Protection Archives

Summary: 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.

Summary: 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.

Summary: 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.

Summary: Major General Christopher G. Beck commends the Protection community for a transformative FY2024, highlighting critical gains in leader education, doctrinal synchronization, and the establishment of the Protection Proponent Office. As the Army pivots toward 2040, the focus remains on operationalizing protection as a commander’s responsibility to ensure the force can sustain, maneuver, and converge in contested environments.

Summary: The Army must shift its paradigm of the Protection Warfighting Function (WFF) from purely passive defense to active measures. By categorizing tactical tasks by their purpose rather than the system executing them, offensive actions—such as preemptive artillery strikes against enemy munitions—should be integrated into protection planning under the new concept of "protective fires" to actively preserve friendly combat power.

Summary: U.S. Army Futures Command (AFC) utilizes the Maneuver Support and Protection Integration Experiment (MSPIX) as a critical bridge between concept and battlefield requirement. By placing prototype technologies in the hands of Soldiers, the Army ensures that future protection capabilities—ranging from AI-driven decision tools to autonomous decontamination robots—are operationally relevant, intuitive, and effective for large-scale combat operations.

Summary: The first Protection and Maneuver Support Senior Leader Forum established the Protection Warfighting Function as a cornerstone of the Army of 2030/2040. Senior leaders and industry partners converged at Fort Leonard Wood to synchronize the integration of diverse protection equities—from CBRN to Cyber—emphasizing that operationalizing protection is a commander's responsibility at every echelon.

Summary: Survivability is no longer defined solely by engineer "blade time" (the physical digging of defensive positions). It has evolved into the foundational element of the Protection Warfighting Function, requiring a comprehensive, all-domain approach executed by every Soldier and unit to mitigate threats and preserve combat power.

Summary: In an era of pervasive multidomain surveillance and precision long-range fires, the Army must radically reconceptualize the Protection Warfighting Function. Protection can no longer be treated as a passive, rear-area consideration relegated to an operations order annex; it is a critical combat multiplier that must drive maneuver strategy, dictate the balance

Summary: Because the Protection Warfighting Function encompasses a highly diverse portfolio of capabilities, traditional "silver-bullet" modernization strategies are ineffective. Instead, the draft Army Protection Strategy embraces the concept of "aggregation of marginal gains"—implementing dozens of interconnected, incremental improvements across doctrine, training, and leadership to ensure comprehensive protection for the Army of 2030.

Summary: This review of Colonel John F. Antal’s (Retired) Next War examines the radical technological disruptors—such as autonomous super-swarms and the "kill web"—that are dismantling traditional military doctrine. Antal argues that for the Army to prevail, protection professionals must move beyond legacy thinking to survive in an era of absolute battlespace transparency.

Summary: During Warfighter Exercise 23-04, III Armored Corps operationalized FM 3-0 "multidomain operations" by transforming the Protection WFF from passive defense into an active mission. By dispersing command posts and integrating protection into targeting, the Corps demonstrated that survivability depends on an offensive mindset.

Summary: To support the transition to MDO, the 2023 revision of ADP 3-37 fundamentally redefines the Protection WFF. Moving beyond survivability, the new doctrine emphasizes active measures to prevent detection and hazards, ensuring commanders maintain freedom of action to seize initiative in LSCO.

Summary: To operationalize the "Protection Concept" detailed in AFC Pam 71-20-7, the Maneuver Support Capability Development Integration Directorate (MS-CDID) is leading a multiyear, Army-wide Capability-Based Assessment (CBA). This comprehensive study has identified over 80 high and extremely-high-risk protection capability gaps for the Army of 2030, driving the development of integrated DOTMLPF-P solutions to secure Multidomain Operations (MDO).