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Published 1/2/2026
By Lieutenant Colonel Michael Carvelli
The protection warfighting function would be strengthened by a more detailed and deliberate support planning process. This approach offers three distinct advantages over the current method. First, it provides protection professionals—leaders within the protection community—a logical framework to identify critical assets, allocate protection resources, and define the desired protection effect. Second, this process empowers maneuver commanders to make informed decisions regarding the allocation of scarce resources. Finally, it directly supports the commander’s maneuver plan and contributes to achieving the overall end state.
Where Does Protection Fit in the Operations Process?
Commanders and staffs integrate protection—along with the other five warfighting functions—throughout the operations process of plan, prepare, execute, and assess. As illustrated in Figure 3-2 of Army doctrine publication (ADP) 3-371, protection and the military decision making process (MDMP) are mutually informing; protection informs the MDMP, and the MDMP, in turn, informs protection. Within this cyclical process, protection elements provide input at key decision points, and the protection staff receives resulting outputs. This continuous interaction refines the plan, shapes preparation activities, and enables effective execution with ongoing assessment.
The primary output of the operations process plan phase for protection is the Prioritized Protection List (PPL). As detailed in Table 3-3 of ADP 3-372, the staff refines the PPL to identify friendly assets and/or activities critical to the success of the chosen course of action and aligned with the commander’s intent. This refinement includes prioritizing these assets and activities, determining their location, adding clarifying notes, identifying relevant enemy threats, assigning protective tasks to units, and mitigating associated risks. The PPL represents both the culmination of the protection planning process and a frequent point of failure.
What Are the Gaps?
There are several reasons the protection planning step often runs into trouble after the PPL is created. First, the list, read from left to right, does not follow a logical flow. It does not build step-by-step to a prioritized list of assets that clearly support the maneuver plan. Second, it does not give assigned units enough detail to act effectively. It is generally an assignment of responsibility to multiple units. Finally, the staff often uses the risk management process to determine the PPL instead of applying a proper targeting methodology.
Simply reading the PPL from left to right doesn’t present information in a logical order. Staffs list assets, their location, add notes explaining why they’re critical (often vaguely), list every potential threat, and then assign protection responsibilities to various units. This forces users of the PPL to make a lot of assumptions. For example, with the Q53 radar as the top priority, should the 3rd Battalion 265th Air Defense Artillery Regiment focus on air threats or indirect fire? Should
the 1st Platoon 233rd Military Police Company prioritize enemy special purpose forces? Who is responsible for building a survivability position for the radar? Does the 1st Squadron 172nd Cavalry Regiment take the lead on area security, or are the military police responsible? There is too much information presented in a confusing way and not enough to clearly define the necessary steps to protect the Q53 radar.
Assigned units don’t receive enough information to take concrete action to protect the critical asset. For example, what size special purpose force is considered a threat to the radar? If the cavalry unit is assigned to this task, should they focus on preventing an enemy squad or team from getting into direct fire range? If the PPL clearly stated the expected size of the Special Purpose Forces threat, the cavalry unit could then focus on disrupting and reducing that force in the area, keeping it below a level where it could directly attack the radar.
The way this PPL is structured feels like it follows the risk management process rather than informing it. As illustrated in Figure 3-3 of ADP 3-373, determining if an asset or activity is truly critical relies on evaluating criticality, vulnerability, and probability. This process identifies the highest risks to the maneuver commander by prioritizing those assets or activities most critical to the organization, most vulnerable to attack, and most likely to be targeted by the enemy. These three factors combine to create a PPL that is poorly informed and difficult to put into action. Ultimately, the PPL becomes a list of assets requiring protection but lacks the necessary detail for units to effectively carry out those protective measures. To address these flaws, commanders and staffs should mirror the logic of other established integrating processes.
What Are Integrating Processes?
Commanders and staffs employ integrating processes to build shared understanding and synchronize warfighting functions—intelligence, movement and maneuver, fires, command and control, protection, and sustainment—with each other.4 These processes inform one another during MDMP, running concurrently to support informed decision making by the commander. The integrating processes are:
- Intelligence preparation of the operational environment.
