Why are doctrinal documents such as ADPs, ADRPs, FMs and ATPs unclassified and approved for unlimited public release?

That image made my day! It's funny and there could be some truth to it. But all jokes aside, our doctrinal documents are more widely used than one can image. Officers and NCOs are tested on the Doctrine when they go through Institutional training (eg: BOLC, CCC, SGM school etc.). Our training events, our organizational structures, allocation of resources (manpower, equipment), training evaluations (OC/T doctrine), METLs, CTOs are all based on Doctrine. Even the we wear uniforms, conduct our PT, how we march, how we move as a squad, how we react to indirect fire etc.. are all based on Doctrine. I've read a few completely and referred to others occasionally and I do find them intellectually stimulating although some of them are very verbose and could use some editing. But I cannot fathom marking them unclassified and available for unlimited public release. There are some advantages to doing this especially challenging ideas and improving them by soliciting feedback from the public, academia etc. Making them ubiquitous also helps communicating the doctrine to soldiers a bit easier. But I see a big downside especially when the enemy can understand how we think and how we operate (even if we deviate from it time to time)

1LT (Join to see) - Have you read up on Mission Command yet? I think our doctrine is a foundation, but disciplined initiative allows creativity for maneuver commanders flexibility to address operational variables in unpredictable ways. The enemy can anticipate the initial OPLAN from doctrine, but the breadth of options available to Commanders does not make an enemy eager to initiate a force on force encounter.

We could still share our doctrine with our NATO partners in secrecy. There's no need to mark it as Unclassified for that reason

1LT (Join to see) - The US uses the Principles of War as overarching guidance on how to prosecute wars. This is a well-known paradigm. I will list two Principles: Security and Surprise. This really tells the enemy nothing about our strategic, operational, and tactical designs. As SFC Boyd allude too, our allied countries should know our Principles of War thus wide dissemination is appropriate. At the Division and Corps levels the actions and plans of those commanders are derived from a systematic approach where many variables are considered. Publishing the Principles of War will not help the enemy determine the exact plans of a Division or Corps commander.

1LT (Join to see) my point is, classifying our doctrine will only keep it from friendly people. Everyone who it would benefit and who would study it, mostly Russia and China, could easily secure that information by observation, social engineering, or cyber attacks. China has people photographing every single airplane that comes and goes at Kadena Air Base with a 12 inch telephoto lense. The information is freely available and legal to collect.

If we classify the information and share it with different countries it will be leaked.

Doctrine is our how-to-fight blueprint. We teach our doctrine to other countries so they can fight mutual enemies and integrate our militaries for combat purposes. We have joint bases with friendly countries and joint commands that would be impossible to implement without shared doctrine.

SFC (Join to see) - Great point with the blueprint analogy. To expand, the Russian forces follow their blueprint to a fault and it does not really work out for them. They prosecute warfare with sheer numbers and force. U.S. Commanders are like additional architects that can adjust the plans to fit current operational variables.