Churchill accepted the heavy economic and political price that American assistance after June 1940 necessitated. For Britain to survive Germany's onslaught, retain its Empire, and seek means to defeat the Axis, the United States had to join the war on Britain's side. Lately, however, the United States’ position in Churchill's wartime grand strategy has been questioned. Building on criticisms of Churchill's diplomacy that emerged as early as 1944, it is argued that Anglo-American alignment – along with British partnership with Bolshevik Russia – eroded Britain's power, squandered its freedom of action in foreign policy, and, thereby, because Britain by 1945 became secondary to the United States (and Russia), destroyed Britain as the greatest of the Great Powers. The most recent critique argues that Britain's interests would have been better served by settling with Germany in either 1940 or, after Hitler turned on Russia, 1941. Hitler and Stalin could then have torn themselves to pieces, Britain would not have become beholden to the United States, and, once the Russo-German war ended, Britain and its Empire would have been intact, with London retaining decided influence in establishing the postwar order.

Yet, as a perceptive response to this fanciful musing demonstrates, and apart from the British public's obvious anti-Germanism, Hitler could not be trusted; despite the German leader wanting to destroy and then colonise Bolshevik Russia, Britain existed as ‘a prime target of Hitler's malevolence’.