The Universal Joint Task List, more commonly known as UJTL, is a comprehensive list of possible military tasks at the strategic,

operational An operational definition specifies concrete, replicable procedures designed to represent a construct. In the words of American psychologist S.S. Stevens (1935), "An operation is the performance which we execute in order to make known a concept." F ...

s and (

joint A joint or articulation (or articular surface) is the connection made between bones, ossicles, or other hard structures in the body which link an animal's skeletal system into a functional whole.Saladin, Ken. Anatomy & Physiology. 7th ed. McGraw- ...

)

tactical level Military tactics encompasses the art of organizing and employing fighting forces on or near the battlefield. They involve the application of four battlefield functions which are closely related – kinetic or firepower, mobility, protection or se ...

war War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...

.CJCSM 3500.04F Universal Joint Task List (UJTL), version of August 1, 2005, updated until 1 June 2011
/ref> The UJTL was developed for the

U.S. Armed Forces The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. The armed forces consists of six service branches: the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, and Coast Guard. The president of the United States is the ...

but it has been used by several other countries and international military organizations such as

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...

, sometimes in adapted form and under different names, but usually including the term "task list". The UJTL is meant to be a tool in

operational planning Operational planning (OP) is the process of planning strategic goals and objectives to technical goals and objectives. It describes milestones, conditions for success and explains how, or what portion of, a strategic plan will be put into operat ...

and similar forms of

military planning A military operation plan (also called a war plan before World War II) is a formal plan for military armed forces, their military organizations and units to conduct operations, as drawn up by commanders within the combat operations process in ac ...

. It gives a menu of capabilities (mission-derived tasks with associated conditions and standards, i.e., the tools) that a joint force commander may select to accomplish the assigned mission. Once identified as essential to mission accomplishment, the tasks are reflected within the command joint mission essential task list.

Levels in UJTL

The UJTL consists of a large number of hierarchically organized military tasks groups in four levels of warfare: * Strategic National level (SN) * Strategic Theater level (ST) * Operational level (OP) * Tactical level (TA) The tasks in the list are labeled SN, ST, OP or TA to show which level of warfare they refer to.

Example of organization of UJTL tasks

An example of the hierarchical organization of the UJTL: * Among the operational level tasks, there are seven top-level tasks, labelled OP 1 through OP 7. OP 1 is "Conduct Operational Movement and Maneuver". * Subordinate to OP 1, there are six tasks labelled OP 1.1 through OP 1.6, of which OP 1.1 is "Conduct Operational Movement". * Subordinate to OP 1.1, there are three tasks labelled OP 1.1.1 through OP 1.1.3, of which OP 1.1.2 is "Conduct Intratheater

Deployment Deployment may refer to: Engineering and software Concepts * Blue-green deployment, a method of installing changes to a web, app, or database server by swapping alternating production and staging servers * Continuous deployment, a software e ...

and Redeployment of Forces within the Joint Operations Area". * Subordinate to OP 1.1.2, there are two tasks labelled OP 1.1.2.1 and OP 1.1.2.2. OP 1.1.2.1 is "Conduct Airlift in the Joint Operations Area". The depth of task levels is not the same everywhere: unlike OP 1.1.2, OP 1.1.1 "Formulate Request for Strategic Deployment to a Joint Operations Area" does not have any subordinate tasks, and the same is true for OP 1.6 "Conduct Patient Evacuation".

References

{{reflist United States Department of Defense doctrine