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As the Army reflects on the lessons of the past 10 years, we recognize that lethal and nonlethal capabilities of conventional force must work among diverse cultures to fight and win population-centric conflicts. While these capabilities "reside" in special operations forces (SOF), the lack of comprehensive special operations and conventional force (CF) interdependence impedes the Army's ability to operationally leverage the unique cultural capabilities of special operations and inculcate them across the conventional force.
The Army's "campaign of learning," initiated to guide institutional change, has identified two important challenges to mitigate these gaps: improve Army capabilities to build foreign partner capacity and synchronize special operations and conventional force capabilities. To meet these challenges, the Army must use the generating force as an agent of change to institutionalize lessons learned, update the doctrinal framework with the linked concepts of the human domain and a 7th warfighting function, and expand the interdependence of SOF and CF. The Army must operationalize and institutionalize this change in order to adapt and continue to dominate unified land operations in the future.
The incorporation of the human domain with the joint domains of air, land, maritime, space and cyberspace increases understanding of the operational environment and mitigates seams created by the physical organization of operational areas. The operational environment is the composite of the conditions, circumstances and influences that affect the decisions and capabilities of the commander in mission command. The addition of the human domain extends understanding beyond the physical environment and includes the influences that affect human behavior and are critical to success in population-centric conflicts. Operational areas designated by joint force commanders often have physical dimensions with geographical boundaries that help commanders and staffs coordinate, integrate and deconflict joint operations. The human domain, however, is not limited by physical boundaries; it interacts with and supports dominance in each of the other domains.
Human Domain
The human domain is the totality of the physical, cultural and social environments that influence human behavior to the extent that success of any military operation or campaign depends on the application of unique capabilities that are designed to fight and win population-centric conflicts. It is a critical and complementary concept to the recognized domains of land, air, maritime, space and cyberspace. Special operations-critical...