No more had the Big Three (that is, the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union) joined to fight the war, than they began to argue bitterly about the post-war peace.“[269]

    On New Years Day 1942, the Great Alliance, as Churchill liked to dub it, was officially founded. The ‘Big Three’ issued together with 23 other allied nations the ‘Declaration of the United Nations’, wherein they solemnly pledged to fight jointly until victory over the Axis powers was accomplished and not to seek for separate peace treaties with their adversaries. A committee of top British and American officers, the Combined Chiefs of Staff, was established in Washington (not London... ) to handle supply and key strategic decisions. Great Britain had to give in on the
important issue of tariffs; the British had to pledge their compliance with Article VII of the ‘Lend-Lease Act’ which demanded the dissolution of closed economic sys- tems following the war. Churchill feared that giving up the ‘Imperial Preference System’ would ignite the disintegration of the British Empire, but the mere survival of Britain depended on U.S. support.[270]

   Soon, however, it became clear that the Soviet Union had intentions for the time after the war that did not square with the American’s - and the Soviets would not so easily give them up. Stalin also had officially accepted the Atlantic Charter but only with reservations that rendered the provisions for self-determination and free trade meaningless. In late December 1941, Stalin even demanded of the British foreign minister Anthony Eden that the West guarantee the Soviet Union’s borders as agreed in the ‘Hitler-Stalin Pact’; he wanted to keep the Baltic States and eastern Poland. The Soviets dropped this demand only after Roosevelt had promised to open a second front in 1942 to relieve the pressure on the eastern front and to assign to each of the great powers (Britain, the Soviet Union, the USA and China) a ‘police- man-role’ allowing them to ‘keep order in their neighborhood’.[271]  Roosevelt put his trust in Stalin’s good will and failed to consider using the United States military power to fight off Stalin’s expansionist demands. But contrary to his promise, Roosevelt could not open a front in Europe before 1943. Yet, since elections were scheduled in 1942.
Operation TORCH led by General Dwight D. Eisenhower landed in North Africa where German forces threatened British imperial possessions Churchill wanted to save.

   The next Roosevelt-Churchill summit took place at Casablanca in Morocco in January 1943.
The two leaders agreed on establishing a second front by an invasion of Sicily and then the liberation of Italy. It was announced that the ‘unconditional surrender’ of Germany and Japan would be the prerequisite for an armistice. Although this an- nouncement fuelled the Axis propaganda to fight to death, Churchill and Roosevelt chiefly had in mind to convince Stalin of their determination to crush Germany and Japan. The long-demanded invasion of France, the creation of a ‘real’ second front, was scheduled to take place in 1943.[272]  Meanwhile, the Soviets had turned the eastern  front around, after having stopped the German forces, they were now ad- vancing westward themselves while the Allied forces were stopped south of Rome. In this situation, in August 1943, an intelligence report for the Joint Chiefs of Staff declared the military war aims as follows:
„ (1) to destroy the German domination of Europe ; and  
(2) to prevent the domination of Europe in the future by any single (such as the So- viet Union), or by any group of power in which we do not have a strong influence.
If we do not achieve both these aims, we may consider that we have lost the war.“ [273]  The advice given was to start a massive landing operation in Europe at the next opportunity to block the Russians as far East as possible. The military had already come to perceive Russia as a challenge to peace and U.S. power.

   The division of Europe into spheres of influence, the groundwork for the Cold War and the confrontation in Central Europe, was already underway. Stalin deman- ded to have a say in the occupation policy of Britain and the USA as applied in the liberated parts of Italy. Churchill however feared the Communists’ influence, that might use this open door to flood into western  Europe. The Allied leaders refused. They had virtually created a sphere of influence.[274]

   In late November 1943, the ‘Big Three’ were to meet for the first time at Tehran, Persia. On their way to Persia, Roosevelt and Churchill stopped at Cairo where they met Chiang Kai-shek. Under pressure from Roosevelt the three governments agreed on returning the Japanese occupied territory to China and to assign China a ‘great power’ rule. The West had committed itself to Chiang as representant of the Chinese people. But Mao’s Communists kept winning.[275]

   From November 28, to December 1, 1943, Stalin Roosevelt and Churchill negotia- ted at Tehran.
Stalin’s demand for a second front was finally fulfilled. An invasion of northern France was sche duled to take place in early 1944. Germany was to be dismembered after the Allied victory (which seemed to be only a question of time) and Poland’s borders were to be shifted westward as to allow Stalin to keep the territories seized together with Hitler. But to reassure the West that he had no bad intentions, Stalin had dissolved ‘Comintern’, an international organization of Communist parties that was directed from Moscow. Moreover, he agreed on establishing a United Nations
Organization, that Roosevelt had conceived as an improved version of Wilson’s League to secure peace once the war was over. The decision if spheres of influence or an open, international system were to prevail in controlling occupied Europe was delayed.[276]  Korea, still under Japanese control was to be divided along the 38th parallel for occupation by the Soviets in the North and Americans in the South, the country’s unity however was not to be infringed by this decision. The three leaders agreed on ‘unconditional surrender’ as form of ending the war and Roosevelt was relieved since he feared that Stalin might settle separately; the formation of a ‘Natio- nalkomitee Freies Deutschland’ and the training of young German Communists had left the Americans uncertain and suspicious about Stalin’s intentions.[277]

