In planning successful military operations, the nine principles of war are not a prescription,
formula, recipe, or checklist. They provide no pat answers to the many challenges and
dilemmas commanders encounter in battle. They are guidelines for applying your critical
thinking and decision making to the entire range of operations that will follow your training,
in both combat and noncombat situations.
While these principles are only guidelines, your failure to at least consider them can
lead to situations such as the one Colin Powell found himself in as a young officer in
Vietnam in 1963.