Every government makes contingency plans. These include drawing up war plans – defensive and offensive – against a range of enemies. And “enemies” can sometimes be rather surprising. Take, for example, War Plan Red… the 1930 plan by the US War Department to wipe out the British Empire.
It makes for an interesting read. And no doubt this will cause the conspiro-nuts to further whackify. But the thing is… I have no doubt that the British Ministry Of Empire Maintenance And Planetary Domination (or whatever it was called in 1930) had reciprocal war plans against the US. I have no doubt that the US *today* has war plans for a fight against Canada… and that Canada has war plans for a fight against the US (they certainly did in the 1920s). It makes sense for war planners to plan for every possible contingency… not just every *likely* contingency. Along with preparedness for in case the Canucks actually do invade, it’s also a good intellectual exercise for those responsible for planning wars. And in 1930… who knew? The trio of nearly identical evils – Fascism, Socialism and Communism – were romping all over Europe… who could say that Britain wouldn’t fall to one of them?
Along with War Plan Red, there were a number of other hypotheticals, such as War Plan Green (against Mexico), Black (Germany), Orange (Japan), Purple (South America) and Yellow (go on… GUESS).
17 Responses to “War Plan Red”
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Maps from War Plan Red, the U.S. Department of War contingency plan for war with the British Empire in the 1930s. This map shows the projected lines of attack for the American conquest of Canada, and this map depicts the British invasion of North America.
What’s really interesting is the plans that didn’t exist. There’s no plan for dealing with a hostile France, even though France had island possessions in the Caribbean and the mouth of the St. Lawrence. I guess Plan Black could be adapted to cover that.
The other major gap is no plan to fight Russia, or intervene if the Communist government collapsed. That’s kind of surprising.
It’s also weird that anyone finds the existence of such plans distressing. Hell, they’ve apparently got plans for a zombie apocalypse and alien invasions. Why not be ready, at least on paper, for a war with the Turks or an intervention in Mongolia?
Somehow I remember reading about this stuff a while back myself.
I’ve got a book titled “The Hybrid Warship” that concerns attempts to combine aircraft carriers with some other sort of ship*, so that you would have a vessel that could perform two jobs to cut naval building expenses. When they were being built, there was a lot of speculation in the US that the British battleships Nelson and Rodney were going to have three triple 16″ gun turrets forward and a flight deck aft; this was considered a big threat to the US Navy and there was some talk of war breaking out over them.
When they were finished, they did have the three turrets forward, but no flight deck aft, and the war scare quickly died down.
* None were very good, with the resulting designs going from mediocre to laughably bad.
Heck, the US and Britain spent most of the 19th Century on the brink of war. Rudyard Kipling brought up the possibility of a war in one of his books.
“British Ministry Of Empire Maintenance And Planetary Domination” – oh come off it, old chap! 🙂
But seriously…I have heard a theory that the real reason that fascism never got so popular in Britain as in Europe was because of our sense of humour – I mean, the goosestep looks as though it was dreamt up by the Ministry of Silly Walks!
Grif
> “British Ministry Of Empire Maintenance And Planetary Domination” – oh come off it, old chap! 🙂
I must admit to being poorly edumacated on the subject of 19th and early 20th century British Imperials world subjugation ministries. “Ministry of The White Man’s Burden?” “Ministry To Install Our Own Jug-Earred Knock-Kneed Inbred Hillbilly Aristocrats In Place Of Local Wog Kings?” “Ministry To Give Those Mutinous Colonials What For, What What?” I dunno. Whatever it was called.
As for British Fascism: there was what’s-his-face, Oswald or something, led the British Fascists. I understand he was largely laughed out of town before the war. Hitler sure seemed to think that the Brits would come on board. but to y’alls credit, ya didn’t. But then y’all fell into the *other* camp of the socialists, so…
Sir Oswald Mosley:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oswald_Mosley
I thought that the reason that fascism never took off in Britain was due to the fact the Roderick Spode used to design women’s lingerie… at least that was what Jeeves told me:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roderick_Spode
I believe George Orwell credited the lack of traction for fascism in Britain to the pre-eminence of the Royal Navy as Britain’s main military power. Basically, you can’t have a naval dictatorship.
I dunno about that… the Japanese certainly seemed to be ok with a fascist dictatorship with a heck of a navy.
This is more disturbing to me:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods
That Northwoods was proposed does not bother me. Had it been *accepted,* that would be bothersome in the extreme.
Contemplating “false flag” operations against yourself is a useful exercise. Because you can assume that the enemy is planning false flag operations against themselves. And you can assume that the enemy would plan *actual* operations against you… and then they’d claim that those were actually false flag operations that you yourself carried out.
There is that, for sure. Sadly, the declassification of false flag scenarios just makes ‘9/11 truthers’ look more legit to the unwashed masses, despite the good work done by Popular Mechanics…
[…] some of you go *too* nuts, keep in mind War Plan Red, a US war plan from 1930 to take down the British Empire. It’s good and proper for government […]
I know it’s late but it must be said. You plan against capabilities not intentions because intentions can change much faster.
Indeed. See: Iran. one day, we’re selling them F-14s. The next day we’re worried they’ll use F-14s against us.