The fundamental role and purpose of Croatian Army, the strongest of the Army's services, is to promote and protect vital national interests of the Republic of Croatia, defend sovereignty and territorial integrity of the state. The Croatian Army is therefore organizing to be a proponent of the implementation of the war operation, independently or supported by other arms, combating primarily on land but also on the coastland and on islands. The fundamental task is to prevent entry of the aggressor deep in the territory, to preserve strategic facilities, to secure mobilization of the wartime composition and to win the aggressor. Basic tasks of the Croatian Army are:

• Maintaining optimal level of combat readiness of stand-by forces
• Securing development of the wartime composition of the Armed Forces
• Fighting aggressor's main forces on strategic-operational directions and against air and amphibious assaults
• Preventing, in cooperation with other parts of the Armed Forces, entry of the aggressor into depth of the territory and preserving its compactness
• Construction and development of the capability to respond to requests of the non-traditional tasks that are placed in front of the Croatian Army

In order to fulfil its role and accomplish its tasks, Croatian Army is structured as follows:

Structure of the Croatian Army

This structure improves and unifies capabilities of the operational forces and secures an appropriate distribution on land and coastland. Corpses are the biggest operational units of the Croatian Army and are formed in brigades. They have defence competence over the area in the assigned area of responsibility. Concurrently, they have to develop and have operational capabilities to be posted and used in their entirety or with a part of their forces outside that area, on some of the other strategic-operational routes. With construction of the structure that is capable of responding to challenges of the 21 st century, Croatian Army strives to create a network of operational systems of signals, transfer of information and intelligence support within joint and international forces.