"Operations other than war (OOTW) present numerous challenges to leaders instilled with a doctrine principally designed for fighting Soviet-style armies during large-scale conventional wars. Some of these missions (e.g., peacekeeping, peace enforcement, and nation assistance) pose doctrinal problems due to what has been described as 'the American proclivity for satisfying political decisions by using conventional military forces to produce effects that are foreign to their nature.' This article examines two attributes of operations other than war that are likely to influence command and control and thus affect directly the outcome of the mission: the absence of an obvious continuum or linear relationship between the strategic, operational, and tactical consequences of action, and the requirement for interagency coordination even at relatively low echelons. The article uses the 1992 Los Angeles riots to illustrate some of the unique characteristics of this type of mission: the situation was "amorphous and ambiguous," the use of force was greatly restrained, coordination with nonmilitary entities was often required at battalion and lower echelons, and political considerations governed military actions at even the individual level."