''Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six
follows a secret international counterterrorist organization called "Rainbow" (or "Team Rainbow"; capitalization varies between "Rainbow" and "RAINBOW"). The series is set in the canon Tom Clancy's universe, which is mostly shared with Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell and Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon''. Formed in 1999 by the world's
military,
law enforcement, and
intelligence agencies to combat the post-
Cold War global rise in terrorism, Rainbow is a
rapid reaction force consisting of "operators" from nations and organizations worldwide, ranging from
special operations personnel and
police tactical unit members to
intelligence officers and field experts, trained and equipped to be the most capable counterterrorist professionals in the world, able to resolve any terrorist attack, hostage-taking, bombing, or raid that local authorities cannot handle in an effective, reliable, or timely manner. Rainbow is headquartered at
Stirling Lines in
Hereford,
England, but has global
jurisdiction and can base themselves at any intelligence agency's headquarters (such as
the Pentagon) should their continued presence in a region be necessary. Due to the sensitive nature of their operations, such as being deployed in multinational incidents or against threats possessing
weapons of mass destruction, and to simply prevent terrorists from knowing of their existence, Rainbow operates in
absolute secrecy with complete
plausible deniability, with only the most top-ranking government, military, and intelligence officials knowing they even exist.
Cover-ups are often conducted after Rainbow's deployments to disguise operators as local police or military units, omit details that could alarm the public, or prevent the reporting of certain deployments. The leader of Rainbow is designated "Rainbow Six" (or just "Six"), a reference to the American rank code for
captain (O-6). The first Six was former
U.S. Navy SEAL and
CIA operations officer
John Clark, who led the organization from its founding until his retirement. Since then, numerous individuals have taken the role of Six, the most recent being Harry Pandey. Though the
Rainbow Six universe is generally grounded in reality and maintains its basic premise, newer installments and plot events partially depart from the series' established setting or Rainbow's traditional policies, with Rainbow hosting a publicly visible tactical competition, recruiting non-government or independent operators such as
private military company "Nighthaven", and being deployed to defeat
invading extraterrestrials. ==Video games==