158 e lusive v ictories
arrangements Roosevelt proposed favored his own national interests
would not go unnoticed by other Allied leaders. Th ey in turn would
pursue their national goals, and it was to be expected that a divergence
of purpose would emerge over the course of the war and especially at its
conclusion, when victory would snap the bond forged by opposition to
a common adversary.
Diff erences over war objectives, moreover, became clear from the
outset, especially with Great Britain. Th e Atlantic Charter, a pre–
Pearl Harbor Anglo-American declaration of principles, promised
self-determination as an Allied war goal. In Roosevelt’s view, the
statement put the British on record as pledging an end to colonialism.
Churchill saw things otherwise: he had not become the king’s first
minister, he declared in 1942, “to preside over the liquidation of the
British Empire.” Th e anticolonial implications of the Atlantic Charter
in his mind thus excluded British possessions, and he intended that
Great Britain not only retain its current imperial holdings, such as
India, over American objections but reclaim those lost to Japan,
including Burma, Malaya, and especially Singapore.
Here, clearly, the prime minister was in denial. Not only would the
creation of a huge Indian Army to fi ght the Axis powers make a return
to colonial subordination on the subcontinent impossible, but Asian
peoples who had seen fellow Asians (the Japanese) defeat Western
armies would never again recognize claims by colonial powers as legit-
imate. Th e prime minister also did not subscribe to the president’s view
that spheres of infl uence were dangerous and destabilizing. At least
insofar as they were accepted among the great powers, they might in
fact remove a source of tension.
Finally, Roosevelt’s conception of postwar order rested on very
optimistic expectations about the other two members of the Big
Four: China and the Soviet Union. He treated Chiang Kai-shek as
the leader of a major power, despite indications that the Nationalists
were doing little for the Allied cause. Instead they husbanded
resources for the expected postwar showdown with Chinese commu-
nists. But Roosevelt needed a major Asian power other than the
Soviet Union to replace Japan, and China would have to be made to
fi t the part. As for Moscow, the president correctly foresaw as early as
1941 that the Soviet Union would take its place among the great