The result of a yearlong effort to capture and describe the most significant threat to our future national security, the manual reflects a truly unique collaboration between the Army and a wide array of experts from hundreds of groups across the U.S. government, the intergovernmental and nongovernmental communities, America’s allies around the world, and the private sector. All branches of the armed forces took part in the shaping of this document, ranging from the State Department to Homeland Security to Health and Human Services, international agencies from the United Nations to the Red Cross to the World Bank, countries from the United Kingdom to India to South Africa, private think tanks from RAND and Brookings to the United States Institute of Peace to the Center for a New American Security. With a focus on transforming conflict, managing violence when it does occur, and maintaining stable peace, the manual signals a stark departure from traditional military doctrine. Considered by many to be the single most influential document shaping national strategy beyond Iraq and Afghanistan, it emerged from the Army’s premier intellectual center, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. In the manual, the Army officially acknowledges the complex continuum from conflict to peace, outlines the military’s responsibility to provide stability and security, and recognizes the necessity of collaboration, coordination, and cooperation among military, state, commercial, and nongovernmental organizations in nation-building efforts.
The U.S. Army Stability Operations Field Manual , otherwise known as FM 3-07, marks only the second time in modern history that the U.S. Army has worked with a private publisher to physically print an official military doctrine document.