JP 1, Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States - Defense ...

Chapter I
employing the instruments of national power discussed herein in effective combinations and
all possible situations from peace to war.
c. At the President’s direction through the interagency process, military power is
integrated with other instruments of national power to advance and defend US values,
interests, and objectives. To accomplish this integration, the Armed Forces interact with the
other departments and agencies to develop a mutual understanding of the capabilities,
limitations, and consequences of military and civilian actions. They also identify the ways in
which military and nonmilitary capabilities best complement each other. The NSC plays key
roles in the integration of all instruments of national power, facilitating Presidential
direction, cooperation, and unity of effort (unified action).
d. Political and military leaders must consider the employment of military force in
operations characterized by a complex, interconnected, and global operational environment
that affect the employment of capabilities and bear on the decisions of the commander. The
addition of military force to coerce an adversary should be carefully integrated with the other
instruments of national power to achieve our objectives.
e. The military instrument of national power can be used in a wide variety of ways that
vary in purpose, scale, risk, and combat intensity. These various ways can be understood to
occur across a continuum of conflict ranging from peace to war. Inside this continuum, it is
useful from a strategic perspective to delineate the use of the military instrument of national
power into three broad categories. Mindful that the operational level of warfare connects the
tactical to the strategic, and operations and campaigns are themselves scalable, the US uses
the construct of the ROMO to provide insight into the various broad usages of military
power from a strategic perspective. See Figure I-3 for these three broad categories, noting
that the delineations between the categories are not precise, as each application of military
power has unique contextual elements. Each category will be discussed in turn.
Range of Military Operations
Peace Conflict Continuum War
Major Operations and Campaigns
Crisis Response and Limited Contingency Operations
Range of
Military
Operations
Military Engagement, Security Cooperation, and Deterrence
Our national leaders can use the military instrument of national power across the conflict
continuum in a wide variety of operations that are commonly characterized in three groups as
this figure depicts.
Figure I-3. Range of Military Operations
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