During the Cold War, NATO militaries used “orange” as the designation for the notional enemy in conducting exercises. It was always explained to me that this was so that it wasn’t quite so blatant that it was the Soviets we were planning for.
Perhaps unless we/our enemy is specifically Ireland or Libya.
Or parts of Islam; although ISIS hoisted the Black Standard, in earlier days some muslims used a green flag as symbolizing Islam, notably the Madhi, Chinese Gordon’s foe, following the use of the armies of the Prophet sweeping through Christiandom and the Middle East at the start of Conquest. Mahdi actually being an office, of redeemer, one of those believing themselves to be the hidden imam in this present Occultation.
Conan Doyle wrote a short story The Green Flag about a battle prior to Omdurmanwherein rebellious Irish reluctantly fight in the Sudan and rally around their own green flag which the Arabs capture and consider like their own.
Damn, Leo, you’re good!
Neat, never read it (or much of anything by Doyle). Thnx.
Green is currently used for non-coalition allies. For example, The Afghan National Army.
I don’t know if it ties in, but there were also color coded war plans used by the US Army in the early 1900s, notably “Red” contemplated a war with Britain, “Orange” war with Japan, and “Black” with Germany. As planning started to expect something more like WW2 they changed to a variety of “Rainbow” plans dealing with multi-theater wars possibly with Allies, of which Rainbow 5 was closest to what happened in the war. I’m not sure exactly how they were discussed, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the enemy in each colored plan was referred to as that color force (that is, Japan would be “orange” when discussing plan Orange)
For westerners, white is the color of purity and red that of blood and violence, so the White Army would indicate the good guys and the Red Army the bad guys. I’ve heard it said that for Russians it was the opposite: white was the color of snow and cold, while red was the color of fire and warmth, so the White Army signified something bad and the Red Army good.
White is also the colour of death in China; however White as the Royalist colour has too many instances, not simply in the Great War ( including the Russian bit of their revolution and the expeditionary forces most of us sent to help crush it after ) but in France from Henri’s famous White Plume to the legitimist cockade right down to Charles X and the Comte de Chambord; the Yorkist White Rose and it’s Stuartist successor; Mary I of Scotland, her grandson the White King, who also had a regiment of Whitecoats; to Carlist White sashes…