ADP 3-0: Operations 2025

Army Doctrine Publication (ADP) 3-0, Operations, is the United States Army’s foundational doctrine for how it conducts operations. It describes the Army’s contribution to unified action and joint operations through multidomain operations—across land, air, sea, space, and cyberspace.

Multidomain operations are designed to disintegrate adversary systems and allow U.S. forces to exploit those disruptions, defeating enemies in detail and consolidating gains to produce lasting strategic outcomes. ADP 3-0 guides how the Army adapts its operational approaches across levels of conflict—from competition, through crisis, to armed conflict.

ADP 3-0 emphasizes that Army forces must be capable of operating in environments of continuous competition. They must be prepared to execute operations that integrate joint and multinational capabilities and address adversaries with systems warfare approaches that challenge Army dominance in traditional domains.

Strategic Environment and Operational Levels

ADP 3-0 identifies four levels of warfare:

• National Strategic Level – Where the U.S. government develops global strategy to support national interests. This level involves setting national objectives and determining the resources available to achieve them.
• Theater Strategic Level – Combatant commanders synchronize instruments of national power within a geographic theater. This includes planning and executing campaigns to attain strategic objectives.
• Operational Level – At this level, commanders plan, prepare, execute, and assess operations designed to achieve strategic goals. It links tactics to strategy.
• Tactical Level – Tactical operations focus on battles and engagements. Units employ forces in direct contact with the enemy to accomplish specific tasks and missions.

Understanding these levels helps Soldiers see how tactical actions contribute to achieving broader objectives. For example, seizing a key terrain feature at the tactical level may be part of a campaign that disrupts enemy command and control at the operational level.

Army’s Four Strategic Roles

1. Shape Operational Environments – Involves operations that set conditions for favorable outcomes, often below the threshold of armed conflict. Examples include security cooperation, forward presence, and intelligence sharing.
2. Prevent – The Army deters adversary aggression through credible force posture and partnerships. This includes continuous engagement with allies and partners and maintaining readiness.
3. Prevail in Large-Scale Combat Operations – When deterrence fails, the Army must apply overwhelming force to defeat adversaries and destroy their ability to resist.
4. Consolidate Gains – Army forces secure territory and establish order following combat. This strategic role ensures tactical and operational successes are translated into enduring strategic outcomes.

These roles are not isolated; they are interconnected and often executed simultaneously across theaters.

Warfighting Functions

The Army organizes its capabilities into six warfighting functions to support mission command and achieve objectives.

1. Command and Control (C2) – This function enables commanders to integrate all warfighting functions. It includes mission command principles such as building cohesive teams, sharing understanding, and exercising disciplined initiative.
2. Movement and Maneuver – Enables forces to gain and maintain positions of advantage over the enemy. Examples include rapid deployment, infiltration, and envelopment.
3. Intelligence – Supports situational understanding. Intelligence tasks include reconnaissance, surveillance, and security operations to identify enemy capabilities and vulnerabilities.
4. Fires – Involves the use of weapon systems to create effects on the enemy. This includes field artillery, aviation fires, and joint fire support (e.g., airstrikes).
5. Sustainment – Supports prolonged operations by maintaining personnel, equipment, and supplies. Key tasks include supply, maintenance, transportation, and medical support.
6. Protection – Preserves combat power through force protection, chemical/biological defense, security operations, and survivability measures.

Each function contributes to generating and applying combat power in unified land operations. Commanders synchronize these functions across all phases of operations.

Combat Power and Its Dynamics

Combat Power is “the total means of destructive, constructive, and disruptive force that a military unit can apply at a given time.”

ADP 3-0 identifies key components of combat power:

• Leadership – Provides purpose, direction, and motivation. It integrates people, processes, and resources.
• Information – Enables decision-making. Information superiority allows commanders to act faster than the enemy.
• Mission Command – The Army’s approach to command and control.
• Movement and Maneuver, Intelligence, Fires, Sustainment, Protection – Warfighting functions collectively apply force.

The effectiveness of combat power is dynamic. Fatigue, enemy activity, and environmental conditions can degrade it. Conversely, high morale, terrain advantage, and effective sustainment can amplify it.

Generating Combat Power

Commanders generate and apply combat power through:

• Reserves – Allocated to reinforce success or respond to threats.
• Rotations – Maintaining operational tempo while preserving combat effectiveness.
• Joint Integration – Enhances Army capabilities through coordination with Air Force, Navy, and Marine assets.
• Access to Space and Cyberspace – Allows freedom of maneuver and information dominance.
• Multinational and Interagency Coordination – Leverages allied and partner capabilities.

