Tom from Cornwall wrote:those whose argument is based on the thesis that Grand Strategy is simple and easy
It's frustrating to have to say this, and I considered ignoring, but here goes:
A statement:
"You're making X more complicated than needed"
is NOT the same as:
"X is not complicated"
------------------------------
In my IRL life I do complex litigation.
A critical step in any complex litigation is to reduce the complexity: preliminary proceedings/exchanges in which the parties trade interrogatories, admissions, pleading, etc. This serves to narrow and clarify the issues in dispute, discarding irrelevant distractions.
Despite this emphasis on reducing complexity, nobody involved is under the impression that the resulting, simplified proceedings are simple.
A complex thing properly simplified usually remains complex.
Here, I am trying to reduce the complexity of the grand strategic question of U.S. focus on Europe or Asia. Precisely because the question is complex, every effort should be made to discard irrelevancies. That is why, for example, we can abstract from the question of whether the needed ships use turbine or reciprocating propulsion and the need to physically explain inner engine workings. Grand strategy can dispense with those questions as needless complications, on the assumption that the ships can actually get where grand strategy orders them.
You introduced what I view as needless and irrelevant complexity - whether landing craft re-allocated pursuant to strategic decisions made actual physical moves from one theater to another.
I viewed and view this question as irrelevant because:
1) the landing craft were actually re-allocated, so the question of physical movement becomes relevant only if it turned out that the planners were wrong about the availability of craft for this or that operation, due to geographical remoteness. Seeing no evidence that Eisenhower or Marshall forgot to check on that issue and were wrong OTL, I consider this factor irrelevant.
(2) the planning horizon for grand-strategic questions like "Europe or Asia" was sufficiently long - at least 6 months - that it exceeded any conceivable geographical constraint on the ability physically to relocate landing craft.
As it turns out, you have given an example of a landing craft shuffling back and forth between theaters. Thank you for that.
But as said above, I would like to have clarified that issue as irrelevant prior to expending any thought/time/text on whether the event actually happened.
In IRL life, if an opposing party responded to a request to simplify/clarify by imputing a view that the disputed matter is simple, either the judge would reprimand opposing counsel for bad faith or might instruct counsel's client to find a competent attorney.
Let's proceed, if at all, on a shared good faith belief that efforts to simplify a discussion do not imply the view that the discussion is simple.