The Alliance That Could Not Be Broken

Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States, with Winston Churchill

and have been in Washington since mid-December for the Conference, the first major Allied summit since the United States entered the war. has accelerated everything: a coalition of circumstance must be forged into a united bloc capable of holding together until final victory. Roosevelt has in mind a brief text, signed by every nation at war with the Axis, by which each would pledge to devote all of its military and economic resources to the struggle and to conclude no separate peace or armistice. He has even found a name for it: the . Churchill, woken in the middle of the night, immediately endorses the phrase.

Yet the decision is far from foregone. Roosevelt could abandon the idea of a collective pact and instead allow the United States to build its alliance network through bilateral agreements as circumstances demand, without binding 26 countries in a single legal instrument. He could also judge any formal commitment premature: the Red Army is still retreating on several fronts, Japanese forces are advancing across South-East Asia, and signing a resounding declaration before any tangible victory risks ringing hollow.

Roosevelt must choose among three paths: an immediate and solemn multilateral pact; the flexibility of case-by-case bilateral agreements; or waiting for military success before committing anything to paper.