there are always FOUR levels to a GLOBAL war victory

The “Four Freedoms” pledge did more to win the war than any weapon...

If you plan to only defeat an Austria or a France, extract compensation and then leave, a quick war your neighbours sense has strict limits, you probably need only consider three levels of  victory : at the tactical, operational and strategic levels.

But a victory in a global war requires a fourth level : the ideological.

To be more specific, how do your people view the rest of humanity outside their own tight circle ?

 For no one wins a global war without lots of allies, not even a China or USA with a huge land mass, a huge population and a huge advanced economy.

Huge as those two are, alone they each command maybe 5 to 10%  of the world’s potential land/people/money.

An initially disorganized 90% will always eventually defeat even the best organized 10% if they sense it is bent on global domination.*

So global wars are won by diplomats, not generals.

If the dominant culture of your nation is hyper-xenophobic nationalism, as it was for Germany and Japan in 1940, you can’t ever hope to win a globe war and should never even think of starting one.

Any allies you do obtain your population will soon not so secretly despise and exploit —- and your allies will bolt at the first opportunity.

Your 360 degree nationalistic aggression will lose you wars as quickly as it wins you battles.

But if a nation’s dominant culture is open to diverse others and their points of view, it hardly matters that nation is not a great warrior.

Slowly but surely, together with a globe full of others, it will grind the xenophobic nation into defeat - a defeat often brought on by the aggressors’ erstwhile ‘allies’ dropping them as quickly as they joined them as soon as they sense the tide starts going out...

* Don’t credit me with this mathematical insight, FDR got there first - in his famous 1937 “QUARANTINE” Speech : though he roped together - by implication - Germany, Japan & Italy in his 10% figure....