Axis Planning Section. Note by Secy.

3. In the course of discussing the factors likely to limit the strategical flexibility of the enemy, which we have been invited to study by the Directors of Plans xx, we have had to consider not only various possible alternative courses of action open to the enemy, but the possibility of his switching, at some not very distant date, from a short-term to a long-term strategical plan. We have hitherto assumed that the enemy's main object would be the defeat of this country before the end of this year by air attack, blockade and invasion, and that operations in North Africa and South-east Europe have been subsidiary to this main plan.