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The principles of war have been a major part of the foundation for Joint Doctrine since its inception, and a broadening range of military operations has resulted in their evolution into the principles of joint operations. The range of domestic response roles for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and partner agencies has similarly grown. Considerations of natural and accidental disasters are now coupled with preparedness requirements for intentional and mass-destruction events. In the post-Hurricane Katrina revision to the National Response Plan, DHS has drafted a simpler National Response Framework. This document presents a set of principles titled five key principles of response operations that are defined as the doctrine of response operations, bringing new terminology and concepts to the domestic response community. A comparison of the twelve principles of joint operations and the five key principles of response operations reveals that while their number and titles are dissimilar, there are substantive similarities between the underlying meaning of the two sets. Due to this similarity, the Joint Force Commander is well served by many of the principles of joint operations provided they are viewed through a proper domestic response perspective, with only a few that should be completely set aside. Suggestions are provided for DHS finalization of the Framework to make the key principles of response operations more clear and singular in focus. Furthermore, any effort to bring the concept of doctrine into domestic incident management should consider getting broad buy-in to use doctrinal concepts to unite the Framework and other related efforts such as the National Incident Management System and Preparedness Goals, rather than have it as a small element of the Framework., The original document contains color images.