabilities. Additionally, adversaries may seek to position intermediate-range ballistic missiles, cruise
  missiles, fixed-wing aircraft, unmanned aircraft systems, and naval surface and subsurface forces to shape
  an operational environment in their favor. Positioning systems that support an antiaccess (A2) strategy allows
  adversaries to deny or disrupt U.S. access to a region in the event of hostilities while providing leverage
  against friendly partner nations with the potential use of force. Furthermore, the positioning of systems
  capable of delivering conventional and nuclear munitions creates additional challenges for the United States.
  An adversary’s ability to establish, maintain, and demonstrate robust A2 systems bolsters its domestic
  narratives while eroding partner nation trust and confidence.
  4-11. Friendly forces must assume they are always under observation because of all the means available to
  a peer adversary, particularly those available in space and cyberspace. In addition to forward positioning
  capabilities that support A2 and area denial (AD) approaches, these adversaries seek understanding of the
  disposition, readiness, and activities of U.S. forces within a contested region. Adversary activities include
  reconnaissance of U.S. military installations, unit movements, ports of embarkation and debarkation, and
  staging areas to identify potential targets for ballistic missiles and long-range fires. Adversaries employ
  cyberspace tools to conduct reconnaissance of friendly networks to identify vulnerabilities for possible
  exploitation. An adversary may conduct probing actions in the air and maritime domains to test responses by
  U.S. and other friendly forces. The intelligence gained through these activities will prepare an adversary for
  hostilities in the event a situation escalates to armed conflict. (See the ATP 7-100 series for a detailed
  discussion on specific threat capabilities and employment strategies. See Chapters 6 and 7 for specific
  examples of how adversaries are likely to employ A2 and AD capabilities in the beginning of a conflict.)
  PREPARATION FOR LARGE-SCALE COMBAT OPERATIONS
  4-12. Army forces that cannot credibly execute operations during armed conflict neither deter adversaries
  nor assure allies and other unified action partners. Preparation for large-scale combat operations is therefore
  the primary focus of Army conventional forces during competition. While there are multiple forms of armed
  conflict, large-scale combat among state actors is the most complex and lethal form of armed conflict, and it
  demands significant focus along multiple lines of effort to prepare for it. Some of the activities Army forces
  execute to prepare for armed conflict include—
  (cid:122) Setting the theater.
  (cid:122) Building allied and partner capabilities and capacity.
  (cid:122) Improving joint and multinational interoperability.
  (cid:122) Protecting forward-stationed forces.
  (cid:122) Preparing to transition and execute operation plans (OPLANs).
  (cid:122) Training and developing leaders for operations in specific theaters.
  SET THE THEATER
  4-13. Setting the theater is the broad range of activities continuously conducted to establish conditions
  for the successful execution of operations in a theater. Setting the theater never ends. It is conducted to