er in order to attain national objectives. Theater strategy refers to the development of integrated strategic concepts and courses of action to attain national and coalition objectives within a specific theater (Yarger, 1998, p. 4).
In the case study of the Second World War, all of the elements of the model can be found. At the national security strategy level, the objectives sought by the United States were the prevention of the defeat of the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union, the swift and decisive defeat of Germany, followed by the swift and decisive defeat of Japan. The initial objective of saving Great Britain was selected soon after the war started in Europe in 1939 and the second objective of saving the Soviet Union arose after the German invasion of that country in June 1941. Both of these were related to the objective of swiftly and decisively defeating Germany, which came to the fore in late 1941, when the United States actively entered the war. At the end of the first year of America's war, the survival of Britain and the Soviet Union were no longer in much doubt and all efforts were focused upon the defeat of Germany. The defeat of Japan was relegated to a secondary objective even before the U.S. entered the war because of the greater danger posed by Germany (Matloff, 1986, pp. 678-682; Kirkpatrick, 1992, pp. 464-472).
The ways or concepts employed by U.S. leaders to attain these objectives were to place U.S. industry on a war-footing in order to supply Britain and the Soviet Union with needed war material, then build the largest armed forces possible, and to commit the bulk of these forces to Europe first. The first objective, supplying Britain and the Soviet Union, was achieved through Lend-Lease, which started prior to December 1941. Ironically, as pointed out by Kirkpatrick, Lend-Lease also helped the U.S. leaders achieve their second objective: the build up of the armed forces. When the U.S. began full-...