text: Chapter 3
  Unified Land Operations
  If America’s armed forces have fought fewer than a dozen major conventional wars in over
  two centuries, they have, during that same period, engaged in several hundred military
  undertakings that would today be characterized as stability operations.
  The US Military’s Experience in Stability Operations, 1789-2005:
  Global War on Terrorism Occasional Paper 15
  Dr. Lawrence A. Yates
  According to ADP 3-0, unified land operations describes how the Army seizes, retains,
  and exploits the initiative to gain and maintain a position of relative advantage in
  sustained land operations through simultaneous offensive, defensive, and stability
  operations in order to prevent or deter conflict, prevail in war, and create the conditions
  for favorable conflict resolution. The goal of unified land operations is to establish
  conditions that achieve the end state of the joint force command by applying land
  power as part of a unified action to defeat the enemy.
  This chapter details CA support to the Army’s strategic roles as addressed through
  unified land operations and executed through decisive action. The strategic roles clarify
  the enduring reasons for which the U.S. Army is organized, trained, and equipped.
  Strategic roles are not tasks assigned to subordinate units nor are they phases. Strategic
  tasks should not be confused with the joint phasing construct. The civil population
  impacts every aspect of military operations. Failure to plan and failure to leverage the
  IPI within the OE will lead to failure of the military mission and failure to achieve the
  desired end state.
  CIVIL AFFAIRS CONTRIBUTION TO OPERATIONS
  3-1. The CA capability is vital to all operation types—across the competition continuum, in crisis or
  conflict—to achieve the required effects and the desired end states of the commander. Land operations disrupt
  routine life patterns of civilians who can dramatically impact military operations. It is critical for CA forces
  to be involved in the planning, development, and execution of appropriate civil controls. This protects
  civilians throughout military operations, reduces civilian casualties during consolidation of gains, and
  minimizes negative impacts on maneuver forces during large-scale combat operations.
  3-2. In addition, large-scale ground combat often disrupts lines of communications and access to basic
  needs and essential services. There are few uninhabited places in which the Army is likely to fight so, Army
  forces must plan to conduct the minimum-essential stability operations tasks (providing security, food, water,
  shelter, and medical treatment) as an integral part of large-scale ground combat.
  3-3. Before, during, and after large-scale ground combat, CA forces neutralize or disrupt adversaries by
  leveraging civil networks, resources, capabilities, and relevant populations. The civil knowledge derived
  from CNDE enables the situational understanding of the OE for the commander, enables visualization of the
  battlefield for the commander, and increases the lethality of the unit through targeting processes.
  3-4. The Army generates CA forces to plan, direct, and execute CAO. Each CA unit and staff section applies
  the CA core competencies, which are nested within CAO, to virtual, cognitive, temporal, and physical
  operations across the competition continuum.