The Army believes that the U.S. will continue to be engaged in an era of ¿persistent conflict¿ -- a period of protracted confrontation among states, non-state, and individual actors increasingly willing to use violence to achieve their political and ideological ends. This manual is a revolutionary departure from past doctrine. Commanders will employ offensive, defensive, and civil support operations simultaneously as part of an interdependent joint force to seize, retain, and exploit the initiative, accepting prudent risk to create opportunities to achieve decisive results. This ed. will take us into the 21st century urban battlefields among the people without losing our capabilities to dominate the higher conventional end of the spectrum of conflict.