ABSTRACT
In the Second World War democratic leaders concentrated on winning the war itself, dictators on their plans for reshaping the world. For dictators such as Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo, wars were a means to vast and ambitious ends; for twentieth-century democratic leaders they were increasingly seen in negative terms, as a way to restore the status quo ante, which they associated with both stability and justice. Dictators were imaginative and constructive for their own purposes; democrats were often so exhausted by the demands of war that when post-war peace conferences began, they had very little energy to initiate and realise new schemes. It was usually left to publicists and civil servants in the democracies to consider new approaches to international order.