   The outlines for the political treatment of the aggressors set, the United States took on building the fundaments of the post-war economy that would have to be aligned to U.S. needs since „the capitalistic system is essentially an international system. If it cannot function internationally, it will break down completely,“[278] as Henry Grady, economic adviser of FDR assessed. At Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, the United States undertook the re-assembling of the shattered pieces of the internatio- nal system. An ‘International Bank for Reconstruction and Development’ (a.k.a.
World Bank) was founded to provide funding for projects in war torn Europe and development measures in the nations of Asia, Latin America and Africa. The deve- lopment of poor and backward countries would of course also serve the interest of the U.S.economy looking for potent overseas markets. Its political and ideological objective was to offer an alternative to state-controlled, socialistic development measures. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) disposing over assets of $7.3 billion funded by the United States, was to come to the help of countries with high trade deficits (very likely to happen if trading with the U.S.). The internal problems of balancing the trade deficit would cause trouble for the country’s currency. To tackle this problem and provide monetary stability, saving the world from ‘currency wars’ that implied conflict, was the task of this institution. To this end, the dollar and the gold standard were agreed on to be the basis of the new global economy. [279]  The United States would, however, soon have to realize that their tools for
obliging countries eager for U.S. funds to comply with American economic princip- les, unilaterally favored the most competitive member in the chain of international trade: the booming United States. Americans would thus have to develop European nations to be actual competitors.[280]
 

At the same time at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C., the non-Axis nations made efforts to construct an international political institution that would be the equivalent to the economic institution in securing world peace and proliferating and protecting American principles and ideals: the United Nations. This favorite child of Roosevelt’s post-war concept tried to recreate Wilson’s League of Nations while avoiding its flaws. The General Assembly would be a world parliament
(sooner or later) representing all nations of the earth, convening to discuss problems that might endanger world peace and providing a forum for the peaceful settlement of disputes. But the actual decisions (resolutions) would be made in the twelve- member security council composed of five permanent members (the main Allied powers: Great Britain, France, China, the USSR and the U.S.) each of whom had the right to veto, and seven members whose seats rotated among all other member nations.[281]  Roosevelt thus wanted to avoid endangering U.S. world power, it could not be out-voted and no decisions could be taken against its will; he still stuck to the concept of a world, dominated, reasonably administered by great powers who would watch over their share of the world.[282]

   A solution for the treatment of Germany had yet to be found. In September 1944, Roosevelt met with Churchill at Quebec, Canada. After bitter arguments and the promise of a multi-billion dollar credit, the British prime minister reluctantly agreed to the Morgenthau Plan Roosevelt’s secretary of the treasury had devised. Considering Germany’s war crimes it was proposed to rip the country of all of its industry, to reduce its economy to that of a solely agrarian state. The former center of European industry was to be transformed into a wasteland of meadows and wheat fields in order to deprive it of the potential to ever again rise to menace world peace. Secretary of state Hull and many others in the administration however, harshly criticized that plan which evidently did not square with U.S. interests of central European stability. Roosevelt gave up the Morgenthau Plan only a short time later.

   Churchill was stunned; he was concerned about the firmness of Roosevelt’s foreign policy that could change so quickly. To ensure British interest were protec- ted, he flew to Moscow in October 1944 to talk to Stalin. Without Roosevelt’s knowing, they agreed on the outlines of European division. The Soviets’ influence in Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria was recognized for Britain’s retaining control over Greece which was vital for its interests in the Mediterranean. The deal, how-
ever, was to remain concealed as it would anger Roosevelt in his pursuit of ‘One World’. Other Allies as well seemed to be defecting from Roosevelt’s initial intentions. Although massively dependent on U.S. military aid, Chiang Kai-shek refused to attack the Japanese who posed heavy resistance to American advances in South China. As a tool for re-establishing the pre-war order, securing U.S. interests in the region, ensuring an independent and open China Chiang had proved useless. Thus, to stop Communist movements in French Indochina, Roosevelt had to let General de Gaulle regain the colony instead of his initial intention of dismantling the European colonial empires and establishing independent democracies.[283]

