A command post is the headquarters node from which commanders and staffs exercise command and control and maintain continuous operations.
The term matters because command is not only legal authority. It is also a material arrangement of people, communications systems, procedures, and workspace that allows a headquarters to monitor the situation, issue direction, and keep a force coherent.
Current Army writing treats command posts as a survivability problem as well as a management problem. Under modern sensing and fires conditions, large and static headquarters are easier to detect and target, so the command post has to become more mobile, smaller, and faster to displace [@adaptordie2020; @cpmodernize2021; @flexiblecp2024].