text: Chapter 1
  Overview of Signal Support
  Signal personnel and units at all echelons provide and secure the network for their
  commanders to conduct command and control and integrate the other warfighting
  functions across the range of military operations. This chapter describes the operational
  environment, the fundamental principles and core competencies of signal support, and
  the role of signal forces in support of Army operations.
  SECTION I – THE OPERATIONAL ENVIRONMENT
  1-1. Threats to U.S. interests throughout the world are countered by the ability of U.S. forces to respond to
  a wide variety of challenges along a competition continuum that spans from cooperation to war. U.S. forces
  conduct a range of military operations to respond to these challenges.
  1-2. Signal forces provide communications services that can quickly transition from fixed garrison
  infrastructure to deployed tactical systems to support Army commanders and units as they execute their
  assigned missions. The fixed infrastructure on posts, camps, and stations; mobile single-channel radio
  networks; and deployed communications sites combine to provide commanders the communications and
  information technology capabilities they need, at the right time and location, across the conflict continuum.
  CHALLENGES FOR ARMY SIGNAL SUPPORT
  1-3. The experiences of the U.S. Army in Afghanistan and Iraq in the early 21st century are not
  representative of the most dangerous conflicts the Army will face in the future. While the Army conducted
  combat operations in both locations, for the most part it focused its efforts on counterinsurgency operations
  and stability tasks (FM 3-0). In the future, large-scale combat operations against a peer threat will present
  much more demanding operational tempo and greater lethality.
  1-4. Army forces participate in operations as part of a joint and multinational force. These operations serve
  a higher political purpose, and they should be planned and executed at each echelon to support that purpose
  (FM 3-0). Signal planners must include unified action partner interoperability in signal support plans to
  enable collaboration and synchronization with joint, interorganizational, and multinational mission partners.
  1-5. Expeditionary forces must be ready to deploy on short notice to austere locations and immediately
  conduct combat operations. Commanders sequence their deployment so the arriving forces can defend
  themselves until follow-on forces arrive in the operational area. The earliest arriving forces have limited
  communications and network capabilities until their organic signal capabilities arrive and establish the
  network.
  OPERATIONAL ENVIRONMENT OVERVIEW
  1-6. Factors that affect operations extend far beyond the boundaries of a commander’s assigned area of
  operations. Commanders and their staffs seek to develop and maintain an understanding of their operational
  environment. An operational environment is a composite of the conditions, circumstances, and influences
  that affect the employment of capabilities and bear on the decisions of the commander (JP 3-0). An
  operational environment encompasses physical areas of the air, land, maritime, and space domains, as well
  as the information environment, which includes cyberspace, the electromagnetic spectrum, and other factors.
  Threat, friendly, and neutral actors can all affect conditions in the information environment and, by extension,
  the operational environment. Because cyberspace and the electromagnetic spectrum span all physical
  domains and geographic areas, some of these effects may originate outside the area of operations.