1920-1930 жылдарғы АҚШ-тың соғыс жоспарларының түрлі-түсті схемалары

Plans in the 1920s and 1930s outlining U. S. strategies for various war scenarios
During the 1920s and 1930s, the United States Armed Forces developed a number of color coded war plans that outlined potential U. S. strategies for a variety of hypothetical war scenarios. The plans, developed by the Joint Planning Committee (which later became the Joint Chiefs of Staff), were officially withdrawn in 1939 at the outbreak of World War II in favor of five "Rainbow" plans developed to meet the threat of a two ocean war against multiple enemies.

The desire for the Army and Navy to utilize the same symbols for their plans gave rise to the use of colors in U. S. war planning. By the end of 1904, the Joint Board had adopted a system of hues, symbols, and shorthand names to represent nations. Many war plans became known by the color of the country to which they were related, a convention that lasted through World War II. As the convention of using colors took root, some were eventually reused, such as Grey, which originally referred to Italy but eventually became a plan for the capture and occupation of Portugal’s Azores. In all the plans the U. S. referred to itself as "Blue". The plan that received the most consideration was War Plan Orange, a series of contingency plans for fighting a war with Japan alone, Orange formed some of the basis for the actual campaign against Japan in World War II and included the huge economic blockade from mainland China and the plans for interning the Japanese American population. War Plan Red was a plan for war against the British Empire. British territories had war plans of different shades of red: the United Kingdom was "Red", Canada "Crimson", India "Ruby", Australia "Scarlet" and New Zealand "Garnet". Ireland, at the time a free state within the British Empire, was named "Emerald". War Plan Black was a plan for war with Germany.—the term being a logical extension of the previous "color" plans. Rainbow 1 was a plan for a defensive war to protect the United States and the Western Hemisphere north of ten degrees [south] latitude. In such a war, the United States was assumed to be without major allies. Rainbow 2 was identical to Rainbow 1, except for assuming that the United States would be allied with France and the United Kingdom. Rainbow 3 was a repetition of the Orange plan, with the provision that the hemisphere defense would first be secured, as provided in Rainbow 1. Rainbow 4 was based on the same assumptions as Rainbow 1 but extended the American mission to include defense of the entire Western hemisphere. Rainbow 5, destined to be the basis for American strategy in World War II, assumed that the United States was allied with Britain and France and provided for offensive operations by American forces in Europe, Africa, or both. The assumptions and plans for Rainbow 5 were discussed extensively in the Plan Dog memo, which concluded ultimately that the United States would adhere to a Europe first strategy in World War II. Privately, the German general staff saw the publication of the plans as extremely valuable intelligence and used its threat of a five million man U. S. force in 1943 to argue for temporarily stalling the faltering invasion of the Soviet Union, and concentrating German forces in the west. Hitler vehemently rejected that idea. Historian Thomas Fleming suggests that Germany might have prevailed against the UK and the U. S. if he had not. The source of the leak has never been determined, with speculation listing several possibilities, including disgruntled or isolationist military officers and even President Roosevelt himself.