The 1942–1943 import crisis had been surmounted. When shipping shortages did recur in the remaining seventeen months of the European war after SEXTANT/EUREKA, they surfaced in a different context. They offered hindrances to rapid victory. They did not appear as omens of stalemate or starvation. Thus Allied logistical disputes entered a new era. Crises were now mostly managerial rather than industrial or diplomatic. American merchant shipbuilding had rescued the Allies from the worst consequences of their erratic diplomacy and bitter disagreements. But Britain would no longer win those managerial battles, for British vulnerability to German interdiction could no longer offset the diplomatic imbalance between benefactor and beggar. Anglo-American antagonisms stemming from the implementation of President Roosevelt's decisions for TORCH and British imports over BOLERO had hindered strategic consultations for the Mediterranean war effort. Now the Anglo-Americans' controversial adjustment to near-sufficiency was well under-way on American terms. Precisely because British dependence continued amid the Allied logistical victory that ensured Britain would not starve and which also enabled the triumph of American Second Front strategy, British demands for civilian logistical priority were overshadowed by American demands for military logistical priority to conclude the war. Britain would now be vulnerable to American interdiction.

Some key personnel changes partly mitigated Britain's plight in early 1944. Lewis Douglas had long yearned to return to private life for business and health reasons. Roosevelt capitalized upon this opportunity to reorganize the upper echelons of WSA.