text: FM 7-100.1________________________________________________________________________________
  BASELINE
  As a baseline for developing specific OPFORs for specific training environments,
  this manual describes an OPFOR that is representative of the forces of con-
  temporary nation-states. This composite of the characteristics of real-world
  military and paramilitary forces provides a framework for the realistic and
  relevant portrayal of capabilities and actions that U.S. armed forces might
  face in the COE.
  The State
  For this composite of real-world threats, the manual refers to the country in
  question as “the State.”6 It describes this artificial country in terms of the eleven
  critical variables of the COE. As the baseline for the contemporary OPFOR that
  is representative of real-world forces, the State is not a peer competitor of the
  United States. However, it is a dominant power in its region of the world and is
  capable of challenging U.S. interests there. The general characteristics of the State
  could fit a number of different types of potential adversaries in a number of different
  scenarios.
  Like most countries in the world, the State does not design its forces just to fight
  the United States or its allies. It designs them principally to deal with regional
  threats and to take advantage of regional opportunities. Therefore, the State’s
  national security strategy (including its doctrine, force design, and investment
  strategy) focuses primarily on maintaining and expanding its position as a re-
  gional power. It develops its military forces in a way that ensures conventional
  power superiority over any of its regional neighbors. These forces, together with
  the State’s other instruments of power, make it a dominant force in its region.
  At the same time, the State is aware that aggressive pursuit of its regional goals
  might lead to intervention by a major power, such as the United States, from out-
  side the region. To the extent possible, therefore, it invests in technologies and
  capabilities that have utility against both regional and extraregional opponents.
  The basic force structure of the OPFOR is the same for either type of threat. The
  State must go to waror continue the war after extraregional interventionwith
  whatever it had going into the war.
  When an extraregional power intervenes with sufficient force to overmatch the
  State’s, the State has to adapt its patterns of operation. It realizes that the forces
  and technology that allow it to dominate its neighbors may not be a match for the
  modern, high-technology forces of a wealthy extraregional power like the United
  Statesat least not in a head-to-head conventional confrontation. However, it can
  use those means in creative and adaptive ways. To the maximum extent possible,
  the State plans and trains for adaptive operations and how it will make the transi-
  tion to them. It is the combination of the State’s capabilities and its adaptive strat-
  egy, operations, and tactics that make it believe it can take on such an extraregional
  force and win.
  6
  In specific U.S. Army training environments, the generic name of the State may give way to other (fictitious)
  country names such as Atlantis, Upper Flambokia, or Westland.