Generating combat power requires adaptability. Commanders must reallocate forces and capabilities as conditions change.

Relative Combat Power Analysis

Commanders assess relative combat power by evaluating:

• Numbers and capability of personnel and equipment
• Quality of leadership
• Training and morale levels
• External factors (terrain, weather, time)

Comparisons are generally made two echelons down. For example, a division staff compares battalions to estimate operational feasibility and risk. This helps identify decisive points and assign missions accordingly.

Organizing Combat Power

ADP 3-0 emphasizes three organizing methods:

• Force Tailoring – Selecting the right capabilities and force packages for deployment.
• Task Organization – Structuring units and enablers for specific missions. This may involve cross-attaching elements (e.g., attaching engineers to an infantry unit).
• Mutual Support and Reconstitution – Ensuring units can reinforce one another and recover after losses.

Organizing combat power is essential to ensuring flexibility and depth in operations.

Multidomain Operations (MDO)

Multidomain Operations (MDO) are operations “conducted across multiple domains and contested spaces to create and exploit relative advantages.”

MDO enables:

• Penetration of enemy anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) systems
• Disruption of enemy decision cycles
• Rapid convergence of effects from all domains
• Exploitation through maneuver and sustainment

The Army uses MDO to create windows of superiority that allow decisive action.

Combined Arms and Joint Integration

Combined Arms is “the synchronized and simultaneous application of arms to achieve greater effect.”

This includes:

• Infantry, armor, aviation, fires, engineers, and electronic warfare assets
• Joint fires from naval and air assets
• Coalition support from NATO or partner nations

This integration maximizes complementary effects and mitigates vulnerabilities.

Operational Art and Campaign Design

Operational Art is “the cognitive approach by commanders to develop strategies, campaigns, and operations.”

Key components:

• End State and Objectives – Defined outcomes and desired conditions
• Center of Gravity Analysis – Identifying what the enemy must protect
• Lines of Operation and Effort – Visualizing movement and action across time and space
• Phasing and Transitions – Breaking the campaign into manageable parts

Commanders apply operational art to ensure tactical actions align with strategic goals.

Strategic and Operational Frameworks

• Strategic Frameworks guide unified action across geographic commands.
• Operational Frameworks include:
  • Deep Area – Targets shaping future operations
  • Close Area – Decisive fights
  • Support Area – Secures logistics and sustainment

These frameworks help commanders sequence operations and allocate resources.

Tenets and Imperatives of MDO

Tenets:

• Initiative – Seize and retain the advantage
• Depth – Operate across the depth of the battlefield
• Convergence – Integrate effects from multiple domains
• Endurance – Sustain operations over time
• Tempo – Operate faster than the enemy can react

Imperatives:

• Mission Command – Empower subordinates to act
• Decision Dominance – Act faster with better information
• Adaptation – Adjust rapidly to changing conditions

These principles help Army forces outmaneuver adaptive and hybrid threats.

Conclusion

ADP 3-0 serves as the doctrinal foundation for how the Army fights and operates. It ensures Army forces remain agile, adaptive, and ready for current and future operational environments.

From shaping the environment in peacetime to prevailing in large-scale combat and consolidating gains, Soldiers must understand their roles within the Army’s strategic framework.

By mastering warfighting functions, applying operational art, and leveraging joint and multinational capabilities, Army personnel contribute to achieving decisive outcomes.

Whether at the squad, battalion, or corps level, every Soldier plays a vital part in executing the principles outlined in ADP 3-0—and winning in a multidomain battlespace.

ADP 3-0 Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is the Army Doctrine Publication ADP 3-0: Unified Land Operations?

“ADP 3-0 is the Army’s capstone doctrine for unified land operations.”
“Unified land operations describe 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.” (ADP 3-0, p. vii)

ADP 3-0 guides how the Army adapts its operational approaches across levels of conflict—from competition, through crisis, to armed conflict.

ADP 3-0 is one of the Army’s two capstone doctrinal publications, alongside ADP 1. It articulates how the Army conducts prompt and sustained operations across multiple domains—land, air, maritime, space, and cyberspace—as part of unified action.

