What is the role of operational design in campaign planning?

• A. To allocate resources and assign forces to tasks
• B. To draft the higher-level strategic goals
• C. To translate strategic objectives into an actionable operational approach and connect lines of operation
• D. To evaluate enemy capabilities and intentions

Answer: (C)

Operational design in campaign planning is about turning strategic objectives into a practical, actionable approach and linking the different lines of operation to make the overall effort coherent. It takes the end-state the strategy seeks and maps out how to achieve it in the theater, outlining how campaigns and operations will be arranged, sequenced, and synchronized. This involves defining how multiple tasks and campaigns fit together, identifying decisive points and centers of gravity, and ensuring that resources and actions across all lines of operation work toward a unified aim.

This is why it’s the best fit: it sits between strategy and execution, translating intent into an actionable plan and showing how various actions and lines of operation connect to produce the desired effect. The other activities described belong more to different domains—allocating resources and assigning forces deals with deployment planning, drafting strategic goals is at the strategic level, and evaluating enemy capabilities is intelligence analysis—areas that do not capture the design process of turning strategy into an integrated campaign approach.