Commanders Handbook For Attack The Network Color PDF Download

This handbook, "Commander's Handbook for Attack the Network," is designed to assist joint task force commanders and staffs in planning, organizing, conducting, and assessing attack the network (AtN) activities in support of military operations. It describes the fundamental actions, analytical methodology (i.e., AtN framework) that forms the basis for identifying and exploiting threat network vulnerabilities, AtN roles and responsibilities of the joint task force staff, and contributions of civil organizations in the planning, execution and assessment of AtN activities. As the post Cold War political environment demonstrates, the United States and its partners continue to face an uncertain and unstable world. This inherent uncertainty and instability means the American military must be prepared to face the continuing potential challenges of large-scale combat and smaller scale contingency operations. While the most important mission of the American military has been to fight and win the nation's wars, the ability of US forces to deter conflict has risen to equal footing. The ability to deter adversaries depends on the capability and effectiveness of US forces to act across the range of military operations. Deterrence also depends on the adversaries' belief that the United States will use its military power in defense of its national interests. Consequently, the US military roles and missions will continue to be: protection of the homeland; maintenance of the global commons; deterrence of adversaries; reassuring partners and allies; and when necessary, fighting and winning. The increasing globalization of trade, finance, and human travel in the commercial world has facilitated the rise of these transnational threats. Criminal and terrorist networks are intermingling to construct their own "shadow globalization," micro markets, and trade and financial networks that has enabled them to coordinate nefarious activities on a global scale. The ubiquity and ease of access to these markets outside of legal structures attract shadow financing from a much larger pool, irrespective of geography. In these markets, rates of innovation in tactics, capabilities, and information sharing has accelerated and enabled virtual organizational structures that quickly coalesce, plan, attack, and dissolve. As they grow, these markets will allow adversaries to generate attacks at a higher rate and sophistication beyond law enforcement's capability to interdict. The line between insurgency and organized criminal activities likely will continue to blur. The convergence is already seen in the connections between the Colombian FARC and cocaine trafficking, Nigerian Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) and stolen oil, and the Taliban and opium production. This means that funding for violent conflicts will interplay and abet the growth of global gray and black markets. In this era of failed states, destabilized elements, and high end asymmetric threats; the military must be prepared to adapt rapidly to each specific threat across the range of military operations. Successful operations will require military forces to work closely with, provide support to, and receive support from civil United States Government agencies and US Allies. This is not a fight the military can win alone, but only through the application of all the instruments of national power. Identifying and defining specific threats will become increasingly difficult, but is absolutely necessary if the US and its partner nations aim to counter the threats those organizations pose to local and regional stability.