text: Chapter 4
  ADVERSARY ACTIVITIES TO CONTROL ESCALATION
  4-29. Peer threats may attempt to control the escalation of a crisis to avoid armed conflict with the United
  States by initiating actions to prevent or counter a U.S. response. These actions may focus on the United
  States and its allies by using the instruments of national power. These actions may include creating conditions
  on the ground designed to make U.S. military responses either too expensive to employ or too late to affect
  the political situation. A peer threat may also—
  ⚫ Accelerate its operational timeline.
  ⚫ Employ information warfare.
  ⚫ Increase support to proxy forces.
  ⚫ Increase the number of forward deployed units in the region.
  ⚫ Initiate crisis in other theaters to distract U.S. forces and diffuse U.S. response in the area of
  greatest interest.
  Note. In extreme situations to control escalation, an adversary may conduct a limited attack in
  response to U.S. reactions to the activities that precipitated the original crisis.
  ADVERSARY ACTIVITIES TO MITIGATE U.S. DETERRENCE
  4-30. As an adversary plans for operations during crisis, there are several key actions the adversary considers
  to mitigate U.S. deterrence efforts and ensure U.S. operations do not significantly interfere with adversary
  interests. These actions may include—
  ⚫ Conducting limited attacks to expose friendly force vulnerabilities. These attacks may also
  degrade the deterrence value of deployed forces and destroy credibility among current and
  potential partners.
  ⚫ Disrupting or delaying the deployment of Army and joint forces through cyberspace attacks and
  denial of space capabilities.
  ⚫ Exploiting gaps in national interests among the United States, partner nations, and potential
  partners by attacking weaker countries whom the United States has no treaty obligations to defend.
  ⚫ Conducting deception operations to conceal real intent.
  ⚫ Increasing the use of proxy forces to coopt, coerce, or influence the local population,
  organizations, and governments within a crisis region.
  ⚫ Creating multiple dilemmas for the United States by attacking or threatening the use of force
  against potential partner nations in regions outside of the crisis region.
  ⚫ Impacting the will of the public through information warfare, including cyberspace attacks.
  ⚫ Threatening the use of nuclear weapons to prevent intervention by the United States, allies, and
  partners.
  OPERATIONAL ASPECTS
  4-31. A crisis can result from one or a multitude of events/actions such as adversary actions/indicators of an
  imminent action or natural or human disasters. Examples of events/actions that can lead to a crisis include
  but are not limited to—
  ⚫ Aggressive behavior by an adversary to coerce and intimidate an opponent with the threat of
  force.
  ⚫ The presence of indicators foreshadowing a military coup or change of political power.
  ⚫ Increased dissemination of disinformation or misinformation targeted toward a country’s
  population and the international community.
  ⚫ Disease outbreak.
  ⚫ Build-up of military forces at an international border.
  ⚫ Failed elections.
  ⚫ Famine.