The U.S. Army believes our nation's future is one of "persistent conflict" protracted confrontation among state, nonstate, and individual actors willing to use violence to achieve their political and ideological ends. Operations, required reading for Army leadership, provides the intellectual core of how our Army will organize, train, equip, and conduct operations in this environment. In other words, this manual explains how to run the best army in the world. Operationsbreaks down: The Army's expeditionary and campaign capabilities, its personnel as its most important advantage. "Conflict" from stable peace to general war, and establishes five operational themes. The Army's operational conceptfull spectrum operations, which seize, retain, and exploit the initiative and achieve decisive results through offense, defense, and stability or civil support operations. Combat power, the means by which Army forces conduct full spectrum operations. The principles of command and control and how they affect the operations processplan, prepare, execute, and assess. The divide between military theory and practice. Information superiority. And, the requirements for Army forces in international joint campaigns.