War Plan Orange: The U.S. Strategy to Defeat Japan, 1897-1945

`A masterly study of the evolution of history's most successful war plan’ –The New York Times Book Review `A magnificent book’– General Colin L. Powell Based on twenty years of research in formerly secret archives, this book reveals for the first time the full significance of War Plan Orange– the U.S. Navy's strategy to defeat Japan. The plan itself was formulated over forty years before the outbreak of World War II. It recounts the struggles between the`thrusting’ and `cautionary’ schools of strategy, the roles of outspoken leaders such as Dewey, Mahan, King and MacArthur, and the adaptation of aviation and other technologies to the plan. Miller shows that the strategy of War Plan Orange was the basis of prewar U.S. naval development in training, ship and aircraft design, and amphibious and tactical thought. Miller ends his exceptional book by demonstrating how the grand strategy and key campaigns of World War II followed War Plan Orange and its descendants.