Joint Operating Concept (JOC) - GlobalSecurity.org

two. When confronting non-state adversaries, the JFC may select a strategic
concept that confronts them directly by using US forces to conduct COIN or CT,
indirectly by using the security forces of state or non-state partners to conduct
the operations instead of US forces, or some hybrid of the two. Using an indirect
approach, the strategic concept may call for supporting the COIN and CT efforts
of friendly states against local or regional insurgent or terrorist adversaries by
providing intelligence, training, logistic, and combat advisory assistance and
denying resources to the adversaries, such as finances, transnational movement,
and access to communications. Further, an indirect approach would put a local
or international face on the effort, reduce the US contribution, and maximize the
strategic communications impact while denying the adversary the use of
“imperialist US” themes.
IW can occur within several strategic contexts, providing a broad range of
strategic options for JFCs as they design future IW strategies and campaigns.
• Option #1: Joint forces may conduct IW independently of conventional
combat operations. This type of IW activity is advantageous when one of the
end state objectives is to disguise or limit US involvement to preclude
escalation into direct inter-state conflict. This approach is attractive if the
adversary against whom the United States is engaged possesses significant
strategic, geographic, political, or economic advantages.
• Option #2: Joint forces may conduct IW in support of conventional
combat operations during a direct inter-state conflict. This has been the
most common form of IW in which the US military has engaged. The IW
component of a broader conventional campaign supplements, expands, and
deepens the scope and capabilities of the available lines of operation.
• Option #3: Joint forces may conduct IW as the primary or supported effort
of a military campaign, with conventional operations supporting IW
activities. The strategic, operational, and tactical advantages for applying
this context of warfighting include economy of force, deception, and
increasing the legitimacy of the supported irregular force.
4.d. Campaign Planning for IW
“The first, the supreme, the most far-reaching act of judgment that the
statesman and the commander have to make is to establish…the kind
of war on which they are embarking; neither mistaking it for, nor trying
to make it into something that is alien to its nature. This is the first of
all strategic questions and the most comprehensive.”
Carl von Clausewitz
Campaign planning for IW is similar to campaign planning for MCO with one
important distinction – for IW, the military instrument of national power is
usually, if not always, a supporting effort to the other instruments of national
power. As a result, one of the unique challenges of IW in developing a
comprehensive campaign is recognizing that the military plan must integrate
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