Operations and Exercises

United States Central Command (USCENTCOM) directs and enables military operations and activities with allies and partners to increase regional security and stability in support of enduring U.S. interests.  USCENTCOM executes a military campaign plan across the Central Region area of responsibility (AOR) through the application of operations, activities, and investments (OAIs) in support of steady state, crisis, and contingency operations.  USCENTCOM activities include bilateral and multilateral exercises, combined interoperability training, professional education, senior military interaction, security cooperation, humanitarian assistance, and other traditional military activities.  USCENTCOM activities mandate building strong relationships with regional leaders and maintaining access to shared facilities within the AOR.

USCENTCOM conducts joint and combined exercises with regional partners throughout the AOR from company through combined joint task force levels to sustain warfighting capability and interoperability across multiple common functional platforms.  Military-to-military activities support a broad U.S. peacetime engagement strategy which also allows the sharing of best practices and demonstrate U.S. commitment and resolve to the region.

USCENTCOM conducts military information support operations (MISO) in the AOR to inform regional audiences and counter competitor, adversary, and enemy influence.  MISO supports command and U.S. Government (USG) efforts to ensure a more stable and prosperous region with increasingly effective governance, improved security, and transregional cooperation to counter state and non-state actors posing a threat to U.S. interests.  MISO is also conducted to deter state-sponsored conventional attacks, mitigate malign influence, counter the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, disrupt regional and transregional terrorist organizations, and show U.S. resolve against adversaries within the region including ISIS, the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and the Iranian threat network (ITN) and its proxies and surrogates.  These MISO activities support USCENTCOM’s assigned military mission articulated in the campaign plan, are coordinated with USG interagency, and implemented in accordance with U.S. public law and Department of Defense (DoD) policy guidance.

Information-related capabilities such as MISO are high-impact and low-costs investment to deter aggression, counter destabilizing behavior, and decrease the potential for escalation.  By helping synchronize actions with information, USCENTCOM MISO is a key enabler, employed through visual, print media, radio, text messages, social media, messaging applications, and the Internet.

MISO degrades adversary capability and intent to harm U.S. service members and U.S. interests in the region by influencing adversarial decision-making and behavior, countering disinformation, amplifying U.S. resolve, and deterring acts of aggression promulgated by state actors, namely:  Iran, Russia, China, Syria, and their regional surrogates.  MISO OAIs are conducted across the USCENTCOM AOR including Afghanistan, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan and Yemen in coordination with the Department of State and other USG interagency partners.  These USCENTCOM MISO efforts are expected to be expanded in 2022.

The USCENTCOM DoD Rewards Program pays monetary rewards or rewards-in-kind to eligible persons who provide information or nonlethal assistance to U.S. or allied forces that enables or enhances force protection of, or combatting terrorism by, those forces in the USCENTCOM area of responsibility and the region’s international waters, with programs in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen.

U.S. citizens; U.S. Federal, State, or local government officers or employees; and U.S. Government contractor employees are not eligible for rewards under this program. Foreign security force members are eligible only with a waiver.