Mussolini's military played a supporting role in executing Italian strategy, developing the plans that underpinned Italian operations in all theatres of war, converting the Duce's often wild strategic ideas into organizational designs, and loyally following orders. Mussolini had a crude political strategy to match his rough-and-ready assumptions about how international affairs were going to develop. In the middle of the Phoney War, Mussolini laid out his strategic conspectus. Mussolini's intention in launching the 'parallel war' was simple: to take advantage of Germany's military virtuosity in order to carve out a substantial territorial sphere of control in North Africa and Balkans. On 13 December 1940, with Italian armies bogged down in Albania and retreating in North Africa, General Mario Roatta produced what has been adjudged the only strategic appreciation of any depth and seriousness to come from the military throughout the war. In 1942, North African strategy was determined by factors that neither Mussolini nor Cavallero could do anything about.