text: Chapter 2
  The Brigade Combat Team and the Operational
  Environment
  This chapter discusses the brigade combat team’s (BCT) role in military operations
  and its interactions with operational environments. The chapter addresses key doctrinal
  concepts on how the Army fights regardless of which element of decisive action
  (offense, defense, or stability) currently dominates the BCT’s area of operations.
  SECTION I – OPERATIONAL OVERVIEW
  2-1. Threats to United States 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 cooperation to war. Threats
  seek to mass effects from multiple domains quickly enough to impede joint operations. Threats attempt to
  impede joint force freedom of action across the air, land, maritime, space, and cyberspace domains.
  Understanding how threats present multiple dilemmas to Army forces from these domains help Army
  commanders identify (or create),seize,and exploit opportunities during operations to achieve a position of
  advantage relative to the enemy. Thissection briefly covers key doctrinal concepts on how the Armyfights
  and how operational environments shape the nature and affect the outcome of military operations. (See
  ADP3-0 and FM 3-0 for a complete discussion of these doctrinal concepts.)
  ARMY STRATEGIC ROLES
  2-2. The Army’s primary mission is to organize,train,and equip its forces to conduct prompt and sustained
  land combat to defeat enemy ground forces and seize,occupy,and defend land areas. The Army accomplishes
  its mission by supporting the joint force and unified action partners in four strategic roles: shape operational
  environments, prevent conflict, prevail in large-scale ground combat, and consolidate gains. The strategic
  roles clarify the enduring reasons for which the Army is organized, trained, equipped, and employed.
  Strategic roles are not tasks assigned to subordinate units.(SeeADP 3-0 for additional information.)
  MILITARY OPERATIONS
  2-3. The range of military operations is a fundamental construct that relates military activities and
  operations in scope and purpose against the backdrop of the competition continuum (see figure 2-1 on
  page2-2). Rather than a world either at peace or at war, the competition continuum describes a world of
  enduring competition conducted through a mixture of cooperation, competition below armed conflict, and
  armed conflict and war. The potential range of military activities and operations extends from military
  engagementandsecurity cooperation,up through large-scale combat operations in war. Whether countering
  terrorism as part of a crisis response or limited contingency operation,deterring an adversary or enemy from
  taking undesirable actions,or defeating a peer threat in large-scale ground combat,the nature of conflict is
  constant.