Britain sought American entry while Roosevelt faced resistance

Britain approached the conference with the immediate objective of bringing the United States into the war. American neutrality patrols were expanding across the Atlantic, preferential supply arrangements were delivering arms, and American volunteers were gaining combat experience alongside Allied forces. Churchill's government saw a partner doing almost everything short of formally becoming a belligerent. Roosevelt still faced domestic opposition shaped by the First World War and sought a cause Americans would support. The counterfactual assessment here is that American entry before 1943 would have been difficult without a Japanese or German attack.