- Information collection,
- Targeting.
- Risk management.
- Knowledge management.5
To improve protection support planning, integrating the targeting process—specifically including fire support tasks—is the most effective approach.
What Is the Targeting Process?
Targeting is the process of selecting and prioritizing targets and matching them with the appropriate response.6 Leaders must identify the timing and controls to ensure that units effectively engage targets. Although there is no prescribed format, a fire support task might include the target description, trigger time or event, location, observers, delivery system, attack guidance, and communications (TTLODAC).5 As shown in Table 6-13 from Army techniques publication (ATP) 3.09-426, TTLODAC provides enough information for an assigned fire support unit to employ fires assets. Using the TTLODAC example, the fire support unit understands the trigger when the fire support asset is on call, who is assigned to observe the target, the specific delivery system, guidance on the employment of the delivery system, and the means of communication during the event.
To be clear, TTLODAC provides a more defined framework than current protection-related doctrine. We can adapt its logic to create a friendly-focused process, incorporating risk management and targeting methodologies for enhanced protection.
How Can We Adjust TTLODAC to Protection?
To shift the focus from enemy and terrain-oriented fires to friendly-oriented protection, staffs must consider two key factors. First, they must analyze the enemy’s scheme of maneuver to determine the enemy commander’s high-payoff target list. Using the risk management process—criticality, vulnerability, and probability—staffs can help the commander visualize and describe those assets the enemy seeks to disrupt. Second, staffs must evaluate their commander’s plan to identify critical friendly assets essential to mission success. By understanding both the enemy’s intended targets and the commander’s priorities for protection, the staff can develop a more informed PPL.
Once both enemy and friendly assets are incorporated, staffs can define protection support tasks. A potential model for this is to identify the friendly asset or activity, determine its location, assess the threat, define the desired protective effect, establish a trigger for protective action, assign a protector, provide protection guidance, and establish communication protocols (ALTETPGC).
What Gaps Does This Close?
Employing this protection support task model offers three key benefits. First, it provides a logical framework for identifying, triggering, and protecting friendly assets and activities. While not a perfect solution, it enables commanders and staffs to assign units specific protection tasks that mitigate threats and hazards. Second, it integrates protection considerations from both the enemy and friendly perspectives. Finally, it allows staffs to refine the logic of the PPL.
To refine the PPL, the following table demonstrates a lower level of detail than the protection support task model provides. However, by working backward from these tasks, staffs can develop an enhanced PPL. The table outlines priority, critical assets or activities, location, threat, effect, and protectors.
From this PPL, the staff can create appropriate protection support tasks. For example, using the Q53 radar, a protection support task could look like this:
Why Is This Better?
Mirroring the targeting process provides protection planners a logical framework for executing MDMP throughout the entirety of the operations process. Implementing these protection support planning improvements results in an enhanced PPL and enables staffs to generate clear protection support tasks for assigned protection units. This focused approach is a significant improvement over assigning multiple unclarified tasks.
Endnotes:
1 Army Doctrinal Publication (ADP) 3-37, Protection, January 2024,
2 Ibid
3 Ibid
4 Ibid
5 Ibid, p3-16
6 Army Techniques Publication (ATP) 3-09.42, Planning and Integrating Fires for BCT Operations, March 2016, p6-22
2 Ibid
3 Ibid
4 Ibid
5 Ibid, p3-16
6 Army Techniques Publication (ATP) 3-09.42, Planning and Integrating Fires for BCT Operations, March 2016, p6-22
Lieutenant Colonel Carvelli serves on the First Army Division East staff. He was the commander of the 1-410 Brigade Engineer Battalion, 4 Cavalry Brigade, First Army Division East. He holds a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering technology from the Rochester Institute of Technology, New York, and master’s degrees in operations management from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville; civil engineering from the University of Florida, Gainesville; defense and strategic studies from the U.S. Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island; and military operations from the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.