Abstract: Because of the complexity of combat systems, operation planning is definitely not a simple process, and unambiguously involves many theoretical and technical issues. In an integrated view, this paper surveyed these issues by balancing the width and depth of them. Above all, the concept structure and knowledge framework involving in operation planning were reviewed and discussed. And consequently, the approach for reviewing the related theoretical and technical issues was delivered. Then based on these, in the main part of this paper, three important issues were thoroughly discussed: 1) the theories and methods for discovering combat laws; 2) the approaches and techniques for operation planning; and 3) theories and techniques for evaluating operation plan. The purpose of these discussions was to uncover the inner relation of these related theories, methods and techniques, and to provide a broad view to operation planning research.