The Europe first strategy, in conjunction with a "holding action" against Japan in the Pacific, had originally been proposed to Roosevelt by the U.S. military in 1940. When Germany declared war on the United States on December 11, 1941, the United States faced a decision about how to allocate resources between these two separate theaters of war. On the one hand, Japan had attacked the United States directly at Pearl Harbor, and the Japanese Navy threatened United States territory in a way that Germany, with a limited surface fleet, was not in a position to do. On the other hand, Germany was considered the stronger and more dangerous threat to Europe; and Germany's geographical proximity to the UK and the Soviet Union was a much greater threat to their survival.