ABSTRACT
The chapter provides a general and brief survey of the interaction of war plans, strategic planning and diplomacy for the momentous period in American history from 1890 to 1917. Strategic concepts had virtually influenced American foreign policy in time of peace. But it is curious that practically the only offensive war plan to be found, Lieutenant Kimball's, coincided with the period when American power was only beginning to entitle the United States to be considered as a great power. The most striking characteristic of American war planning from 1903 until 1917 is that it was conceived in terms of defence, and also that the possibility of an alliance with Britain or any other power was given no consideration whatever. The military men continued to regard as absolutely axiomatic Washington's admonition against entangling alliances. Isolationism indeed was to most Americans not a 'policy' but a part of the American way of life.
