text: Chapter 4
  ⚫ Significantly modify the intelligence architecture to prepare for the possibility of armed conflict.
  ⚫ Set conditions to reset theater intelligence and the intelligence architecture.
  4-38. The intelligence staff must understand threat intent and COAs as well as ongoing activities in terms of
  the threat’s perspective, which often includes an extended time window. Leveraging the intelligence
  enterprise, including allies and partners, assists in understanding the threat’s perspective. This situational
  understanding is essential in gaining and maintaining advantages against the threat’s use of the five broad
  peer threat methods—information warfare, systems warfare, preclusion, isolation, and sanctuary (see
  paragraph 2-21).
  4-39. Truly understanding the OE across the domains and dimensions, including important interrelationships,
  significantly increases the likelihood that commanders and staffs can accurately predict when, where, and how
  the threat will conduct actions. When commanders and staffs can predict threat actions, friendly force
  capabilities can be used to quickly gain positions of relative advantage. However, intelligence is rarely perfect.
  When commanders and staffs have a lower level of situational understanding, it is important to develop and rely
  on detailed indicators of possible threat intent and COAs and continually track those indicators.
  SECTION IV – ARMED CONFLICT
  4-40. Armed conflict encompasses the conditions of a strategic relationship in which opponents use lethal
  force as the primary means for achieving objectives and imposing their will on the other. The employment
  of lethal force is the defining characteristic of armed conflict, and it is the primary function of the Army.
  Entering and terminating armed conflict are political decisions. Army forces may enter conflict with some
  advanced warning during a prolonged crisis or with little warning during competition. How well Army forces
  are prepared to enter an armed conflict ultimately depends on decisions and preparations made during
  competition and crisis. Army forces provide landpower to the joint force and conduct limited contingency or
  large-scale combat operations to ensure enduring political outcomes favorable to U.S. interests.
  Note. Large-scale combat operations are the focus of Army readiness and reflect the most intense
  and destructive form of armed conflict. Therefore, the rest of this section will focus on large-scale
  combat operations.
  WARFARE
  4-41. The object of war is to impose a nation or group’s will on its enemy in pursuit of policy objectives.
  Regardless of the specific objectives, the decision to wage war represents a major policy decision and changes
  how Army forces use military capabilities. The nature of war, its principles, and its elements remain
  consistent over time. However, warfare, the conduct and characteristics of war, reflects changing means and
  contexts. The Army’s multidomain operations concept accounts for the constant nature of war and the
  changing character of warfare. Its balanced approach guides how Army forces operate across the competition
  continuum given the prevailing characteristics of anticipated OEs now and in the near future.
  4-42. There are several important aspects of warfare discussed in FM 3-0. These aspects include the methods
  of warfare. There are many different methods of warfare, depending on the situation and actors, but they
  generally fall into two broad categories:
  ⚫ Conventional warfare is a violent struggle for domination between nation-states or coalitions of
  nation-states (FM 3-0). Conventional warfare is generally executed by two or more military
  forces through armed conflict. It is commonly known as conventional warfare because it means
  to fight enemy forces directly, with comparable military systems and organizations.
  ⚫ Irregular warfare is the overt, clandestine, and covert employment of military and nonmilitary
  capabilities across multiple domains by state and non-state actors through methods other than
  military domination of an adversary, either as the primary approach or in concert with conventional
  warfare (FM 3-0). Irregular warfare may include the use of indirect military activities to enable
  partners, proxies, or surrogates to achieve shared or complementary objectives.