North Africa was chosen because a direct invasion of Europe was not yet possible

Atkinson frames Operation Torch, the November 1942 Allied landing in French North Africa, as the product of a real strategic disagreement: American planners initially wanted to strike directly at Nazi-occupied France, while the British argued convincingly that Allied forces lacked the shipping, air cover, and combat experience to survive such an assault yet. North Africa offered a way to actually engage the enemy without courting a premature disaster.

He's blunt that this decision, while correct in hindsight, was driven as much by domestic political pressure as strategy — Roosevelt needed American troops fighting the European Axis somewhere, quickly, to sustain public support for prioritizing Germany over the more emotionally resonant fight against Japan in the Pacific.

Atkinson credits this deferral with likely saving the Allies from a catastrophic early failure, since the amphibious doctrine, close air support coordination, and logistics infrastructure a Europe invasion required simply didn't exist yet in usable form — North Africa is where much of that infrastructure and doctrine got built under fire. Takeaway: the campaign's real purpose was buying time to build competence the Allies didn't yet have.