Blueprint for the Airland Battle (Brassey's Terrorism Library)

FM 100-5, Operations, is the Army's keystone warfighting manual. It explains how Army forces plan and conduct campaigns, major operations, battles, and engagements in conjunction with other services and allied forces. It furnishes the authoritative foundation for subordinate doctrine, force design, materiel acquisition, professional education, and individual and unit training. It applies to Army forces worldwide, but must be adapted to the specific strategic and operational requirements of each theater. While emphasizing conventional military operations, it recognizes that Army forces must be capable of operating effectively in any battlefield environment, including low intensity conflict and on the nuclear and chemical battlefield. Employment of nuclear and chemical weapons by US forces is governed by US national policy.
FM 100-5 is compatible with and will serve as the US implementing document for NATO land forces tactical doctrine (Allied Tactical Publication 35A), but is both more theoretical and more general so as to meet US needs in other theaters. US troops operating in the framework of FM 100-5 will execute NATO's forward defense plans in compliance with ATP 35A.
As the Army's principal tool of professional self-education in the science and art of war, FM 100-5 presents a stable body of operational and tactical principles rooted in actual military experience and capable of providing a long-term foundation for the development of more transitory tactics, techniques, and procedures. It provides operational guidance for use by commanders and trainers at all echelons and forms the foundation for Army service school curricula. FM 100-5 emphasizes flexibility and speed, mission type orders, initiative among commanders at all levels, and the spirit of the offense.
This edition reaffirms the Army's doctrinal thrust introduced in 1982. It reflects the lessons learned since that time from combat operations, teachings, exercises, wargames, and comments from the Army in the field. Central aspects of AirLand Battle doctrine--its recognition of the importance of the operational level of warfare, its focus on the seizure and retention of the initiative, and its insistence on the requirement for multiservice cooperation--remain unaltered. The basic tenets of AirLand Battle doctrine--initiative, agility, depth, and synchronization--are reemphasized.