   The last conference while war still shook Europe was set at Yalta, a Soviet Black Sea port. On their way to the summit, FDR and his advisers were aware that the Soviets would aim at erecting a ‘cordon sanitaire’ of Moscow-led puppet states between their territory and Germany. He understood this search for ‘national secu- rity’ to develop the countries vast resources, but if these puppet states would as well be shut-off and denied certain freedoms, this development ran contrary to
American interests and the principles of the Atlantic Charter.[284]  But two points weakened the Americans’ position at Yalta; a new secretary of state, Edward R. Stettinius had only recently been appointed and lacked experience in international diplomacy, and Roosevelt’s health was extremely exhausted, he would have only a few more months to live.[285]  Yet he was determined to bring his and America’s mission to a successful end, to ensure cooperation between the world’s two most
powerful nations, to have them both enter the United Nations. Then, he believed, peace would be rather firmly secured.

   The main issue in the talks that lasted from February 4 to February 11, 1945, was the future of Poland which had been the initial reason for France and Britain to declare war. Stalin insisted on adding eastern Poland that he had seized thanks to his cooperation with Hitler, to the Soviet Union’s territory. As a compensation for this loss, he proposed granting Poland the parts of Germany to the East of the Oder River. Roosevelt and Churchill opposed this plan to shift Poland westward but considering the Red Army’s position in eastern Europe they had not much choice
than to agree. Yet, not willing to give up self-determination entirely, the western leaders demanded that the Polish exile-government in London be granted participa- tion in the Lublin Communist government Moscow had hand-picked. Stalin formal- ly accepted and promised free elections and a ‘broadly based’ government. To prove these good intentions, Roosevelt wanted the ‘Big Three’ to sign a ‘Declaration of Liberated Europe’ drawing on the Atlantic Charter’s principles and obliging the powers to ‘act in concert’ in governing the countries liberated from German occupa- tion.
This provision was to counter the feared division of Europe into spheres of influ- ence. But Soviet minister of foreign affairs Molotov insisted that ‘mutual consulta- tions’ suffice for making decisions.
Americans and British would be able to voice their complaints and the Soviets could go on, just like before. The declaration thus watered down, Stalin signed it.  The issue of German reparations was not resolved, there were to be some, but the ‘how much’ was adjourned.[286]

   One reason Roosevelt why was willing to make such concessions was his need for support in the war against Japan. He did not think, Americans alone could fight down the Japanese and make them surrender. For his pledge to attack Japan three months after German surrender, Stalin was promised strong influence in Mongolia, reparations for the Russo-Japanese War of 1904/5, special rights at Chinese ports and control over Manchuria and thus access to China.[287]

   Again, self-determination had been sacrificed. But in return, Roosevelt received what he deemed most valuable: the pledge of the Soviets to enter the United Nations. In an analogy to Wilson 26 years earlier, FDR had put all of his hope into the establishment of an international system of security and cooperation. Sure there was not much he could have done to force Stalin to actually ‘liberate’ eastern Europe if he wanted to avoid war - and he surely did - but Stalin’s demands and
Britain’s and France’s attempts to restore their old imperial glory should have been prove enough that the age of power politics and war was not yet to find an end.

   As diplomat and historian George F. Kennan states, these conferences proved the Americans’ and particularly Roosevelt’s zeal and will to improve the relations to the Soviet Union, to deal with them in patience and good will. It cannot be reprimanded that Americans never had an intention to cooperate for the creation of a peaceful world or followed only selfish interests.[288]

   Even before his entry into war, Roosevelt had signed declarations and agreements that showed his version of the ‘One World’ that was to prevail once the fighting and bloodshed had ended. The president did not want to repeat Wilson’s faults and have to convince reluctant allies of the universality of American values only after the last shot was fired. When by March 1945 44 states had assembled to form the United Nations and Soviet and American participation seemed certain, Roosevelt firmly believed that the continued existence of the Anti-Hilter Coalition would mean a successful preservation of world peace. Yet, in pursuing this ‘One World’, Roosevelt had ranked the United States’ principles by importance. And for achie- ving the one he considered most important: securing peace through an international institution, his fundaments had one after another broken away when the Soviet Union was concerned. His set of values, his concept for the better world he firmly believed in had by now been reduced to a skeleton of words Stalin used to please
that obviously unrealistic Yankee. On April 12, 1945 Franklin Delano Roosevelt died of a massive stroke in Warm Springs, Georgia[289]  - his policies and hopes would not survive him long.

   The United States had reached a watershed. Soon its isolationist creed and utopia of a definitive world peace order would perish amidst the disillusioning experien- ces to come.

   The United States was a world power - but a world power that would have to acknowledge that it was rivalled. A world power that from now on would define itself mainly by confrontation with its opponent. The two roads that once diverged at the beginning of The American Century, as Americans had had for the first time a true choice between ‘isolationism’  and internationalism/ interventionism’, would soon merge to become a single, narrow one-way road.