text: Appendix A
  OBJECTIVE
  A-4. When undertaking any mission, commanders should have a clear understanding of the expected
  outcome and impact. The ultimate military purpose of war is the defeat of the enemy’s armed forces and will
  to fight by the use of organized violence or the threat of violence. The principle of objective drives all military
  activity toward that end, with the least possible employment of resources on secondary considerations. This
  requires a clear vision of the desired end state. Army commanders need to appreciate the political purpose
  that war aims to achieve, and they need to understand how military conditions contribute to national policy
  objectives. Commanders cannot separate the objective from the considerations of restraint and legitimacy.
  Without these considerations, military actions can make strategic objectives unobtainable.
  A-5. Below the strategic level, objective means ensuring all actions contribute to the goals of the higher
  echelon headquarters. The attainment of intermediate objectives must be direct, quickly and economically
  contributing to the ultimate end state. Commanders designate objectives that are decisive to accomplishing
  the mission. These become the basis for all subordinate plans. Actions that do not contribute to achieving the
  objective should be avoided. Conversely, determining and denying enemy forces their objectives narrow
  options for enemy commanders to freely maneuver and exploit emerging opportunities. Denying enemy
  forces their objectives while achieving the friendly objective is the ultimate purpose of all operations.
  OFFENSIVE
  A-6. The principle of offensive suggests that offensive action, or maintaining the initiative, is the most
  effective and decisive way to pursue and attain a clearly defined common objective. This is fundamentally
  true across all levels of warfare. When it is necessary to defend, commanders and staffs maintain an
  aggressive mindset that seeks to attack the enemy throughout the depth of its formations and sets the
  conditions for offensive action. The offense ensures that a force captures and holds the initiative, maintains
  freedom of action, and achieves results. It permits political and military leaders to initiate operations on their
  own terms, impose their will on the enemy, set favorable conditions for battle, exploit vulnerabilities, and
  react rapidly to changing situations or emerging developments. No matter the echelon, the side that retains
  the initiative through offensive action forces its opponent to react, rather than act.
  A-7. The offensive applies to the operations and activities Army forces conduct in each domain. An
  operational approach focused only on land can be defeated by opponents exploiting an offensive approach in
  the other domains. Likewise, an offensive approach should extend to the human and information dimensions
  of an operational environment Commanders and staffs maintain an offensive mindset during competition,
  crisis, and armed conflict.
  MASS
  A-8. Integrating all the elements of combat power and synchronizing their application against a decisive
  point achieves mass. Mass can be achieved in any of the domains and is mostly tied to the destroy defeat
  mechanism. Massing effects against one or more decisive points in one or more domains is typically an
  element of convergence. Concentrating forces, which should be done for only as long as necessary to avoid
  providing the enemy lucrative targets, is typically necessary to achieve favorable ratios during close combat.
  The massing of effects, together with the proper application of the other principles of war, may enable
  numerically inferior forces to achieve decisive campaign and battle outcomes. Mass, like objective, implies
  that it is best to minimize the use of resources on secondary efforts. The massing of effects at any echelon to
  produce a desired effect on enemy forces is crucial to enabling maneuver.
  A-9. Denying enemy forces the ability to mass at the time or place of their choosing is another consideration
  for applying the principle of mass. Forcing enemy forces to maintain distributed operations, rather than
  massing effects or forces as they require for success, can keep an enemy force from achieving its objectives,
  reorganizing, or consolidating gains.
  ECONOMY OF FORCE
  A-10. A commander must employ available combat power in the most efficient way possible, and there is
  seldom enough combat power available to enjoy a favorable correlation of forces everywhere. Economy of