I'm reading through Rick Atkinsons army at dawn, and he details that in 1942 American planners wanted to land in a Western Europe immediately and drive straight to Berlin, while the Brits wanted to and ultimately convinced the Americans to invade North Africa and eventually Italy first.
He explains it away as a combination of arrogance and a "Sherman's march to the sea" battle philosophy, but is there any more to it than that, or were there also other factors at play?
And it seems like throughout the early years of the war the British were able to strong arm American high command more often than not, why was this the case?
As Dwight Eisenhower notes in his memoirs Crusade in Europe, he initially thought the British were in much better condition then they actually were and that they would be able to launch the invasion while America was still mobilizing. Once over there, Eisenhower saw how little the Brits had available and realized that that the U.S. was going to have to provide a significant amount of the materials needed to successfully invade Western Europe. North Africa was a doable object with what was on hand and coming available in the immediate future and provided something to placate Stalin who wanted an additional front to take pressure off of the USSR.
Also, US public attitude was that Japan should be the primary target as they were the ones who had attacked us and the quicker Germany was out of the war, the faster the U.S. could devote all of its resources against Japan.