10 Tips for Improving Your Protection Working Group
Can't Measure a Negative: The Protection Warfighting Function and Large-Scale Combat Operations
Published 9/18/2025
By Colonel Robert R. Rodock
This article challenges the narrow, reactive view of protection as merely defending assets and instead presents a transformative framework developed by III Armored Corps that operationalizes protection as an offensive, initiative-seizing function in large-scale combat operations. Colonel Rodock introduces "protection mechanisms" (preserving combat power, denying enemy intent, and enabling decision making) and "protection vectors" (organized across domains and dimensions) as a shared language that elevated protection from measuring what didn't get destroyed to actively shaping operational success across time, space, and purpose.
Failure to Consider Protection in Large-Scale Combat Operations: The Siverskyi Donets River Crossing
Published 9/16/2025
By Major Peter J. Witcomb
This article examines the catastrophic Russian failure at the Siverskyi Donets River crossing in May 2022, where Ukrainian forces decimated an entire Russian battalion tactical group attempting one of warfare's most difficult tasks—a deliberate wet gap crossing. Major Witcomb analyzes how Russia's disregard for three critical protection considerations—survivability, air and missile defense, and area security—transformed what should have been a carefully planned operation into a tactical disaster, offering contemporary lessons for protection planning in large-scale combat operations.
Protection: The Australian Army Combat Engineer Regiment Approach
Published 9/11/2025
By Major Peter J. Witcomb
This article explores the protection warfighting function through the organizational structure and capabilities of the Australian Army Combat Engineer Regiment, revealing how these units directly support only four of the sixteen primary U.S. Army protection tasks yet remain indispensable to mission success. Major Witcomb uses a fictional Indo-Pacific vignette to demonstrate how Combat Engineer Regiments enable anti-access/area denial operations through survivability, route clearance, and infrastructure hardening—illustrating the critical but often underappreciated role of combat engineers in creating the conditions for operational success in complex littoral environments.
Fight to Protect the Force
Published 9/11/2025
By Lieutenant Colonel Bryan B. Ault and Lieutenant Colonel Douglas D. Bazil
This article confronts the stark reality that U.S. Army forces remain unprepared for modern combat's persistent sensor-to-shooter environment, where every asset is observable and targetable within seconds. Lieutenant Colonels Ault and Bazil argue that divisions must fundamentally transform their approach to protection—from individual Soldiers practicing rigorous signature management to division-level integration of protection capabilities through deliberate Protection Prioritization Lists—drawing on First Infantry Division lessons from National Training Center Rotation 25-03 to demonstrate how emissions control, camouflage discipline, and layered protection can preserve combat power in large-scale combat operations.
Protection: The Fabric of the Warfighting Functions
Published 9/10/2025
By Lieutenant Colonel Michael Carvelli
This article challenges the fundamental conceptualization of protection as a standalone warfighting function, arguing instead that protection is the connective fabric woven through all other warfighting functions when viewed through a risk management lens. Lieutenant Colonel Carvelli exposes the structural awkwardness of protection—its elusive boundaries, lack of aligned organizational structures, and absence of clear command responsibility—and proposes that the Army must either fundamentally reconceptualize the warfighting function model or establish formal protection leadership positions and career pathways to address this doctrinal and organizational ambiguity.
Enabling Convergence: How Engineers Protect the Multidomain Battlespace
Published 9/10/2025
By Chief Warrant Officer Three Aren Hansen
This article positions U.S. Army Engineers as the essential architects of convergence in multidomain operations, demonstrating how engineer capabilities in mobility, electromagnetic protection, and infrastructure development create the conditions for synchronized cross-domain effects. Chief Warrant Officer Three Hansen argues that engineers enable convergence not through supporting efforts but as integral contributors to the protection warfighting function—clearing obstacles for maneuver, hardening infrastructure against electromagnetic threats, and proactively shaping terrain to facilitate the rapid integration of capabilities across land, air, sea, space, and cyberspace domains that produces decisive operational advantages.
Protection in the Modern Battlespace: A Conceptual Approach for Battalion and Brigade Staffs
Published 5/9/2025
By Captain Desmond A. Edwards
The 2024 revision of ADP 3-37 consolidates the 16 protection tasks into four categories. This concept-driven approach makes the protection warfighting function more accessible and enables better integration into staffs below the division level.
Prioritizing Protection: Creating Synchronized Success
Published 5/8/2025
By Sergeant First Class Mark D. Moore
This article emphasizes the importance integrating the protection war fighting function into military operations emphasizing the need for effective communication, collaboration, and proper training in protection capabilities and limitations.
Protection in an Armored Division-The Iron Way
Published 2/14/2025
By Major Luke J. Grieder
This article describes how the 1st Armored Division addresses protection during large-scale combat operations. The author shares lessons learned and best practices that emerged from the preparation and execution of Warfighter Exercise 25-01, conducted in October 2024.
Joint Protection Efforts
Published 12/16/2024
By Master Sergeant Russell W. Haney
Force protection and force health protection are critical requirements in joint operations. Through knowledge and training, all forces execute joint protection efforts in all joint operational areas.
The Application of the U.S. Army RM Process is Broken
Published 12/10/2024
By Major Courtney A. Zimmerman
This article discusses doctrinal Army risk management processes and describes methods that units could use to incorporate risk management into their operations, thereby changing their organizational culture.
Impact of the 52d BEB Mounted CBRN R&S Platoon Throughout KRF-13
Published 12/5/2024
By First Lieutenant Addison S. Sanders
The 52d BEB CBRN R&S Platoon recently participated in KRF-13, where it conducted a series of individual, collective, and combined training exercises to ensure proficiency in assessing, mitigating, and protecting against CBRN hazards and to maintain its ability to “Fight Tonight and Win.” While deployed to South Korea, members of the platoon also took advantage of several opportunities to learn about and experience the unique culture of the country.
