text: Chapter 2
  2-26. The Army strategic contexts and the range of military operations, which along with consolidating
  gains, significantly affect intelligence supporting activities. Consolidate gains are activities to make enduring
  any temporary operational success and to set the conditions for a sustainable environment, allowing for a
  transition of control to other legitimate authorities (ADP 3-0). Army commanders must exploit successful
  operations by continuously consolidating gains during competition, crisis, and armed conflict. Chapter 4
  details intelligence support to each strategic context and the consolidating gains for each context.
  UNDERSTANDING AN OPERATIONAL ENVIRONMENT
  2-27. An operational environment is the aggregate of the conditions, circumstances, and influences that
  affect the employment of capabilities and bear on the decisions of the commander (JP 3-0). For Army forces,
  an OE includes portions of the five domains (land, maritime, air, space, and cyberspace) understood through
  three dimensions (human, information, and physical). The land, maritime, air, and space domains are defined
  by their physical characteristics. Cyberspace, a man-made network of networks, transits and connects the
  other domains as represented by the dots shown in figure 2-3.
  Figure 2-3. Domains and dimensions of an operational environment
  Note. Joint doctrine describes the components of an OE as the physical areas of the land, maritime,
  air, and space domains; the information environment (which includes cyberspace); the EMS; and
  other factors. (See JP 2-0 and JP 5-0 for doctrine on describing and analyzing an OE from a joint
  perspective.)
  2-28. The OE model assists in accounting for the totality of factors, specific circumstances, and conditions
  that impact the conduct of operations. This understanding enables commanders and staffs to better identify
  problems, anticipate potential outcomes, and understand the results of various friendly, enemy, adversary,
  and neutral actions, including the effects these actions have on achieving the military end state. A description
  of an OE includes all factors that the commander and staff must capture and understand in order to inform
  the conduct of operations.
  2-29. Knowledge of the OE is the precursor to effective action. Obtaining knowledge about an OE requires
  aggressive and continuous intelligence operations, surveillance, reconnaissance, and security operations to
  acquire information. Information collected from multiple sources and analyzed becomes intelligence that
  answers commanders’ intelligence requirements. Using all available relevant information to determine how
  the OE affects operations is essential to understanding which COAs are the most feasible, suitable, and
  acceptable. Throughout the course of operations, commanders and staffs rely on an integrated information
  collection effort to develop an accurate picture of their OE. (See chapter 6 for more on collection.)