The Joint Planning Committee, predecessor to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, drew up plans for war with likely opponents of the United States. Those plans went through numerous iterations and eventually became known as the Rainbow War plans because all the countries in question were assigned a specific color. The U.S. was then, as now, colored blue. What was started as a way to organize concept of operations in the early 1900s became the basis for many of the decisions made during World War II.

Contains facsimile reproductions of documents.

v. 1. Peacetime war plans, 1919-1935 -- v. 2. Plans for war against the British Empire and Japan : the Red, Orange, and Red-Orange Plans, 1923-1938 -- v. 3. Plans to meet the Axis threat, 1939-1940 -- v. 4. Coalition war plans and hemispheric defense plans, 1940-1941 -- v. 5. Plans for global war : Rainbow-5 and the Victory Program, 1941.