The Army this week released its new operating concept, Unified Land Operations (ULO), its contribution to the joint force, officials said.
“The central idea, the operating concept, is that “Army units seize, retain and exploit the initiative to gain and maintain a position of relative advantage in sustained land operations and create conditions for favorable conflict resolution,” said Col. Wayne Grigsby, director, Mission Command Center of Excellence at the Combined Arms Center (CAC) part of Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC).
ULO is the central unifying concept that will drive the development of every other aspect of the service’s revisions to its doctrine under Doctrine 2015.
ULO describes the Army’s contribution to the joint force commander’s unified action, Grigsby said. Unified action is the joint force commander’s operating concept. ULO ensures the Army is nested in the joint community.
CAC Commanding General Brig. Gen. Charles Flynn said, “we have been so busy for the last 10 years, I think what we’re describing is a chance for us to capture and understand everything we have been involved in for the past 10 years.
The Army this week revealed the Army Doctrine Publication (ADP) 3-0 ULO at the Association of the Unite States Army annual conference in Washington, D.C.
“ULO represents an evolution of the best of the past doctrine, and the lessons learned from a decade of combat,” Grigsby said. The Army examined doctrine going back to World War II, coming up to date through Field Manual 1.
It’s not a revolution. It’s an evolution of thought,” he said. “This operating concept has always been there and it really jumped out as a fundamental principle as research was done.”
The foundation of Army ULO is familiar: “initiative, decisive operations, combined arms maneuver, wide area security, all enabled by mission command.”
The new idea within ULO, however, is the “identification of Army core competencies integrated together of combined arms maneuver and wide area security.”
All of this is enabled by mission command, all of it, as a warfighting function and a center of excellence, he said.
This common operational concept is adapted to the unique conditions of each conflict, he said, connecting the various tasks and adds founding principles such as lethality, adaptability, integration, and synchronization. It provides the common construct for organizing military operations.
All this has been much on the mind of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey–both during his tour as commanding general of TRADOC, and later as Army Chief of Staff.
Considering ULO, Flynn said, “the Army story is one of honor, sacrifice, commitment, a relentless pursuit of success, building winning teams. I actually think the introduction of mission command this past February and the revision of Doctrine 2015, and the introduction of ADP 3.0 is a time where our Army is being reflective on all the things we have learned in the last decade of war but then also with eyes wide open looking forward and saying this is what we must be.
Grigsby said it is always good for an organization or family to go back to fundamentals. ULO gets at those fundamentals that drive everything else.
“You build the doctrine, that synchronizes everything else: training and leader development, organization materiel,” Grigsby said.