Mission: 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.

Vision: A more stable and prosperous region with increasingly effective governance, improved security, and trans-regional cooperation to counter state and non-state actors posing a threat to U.S. interests.

Command Priorities:

- Ensure an Effective Posture
- Strengthen Allies & Partnerships
- Disrupt & Counter VEOs and their Networks
- Deter & Counter State Aggressors

Strategic Approach:

Prepare the Environment

- Readiness in Advance of Crisis

Pursue Opportunities

- Seize the Initiative

Prevail in Conflict

- Win the Current Fight and Plan to Win the Next One

March 8th, 2016

Introduction: This is an extraordinarily challenging time throughout the Central Region. We see an almost unprecedented level of activity, turmoil, and conflict among regional state and non-state actors, along with increasing involvement by external state actors including Russia and China. Many of the challenges facing the region, most notably the threat posed by the violent extremist organization (VEO), the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), transcend borders. They are symptoms of a wider set of challenges plaguing that strategically-important part of the world. The most fundamental challenge remains the heightened instability that is fueled, in large part, by certain root causes or “underlying currents.” The prevailing current is the ethno-sectarian competition that exists between groups and chiefly among Shia and Sunni and Arab and Persian populations.

The regional security environment is incredibly complex. The sharp decline in global oil prices is greatly impacting those countries that are highly-dependent upon oil revenues. The economic uncertainty is adding to the instability, while limiting partner nations’ purchasing power. The region continues to struggle with a large-scale humanitarian crisis caused primarily by the wars in Syria and Yemen. The…

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