The central concept is Unified Land Operations, which describes how the Army seizes, retains, and exploits the initiative to gain and maintain a position of relative advantage through simultaneous offensive, defensive, and stability operations.

2. What is FM 3-0: Operations Doctrine?

“FM 3-0 provides guidance for conducting Army operations as part of unified action. It describes how Army forces conduct prompt and sustained land combat as part of the joint force.”
“It expands on the foundations and tenets found in ADP 3-0, applying them to the challenges of the operational environment.” (ADP 3-0 reference to FM 3-0 usage)

Field Manual (FM) 3-0 expands upon the principles outlined in ADP 3-0 by providing detailed guidance on planning and executing operations. The latest edition emphasizes Multidomain Operations (MDO), focusing on how Army forces integrate joint capabilities to conduct operations across all domains.

FM 3-0 addresses challenges such as shaping operational environments, preventing conflict, prevailing during large-scale ground combat, and consolidating gains to achieve strategic objectives.

3. What are the warfighting functions of the Army?

“Command and control, movement and maneuver, intelligence, fires, sustainment, and protection.” (ADP 3-0, p. 5)

The Army organizes its capabilities into seven warfighting functions to facilitate mission command and achieve objectives:​

1. Command and Control (C2): The exercise of authority and direction by a properly designated commander.
2. Movement and Maneuver: The disposition of forces to achieve a position of advantage.
3. Intelligence: The collection and analysis of information to support decision-making.
4. Fires: The use of weapon systems to create effects on the enemy.
5. Sustainment: The provision of logistics and personnel services to maintain operations.
6. Protection: Preserving the force through defensive measures.
7. Information: The integration and synchronization of information-related capabilities.

4. What ADP covers Army operations?

“ADP 3-0, Operations, is the Army’s capstone doctrine for conducting operations.”
“It is the foundation for all Army operational doctrine.” (ADP 3-0, p. vii)

ADP 3-0: Operations is the primary publication that covers Army operations. It outlines the Army’s operational doctrine, detailing how forces conduct operations across the range of military operations. ADP 3-0 serves as a foundational document for understanding how the Army applies landpower in unified action.

5. What are common ADP 3-0 board questions and answers (official phrasing)?

Q: What is Unified Land Operations?

“Unified land operations describe how the Army seizes, retains, and exploits the initiative… through simultaneous offensive, defensive, and stability operations.” (p. vii)

Q: What are the Army’s four strategic roles?

“Shape operational environments, prevent conflict, prevail in large-scale ground combat, and consolidate gains.” (p. vii)

Q: What is operational art?

“Operational art is the cognitive approach by commanders and staffs—supported by their skill, knowledge, experience, creativity, and judgment—to develop strategies, campaigns, and operations to organize and employ military forces.” (p. 18)

Q: What are the tenets of Unified Land Operations?

“Initiative, depth, simultaneity, synchronization, and flexibility.” (p. 7)

Q: What are the operational frameworks?

“Commanders use the operational framework to articulate their concept of operations in time, space, purpose, and resources.” (p. 18)

6. What is Multidomain Operations (MDO)?

“Multidomain operations are the combined arms employment of joint and Army capabilities to create and exploit relative advantages that achieve objectives and defeat enemy forces in and across all domains.” (ADP 3-0, p. 6)

MDO enables forces to penetrate enemy defenses, disintegrate systems, and exploit positions of advantage.

7. What is the purpose of operational art and campaign design?

“Operational art is the cognitive approach by commanders to develop strategies, campaigns, and operations to organize and employ military forces.” (ADP 3-0, p. 18)

Campaign design connects tactical actions to strategic objectives and includes phasing, transitions, sequencing, and lines of operation.

8. What are the Tenets and Imperatives of MDO?

Tenets:

• Initiative, depth, convergence, endurance, tempo.

Imperatives:

• Mission command, decision dominance, and adaptation. (ADP 3-0, p. 6)

These guide Army forces in integrating joint and Army capabilities effectively.

9. How is combat power generated and applied?

“Combat power is the total means of destructive, constructive, and disruptive force that a military unit can apply at a given time.” (ADP 3-0, p. 3)

It is applied through warfighting functions, leadership, information, and the ability to exploit opportunities.

10. How does ADP 3-0 describe the operational environment?

“The operational environment includes conditions, circumstances, and influences that affect employment of capabilities and decisions of commanders.” (ADP 3-0, p. 1)

It is increasingly contested in all domains, requiring integration of all Army and joint capabilities.