200 e lusive v ictories
Japanese strike with no way to get into the European war he thought
the United States needed to wage and a military far from ready.
Pearl Harbor and Hitler’s reckless decision to declare war on the
United States gave Roosevelt broad initiative. Th e American people
stood behind the war eff ort and Congress was prepared to cooperate
fully. Roosevelt could articulate expansive war goals, and he enjoyed
nearly complete strategic discretion about where to concentrate the
American military eff ort. Th is was also the period in which the pres-
ident intervened most directly in decisions, down to the operational
level, because assuming military risks had profound political repercus-
sions. In late summer 1942, Marshall proposed a small, cross-Channel
invasion as a gesture to the Soviets, then desperately clinging to Stalin-
grad. But failure, almost certain, would have shattered fragile domestic
morale. Th e choice hinged on competing political considerations, and
Roosevelt rightly turned down Marshall’s scheme.
As the war continued, the president’s fl exibility eroded, with each
major decision driving a host of lesser ones, the cumulative weight of
the sequence of choices leaving progressively fewer important decisions
for him to make. At the peak of U.S. military power in 1944–1945,
when Roosevelt commanded the world’s dominant armed force, his
actual capacity to shape results had been dramatically circumscribed.
He read lines off a script he had written before America could fl ex its
muscles.
For as long as he could shape events, Roosevelt handled the tasks of
wartime leadership with much distinction. He stands with Lincoln as
our most accomplished wartime chief executives. Both achieved their
primary military and political objectives, despite signifi cant domestic
opposition (Roosevelt’s came before the war, Lincoln in its darkest
days). Th eir natural political talents helped them enormously, setting
them apart from the unyielding Wilson. Yet despite records that
command respect, Roosevelt and Lincoln’s made their fair share of mis-
calculations and missteps, and the peace that followed fell short of what
they sought. Th at neither man mastered all of the challenges he faced
speaks to the impossible demands of wartime leadership.
Th e Second World War was the last total war of the industrial age.
With the advent of nuclear weapons, major powers could not risk open
conflict. Divided into two main power blocs, their competition