Through aggressive planning and fully orchestrated execution, ADA allows the commander at any level to seize and maintain the initiative. Commanders integrate air and missile defense operations into campaigns fought at the operational level, and battles and engagements fought at the tactical level. Air and missile defense commanders recommend threat airfields, missile launch sites, command and control nodes, and logistics for deep attack. They contribute to winning the information war by destroying threat aerial reconnaissance platforms. ADA units engage air threats from directions and in ways that the threat does not expect.
Agility is as much a mental quality as a physical one.
ADA must quickly change from offense to defense, entry to decisive operations, and counterair to theater missile defense. Concentrating coverage and fires, or screening the flanks from attack and surveillance, are tasks routinely accomplished by ADA units. They conduct operations throughout the width and depth of the theater. ADA units achieve defense in depth using a system of systems approach, which gives multiple opportunities to defeat the threat aerial threat. ADA systems see deep into threat airspace to contribute to the commander's situational awareness and defeat air, missile, and surveillance threats at maximum range.