Europe first
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Europe first (sometimes known as Germany first) was the key element of the grand strategy employed by the United States and Britain during World War II. According to this policy, the United States and Britain would use the preponderance of their resources to subdue Germany and Italy in Europe first, and fight a holding action against Japan in the Pacific later, using fewer resources. After the defeat of Germany, considered the greater threat, all Allied forces could be concentrated against Japan.
When Japan attacked United States, British, and Dutch forces on December 7, 1941, Britain and the Netherlands had already been fighting in Europe for years, and had relatively few resources to spare to protect far-flung colonies. Since Germany declared war on the United States on December 11, the United States faced a decision about how to allocate resources between these two separate theaters of war. (At the maximum extent of Axis power, there were still several thousand miles of Allied territory between the regions of German occupation and Japanese occupation, so the wars could be considered separately from a strategic viewpoint.) On the one hand, Japan had attacked the United States directly, and the Japanese navy threatened United States territory in a way that Germany, with a limited surface navy, was not in a position to do. On the other, Germany was universally considered the stronger and more dangerous power, and the United States' European allies were forced by geography to focus there.
Soon after the declaration of war at the Arcadia Conference, the United States and Britain agreed on the Europe first strategy, and the United States committed to sending the army and air force it was raising to fight Germany in Europe and Africa as soon as it was ready. The campaign against Japan would be focused on halting Japanese expansion until the war on Germany was complete, at which time the full power of Britain, the United States, and eventually the Soviet Union could be turned against Japan. This strategy would concentrate on what was perceived as the strongest of the Axis Powers, and would prevent a German victory that might knock Britain or the Soviets out of the war.
In practice, the United States was able to use most of its fleet against Japan anyway, since Germany's surface fleet was small and the escort ships used in the Second Battle of the Atlantic were mostly destroyers rather than carriers or battleships. The Pacific War could be prosecuted successfully with relatively small numbers of ground troops (usually marines), and by the time Germany was defeated, the allies had reconquered Burma, the Philippines, and a string of island bases leading up to the home islands of Japan. The US started a massive reallocation of troops to the Pacific to prepare for the invasion of Japan, but in the event, Japan surrendered following detonation of atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Soviet victories in Manchuria.