By deciding upon the policy of unconditional surrender, the Allies were changing the diplomatic process typically associated with previous wars, such as World War I. Instead of accepting an armistice and then negotiating a peace treaty the Allied forces, led by President Franklin Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Premier Joseph Stalin decided upon a more aggressive approach by demanding a unilateral unconditional surrender of the Axis powers. These terms would be determined by the Allied forces and placed upon of the Axis territories with no negotiation. This policy placed all of the negotiating power with the Allied powers and gave them the upper hand in designing a post World War II landscape, something especially important to all the countries. Both the United States and Britain had hoped to use these peace terms to stem-off the complete control of Europe by the Soviet Union, while the Soviet Union hoped to use the peace terms to hold the United States and Britain to previously agreed to contributions towards the war.
