An effective war plan must reflect the goals of the state and enable a nation's armed forces to fight on favorable terms. Strategic plans have to deal with numerous factors, including force generation, logistics intelligence, the power and intentions of the enemy, and when necessary the strength and interests of allies. No plan can eliminate the unexpected, described by Carl von Clausewitz as friction, and many commanders believe that no plan can survive the first contact with the enemy—when it must be immediately modified. War plans are nonetheless indispensable, both for mobilization and for establishing the broad outlines of specific military operations. A war plan must not only meet the general requirements of effectiveness but also respond to particular national and historical contexts. U.S. war plans have been in large part shaped by American history and culture, by American attitudes toward war.
Bordered by oceans and militarily weak neighbors, the United States was traditionally safe from invasion. On the other hand, in the early twentieth century the creation of an overseas empire consisting of distant insular possessions posed serious strategic dilemmas because of an American characteristic—popular suspicion of large standing forces, coupled with a reluctance to assume heavy defense expenditures in time of peace.
During most American wars, mobilization took place after hostilities began. In 1812, 1846, 1861, and 1898, Congress declared war and at the same time called for large numbers of U.S. volunteers to supplement the small regular army. In 1917, the United States declared war on Germany and then instituted conscription. The nation did maintain large standing forces during the Cold War, but force levels fluctuated widely in response to particular local conflicts. Moreover, postwar demobilization was usually quite rapid. In 1945, for example, the U.S. Army contained eighty‐nine divisions; by 1947, the number had fallen to nine, only one of which was combat‐ready. After the Vietnam War, the government not only reduced conventional force levels but also abolished the draft. The expansion of the All‐Volunteer Force in the 1980s came to an end with the collapse of the USSR in 1991.
Americans have also become fascinated by technology, seeking technological means that will produce victory with very low U.S. casualties. Concepts such as strategic aerial bombardment and the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), indicate that the desire for a painless strategy is pervasive.
These considerations have influenced national war plans. From the Revolutionary War to the end of World War I, war planning, like mobilization, usually took place after war began. In 1846, President James K. Polk met with his secretary of war and the commanding general of the army to discuss strategy the day after the declaration of war. Both sides in the Civil War began to devise strategy after the firing of the first shot. In the Spanish‐American War, the navy did have existing war plans, but the army did not.
By the turn of the century, however, the United States had begun to create a prewar planning system. Staff officers at both the Naval War College and the Army War College had among their missions the preparation of war plans. In 1903, Congress established an Army General Staff, and in the same year the government created the Joint Army and Navy Board. The Joint Board was to discuss and reach common conclusions on matters concerning both services, including war plans. The board did not have its own planning staff but acted as coordinating authority for plans submitted by the individual services.
The board did produce a number of war plans—known as color plans since potential adversaries were designated by color. However, failure of the two services to agree on their ability to defend a naval base in the Philippines against the Japanese (Orange) soon undermined the board's influence. Presidents William H. Taft and Woodrow Wilson made little use of the board, which played a marginal role in World War I.
In 1919, the services decided to strengthen the Joint Board by providing it with its own planning staff. The board resumed writing war plans. Some addressed realistic contingencies that could be handled with existing forces; others dealt with major wars and several as training exercises for staff officers. Before the late 1930s, only one plan dealt with a two‐ocean war (Plan Red‐Orange, against Britain and Japan). In that case, the board concluded that a European foe posed the greater threat; the United States would have to fight defensively in the Pacific until the European enemy was defeated.
The rise of German, Italian, and Japanese aggression and violence compelled the Joint Board to begin contemplating the prospect of a real war against one or more major enemies. The Rainbow Plans (so‐called because of the different colors), written between 1939 and 1941, initially focused on defense of the western hemisphere and a war against either Japan or Germany. After the German victories of 1940, America slowly began to rearm and to supply assistance to Britain.
When Franklin D. Roosevelt was reelected in 1940, the chief of naval operations submitted a paper to the president. Known as Plan Dog, it recommended secret staff talks with the British and a Germany‐first strategy in case of a two‐ocean war. Early in 1941, American and British staff officers met secretly in Washington. The ABC‐1 Conference accepted the Germany‐first approach and agreed to create a permanent structure for Allied decision making. In November 1941, the Americans revised Rainbow‐5 into a two‐ocean war plan with a Germany‐first strategy and a defensive strategy in the Pacific until the fate of Germany was sealed.
The Joint Board also wrote an estimate of requirements for a global war. The army's Victory Program, prepared by September 1941, called for massive forces (a wartime army and air force of 8.7 million men) that would ensure complete destruction of the Axis powers and avoid the perceived mistakes of 1918. For the first time in the nation's history, the United States had established a grand strategy and had agreed to participate in a coalition prior to the outbreak of hostilities.
American and Allied strategy in World War II did not, however, follow prewar plans. The initial success of Japan's offensive forced Washington to commit major forces to the Pacific and to mount major operations in the region. In Europe, British reluctance to mount an early cross‐Channel attack and the overriding need to retain Allied unity led to Anglo‐American operations in North Africa, Sicily, and Italy. This imposed a long delay on the Allied invasion of France. By June 1944, the United States was waging major offensives in both Europe and the Pacific. Rome fell on 4 June; the Allies staged the invasion of Normandy on 6 June; and a few days later U.S. forces stormed Saipan and fought the Battle of the Philippine Sea.
After Japan's surrender and rapid American demobilization, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS, established in 1942 with the Joint Board as its core) began to devise war plans for a possible conflict with the Soviet Union. The JCS presumed that the USSR possessed overwhelming conventional superiority. Since neither the government nor the public was willing to bear the cost of matching Soviet conventional forces, the military planners sought a technological response in the form of nuclear weapons, the start of a nuclear arms race that would last for half a century.
The arms race in turn spawned a class of civilian nuclear strategists ranging from those who believed that nuclear war was winnable to advocates of unilateral nuclear disarmament. Military planners, however, always presumed that nuclear weapons were war‐fighting instruments and made plans to use them in war. From the Pincher Plans of 1946 to the post‐1960 Single Integrated Operational Plans (SIOP), targeting was always strategic. The number of nuclear warheads grew from 13 in 1947 to more than 20,000 by the early 1980s. By this time, many thought the United States had an “overkill” capability—more weapons than could be usefully targeted. Elaborate nuclear war plans notwithstanding, Washington and Moscow understood that a nuclear war involving thousands of nuclear explosions on their home territories would be catastrophic.
Moreover, focus on a total war with the Soviet Union and China left the United States unprepared to wage limited war. The nation was not ready for the Korean War and equally unready for the type of warfare it had to face in the Vietnam War. Nevertheless, the conventional expansion of the 1980s, designed to fight the Soviets in Germany, was applicable to the Persian Gulf War of 1991.
After nearly a century of organized war planning, it is clear that the United States had won most of its major wars and worked effectively with allies. Such victories have rested in part on effective war planning. Whether strategic planners are prepared to face the problems of the post‐Cold War world remains to be seen.
[See also Arms Race; Joint Chiefs of Staff; Nuclear Weapons; Strategy; War.]
Bibliography
- Steven T. Ross and David A. Rosenberg, eds., American War Plans 1945–1950,
15 vols., 1990. - Steven T. Ross, ed., American War Plans 1919–1941,
5 vols., 1992. - Steven T. Ross, American War Plans 1945–1950, 1996.
- Steven T. Ross, American War Plans 1941–1945, 1997
