For military strategy, intent is the desired outcome of a military operation. It is a key concept in 21st century military operations and is a vital element to facilitate subordinates' initiative and collaboration and cooperation amongst team members in joint operations.
Intent content In the reviewed open military doctrine literature, intent is a critical component for command and control. The many definitions that exist of intent are mostly similar, but the actual intent content differs and is unclear. Intent content can mainly be found as concept descriptions in doctrinal handbooks relating to development or impact usage of intent. The following examples represent the doctrinal intent of the United Kingdom, Sweden, Canada, United States, and NATO.
British Army Doctrine defines it as "Intent is similar to purpose. A clear intent initiates a force's purposeful activity. It represents what the commander wants to achieve and why; and binds the force together; it is the principal result of decision-making. It is normally expressed using effects, objectives and desired outcomes....The best intents are clear to subordinates with minimal amplifying detail." Swedish Armed Forces – Integrated Dynamic Command and Control (IDC2) define intent to "Intent is a concise formulation of the overall goals and purpose. The focus is to describe operations, restrictions and resource allocation." Canadian Forces Joint Publication 5.0: "Commander's Intent. This summary should provide the Commander's overall intent and establish the purpose of the plan. It is an important focusing statement for subordinate commanders. (1) Military Objectives. (2) Desired Military End-State. (3) Transition Conditions". US Field Manual 5.0 (2010) constitute the US Army's view on planning, preparing, executing, and assessing operations. "The commander's intent is a clear, concise statement of what the force must do and the conditions the force must establish with respect to the enemy, terrain, and civil considerations that represent the desired end state (FM 3–0). The commander's intent succinctly describes what constitutes success for the operation. It includes the operation's purpose and the conditions that define the end state. It links the mission, concept of operations, and tasks to subordinate units." NATO allied Joint publication 1 (AJP-01; 2010)provide the keystone doctrine for the planning, execution and support of Allied joint operations. "The intent defines the end-state in relation to the factors of mission; adversary, operating environment, terrain, forces, time and preparation for future operations. As such, it addresses what results are expected from the operation, how these results might enable transition to future operations, and how, in broad terms, the Commander expects the force to achieve those results. Its focus is on the force as a whole. Additional information on how the force will achieve the desired results is provided only to clarify the Commander's intentions." US Joint Publication 3.0 (2010) provides the doctrinal foundation and fundamental principles that guide the Armed Forces of the United States in the conduct of joint operations across the range of military operations. "Commander's intent is a clear and concise expression of the purpose of the operation and the military end state." and continues with "It also includes where the commander will accept risk during the operation. The initial intent statement normally contains the purpose and military end state as the initial inputs for the planning process." Other doctrinal work that have been used in this survey are US Field Manual 6.0 (2003) describe doctrine on C2 for tactical Army echelons (corps and below); US Field Manual 3–0 (2008) presents overarching doctrinal guidance and direction for conducting operations and is one of the two capstone doctrine handbooks for US Army; SwAF – Regulations for ground operations (Regler för markoperationer) (2009) UK Glossary of Joint and Multinational Terms and Definitions (2006) In military doctrinal handbooks the identified intent artefacts generally express the initial state and situation, the desired end state and outcome, and how to get to the desired end state. Artefacts describing the initial situation are: own and other forces, adversaries, operating environment, terrain, time, preparation for future operations. Artefacts describing the outcome are: purpose, goals, mission, effects and end state. Artefacts describing how to reach the outcome are: concept of operations, tasks to subordinate units, risk willing, how results might enable transition to future operations, objectives, transition conditions, restrictions in conducting operations, allocation of resources, and expectations of force usage. Another way to identify intent artefacts is from how people actually communicate intent. Klein (1998) presents the results of information types that is identified in intent communication. The seven information types of intent are according to Klein are: (1) Purpose of task which describes why the task is performed, (2) objective of task, presents a picture of the desired outcome, (3) sequence of steps in the plan. Klein identifies this to be a source of problem since too detailed descriptions may limit the subordinates initiative, (4) rationale for plan includes all the information that where present when making the decision, (5) key decisions that may have to be made, i.e. if there is a choice to be made the commander can provide the intent in how he wants it to be conducted, (6) antigoals, describe unwanted outcomes, and (7) constraints and other considerations describes weather and rule of engagement etc.
Intent content definition The doctrinal artefacts are mapped into the structure provided by Klein and the resulting seven facets are grouped in: (a) Initial Situation describing initial situation and state and consists of Klein's rationale for the plan, (b) Outcome is describing outcomes and consists of Klein's Purpose of task, objective of task, and antigoals, and (c) Execution that is describing how to reach the outcome and consists of Klein's sequence of steps, key decisions and constraints and other considerations. Intent is then defined to consist of the following eight facets.
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