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Fundamentals of Joint Operations I-7 rapidly will be much less affected by public opinion even if they are more politically controversial. Through SC, the USG focuses processes and efforts to understand and engage key audiences and create, strengthen, or preserve conditions favorable to advance USG interests, policies, and objectives. This occurs through the use of coordinated information, themes, plans, programs, and actions synchronized with the other instruments of national power. Commanders support USG SC efforts during joint operations primarily through their communications strategies. See paragraph 2.l., “Strategic Communication and Communications Strategy,” in Chapter III, “Joint Functions,” for more information. For more information on SC, refer to JP 1, Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States, and JP 5-0, Joint Operation Planning. d. The Combatant Commander’s Strategic Role (1) A CCDR is the vital link between those who determine national security policy and strategy and the military forces or subordinate JFCs who conduct military operations. Based on guidance from the President and SecDef, geographic and functional CCDRs develop strategies that translate national and multinational strategic direction into strategic concepts or courses of action (COAs) to meet joint operation planning requirements. Theater and functional strategies contain strategic concepts and COAs directed toward securing the objectives of national and multinational policies and strategies through the integrated employment of military capabilities synchronized with the other instruments of national power specific to geographic and functional CCMDs. (2) Geographic combatant commanders (GCCs) develop their theater strategies by analyzing events in the operational environment and developing options to set conditions for achieving strategic end states. They translate these options into an integrated set of steady- state engagement, security cooperation, and deterrence activities described in theater and subordinate campaign plans, formal products of the Adaptive Planning and Execution (APEX) system. In some cases, a CCDR may be required to develop a global campaign plan. These plans operationalize the CCDR’s theater strategy. Contingency plans developed to respond to specific contingencies are treated as branch plans to the campaign plan. Functional combatant commanders (FCCs) develop their functional strategy based on guidance in the UCP and their functional objectives and strategic end states contained in the GEF. FCCs may be responsible for developing functional global or subordinate campaign plans or both. See Chapter V, “Joint Operations Across the Range of Military Operations,” for more information on campaign plans. (3) In joint operations, the supported CCDR often will have a role in achieving more than one national strategic objective. Some national strategic objectives will be the primary responsibility of the supported CCDR, while others will require a more balanced use of all instruments of national power, with the CCDR in support of other agencies. Supporting CCDRs and their subordinates design their actions to be consistent with the supported commander’s strategy. All CCDRs provide strategic direction; assign missions, tasks, forces, and resources; designate objectives; establish operational limitations such as rules of engagement (ROE), constraints, and restraints; and define policies and concepts of operations (CONOPS) to be integrated into OPLANs and operation orders (OPORDs). In