f reedom of a ction 189Th e Prime Minister and the President
Judged against the performance of his adversaries, Roosevelt stands out
as an exceptionally eff ective wartime leader. Th e Axis leaders waged
brilliant opening campaigns followed by unimaginative defensive ones
that often facilitated the great Allied counteroff ensives. In the Pacifi c,
no single Japanese political leader directed the far-fl ung campaigns of
the Imperial forces. Rather, army and navy commanders negotiated
with each other over strategic options, operational priorities, and the
allocation of strategic resources. The lack of a single overarching
authority did not inhibit Japanese advances into mid-1942, but the
absence of a leader with suffi cient authority to overcome inter-service
rivalry and focus resources against the main threat meant the Japanese
military reacted in an ad hoc, piecemeal manner once the American
counteroff ensive began. Weak political control over the military also
contributed to fatal strategic failures, notably the refusal to recognize
the threat American submarines posed to vulnerable shipping lanes.
In Europe, Hitler committed the war’s single greatest mistake at the
level of grand strategy when he opted to begin a war on a second front
against the Soviet Union in 1941 before he had defeated Great Britain.
He later made the Allied task immeasurably easier by his rigid refusal to
withdraw from any piece of occupied territory. Allied commanders,
especially General Brooke of the British Imperial General Staff , recog-
nized the fl aw in Hitler’s approach and used it in their calculations—
the führer would not make best use of interior lines to concentrate all
of his forces against a major attack or invasion because that would
necessitate a strategic retreat elsewhere. Hitler’s many other strategic
and operational blunders have fi lled numerous books and need not be
rehearsed here.
More interesting comparisons can be drawn between Roosevelt and
the other two primary Allied leaders. Joseph Stalin fought a very dif-
ferent war from that waged by the Anglo-Americans—on a single front,
against a direct invasion of his country, and almost entirely land-based.
Just as the president and his senior commanders chose to wage a war
that made maximum use of America’s greatest strategic advantage
(industrial resources), so, too, did Stalin capitalize upon the Soviet
Union’s key assets—space and manpower. Russian defenses were