With even Army leaders advocating a Pacific-first strategy, the state of joint strategic planning was tenuous at best. Far from solving any problems, the diverse opinion within the Army allowed the old arguments among the services, and among the Allies, to gain new fervor. The lack of a consensus within American ranks effectively left Germany-first to exist only in the minds of politicians. The numbers spoke for themselves: At the end of 1942, the United States would field nearly 25 percent more combat troops in the Pacific than it did in England and North Africa, 464,000 to 378,000.
