America is pursuing a sweeping strategic pivot in the Pacific. The armed forces are reconstructing World War II era island bases, reviving allied units, and strengthening essential hubs to deter a peer competitor.
This shift is deliberate, because deterrence in the Pacific is the linchpin of national security in the years ahead.
This effort is about preparing for a potential peer on peer clash in the region, where large naval fleets and island hopping forces would contest critical waterways and terrain. It is a realism that acknowledges the strategic landscape has changed, therefore demanding a tougher, more integrated approach.
This isn’t the first time the United States has looked to the Pacific as a theater of war. And no, not that time. Long before Pearl Harbor, planners set out to map a future conflict in a framework now remembered as “War Plan Orange.”
After World War I, Japan had emerged as East Asia’s dominant power. A Joint Planning Committee of the Joint Army and Navy Board devised War Plan Orange, one of several color coded schemes that mapped out how a regional confrontation could unfold.
It imagined a scenario where the United States would have to project power across the Pacific to defend its interests.
Earl Hancock “Pete” Ellis, a Marine Corps organizer, wrote the 1920 paper “Operation Plan 712 – Advanced Base Operations in Micronesia,” which underscored the importance of forward bases for logistics and staging. His writings helped reshape what the Marine Corps would do—turning island hopping into a core operational concept.
Ellis’s insights helped drive early steps toward a new kind of warfare in the Pacific.
The first full formal plan appeared in 1924, envisioning a great naval blockade of the Philippines and the mobilization of naval power to protect colonial holdings as Americans pushed westward toward Japan.
It was prescient in foreseeing the scale of mobilization and the central role of the sea, even though the campaign would become a grueling war of attrition in World War II.
The evolving strategy captured many elements that would later emerge in the actual conflict.
The United States already recognized the importance of air power in the early 1920s, and how aircraft carriers could prove decisive in an open war. Yet large warships remained costly, and the Navy tested a variety of alternatives.
One plan even considered using dirigibles as reconnaissance platforms and, in an extraordinary element, flying aircraft carriers. The Navy experimented with four rigid airships, but crashes and high casualties during testing led to a firm conclusion: aircraft carriers afloat in the water were the better choice.
War Plan Orange wasn’t the only color coded framework the planners pursued. There were schemes like War Plan Red, which contemplated conflict with the British Empire, and even a hybrid War Plan Red-Orange that imagined two front wars against two formidable powers.
The point was to anticipate multiple threats and to think through how the United States could respond in the most effective way possible.
Ultimately, the historical years of planning revealed how some assumptions did not survive the test of time. A 1980 article in the Naval War College Review by Michael K. Doyle noted that War Plan Orange rested on the post-World War I notion of a defeated Germany and depended on favorable conditions for peace in Europe. Even before the attack on Pearl Harbor, those risks had already begun to reshape the strategic calculus on the East Coast.
Today, as leaders in Washington reorient toward the Indo-Pacific, the same imperative drives policy. The approach is grounded in deterrence, forward presence, and resilience, and it is guided by a clear-eyed assessment of today’s competitors.
President Trump’s focus on rebuilding American strength and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s insistence on a robust, modernized force align with that historic instinct to be ready, not reactive. Because the region demands speed, clarity, and unity of purpose, the United States must press forward with a coherent, credible plan that matches the threats of the era.
At the same time, the lessons of War Plan Orange—how to base power where it can sustain a campaign, how to deploy air and sea assets in concert, and how to maintain logistics across vast distances—remain instructive.
The present is not a carbon copy of the past, but the political-military logic of deterrence is timeless. Therefore, American defense posture should emphasize modern basing, alliance integration, and the most advanced technologies to deter aggression.
The objective is straightforward: prevent conflict by ensuring any rival knows that aggression will be met with resolute, well-coordinated action. This requires disciplined planning, strong leadership, and a continued commitment to the principles that have long guided American defense strategy.
That means a credible force, clearly understood by adversaries and allies alike, ready to defend freedom and deter aggression in the Pacific and beyond.