text: Foundations of Counterinsurgency
  counterinsurgent forces, securing key sites, and securing key personnel. The successful counterinsurgent
  unit designs its defensive operations to complement its other offensive and stability operations. Chapter 6
  further discusses defensive operations.
  STABILITY OPERATIONS
  3-31. These encompass various military missions, tasks, and activities conducted outside the United
  States in coordination with other instruments of national power to maintain or reestablish a safe and secure
  environment, provide essential government, services, emergency infrastructure, reconstruction,
  and humanitarian relief. Most stability operations are both multiagency and multinational. Forces engaged
  in stability operations may have to conduct offensive and defensive operations to defend themselves
  or destroy forces seeking to undermine the effectiveness or credibility of the stability mission.
  3-32. Stability operations consist of five primary tasks—establish civil security, establish civil control,
  support to governance, restore essential services, and support to economic and infrastructure development.
  At the tactical level, the primary stability tasks may serve as lines of effort or simply as guideposts
  to ensure broader unity of effort. In this manual, they become the nucleus for the seven COIN lines
  of effort.
  3-33. The degree to which Army forces engage in stability operations is dependent on the specific
  circumstances of any given operation. In some operations, the Host Nation can carry out most security
  operations and Army forces are engaged in stability operations to offset any negative impact of military
  presence on the populace. In other operations, Army forces within a failed state may be responsible for the
  well-being of the local population, to include providing basic civil functions, while working with other
  agencies to restore essential services to the area or region. An example of this was Operation Restore Hope
  in Somalia in 1992 and 1993. Chapter 7 further discusses stability operations.
  LINES OF EFFORT IN COUNTERINSURGENCY
  3-34. Commanders use LOEs to visualize, describe, and direct operations when positional reference
  to enemy forces has little relevance, such as an insurgency. FM 3-0 defines a line of effort as a line that
  links multiple tasks and missions using the logic of purpose—cause and effect—to focus efforts toward
  establishing operational and strategic conditions. A plan based on LOEs unifies the efforts of all actors
  participating in a counterinsurgency toward a common purpose. Each LOE represents a conceptual
  category along which the HN government and COIN force commander intend to attack the insurgent
  strategy and tactics and establish HN government legitimacy. LOEs are closely related and are not
  sequential in nature. Successful achievement of the end state requires careful coordination of actions
  undertaken along all LOEs. Figure 3-2 shows example COIN LOEs. The figure also shows how the LOEs
  try to gain the support of the population to reach the end state.
  3-35. Success in one LOE reinforces successes in the others. Progress along each LOE contributes
  to attaining a stable and secure environment for the Host Nation. Once a measure of stability is achieved,
  achievements in other LOEs, like popular recognition of the HN government’s legitimacy, improved
  governance, and progressive, substantive reduction of the root causes that lead to the insurgency, follow.
  No single list of LOEs applies to all insurgencies. Commanders select LOEs based on their understanding
  of the nature of the insurgency and what the COIN force must do to counter it. Commanders designate
  LOEs that best focus counterinsurgent efforts against the insurgents’ strategy.
  3-36. Commanders at all echelons can use LOEs. Lower echelon operations are nested within the higher
  echelon’s LOEs; however, lower echelon operations are conducted based on each unit’s AO. Commanders
  and staffs synchronize activities along all LOEs to gain unity of effort. This approach ensures the LOEs
  converge on a well-defined, commonly understood end state.
  3-37. Commanders at all levels should select the LOEs that relate best to achieving the desired end state.
  The following list of possible LOEs is not all-inclusive. However, it gives commanders a place to start:
  • Establish civil security.