WiF is mostly a military, grand strategy game. It covers the entire world, short South Africa (at least that's all they had done in fifth Edition), but it does take time and consideration to actually build up for and prepare for a major campaign. You won't be able to launch a large offensive on a whim.

I also think WiF does the best job of portraying each nations' total economic and military capacity. It does it in a round about way with resources, factories, and limited number of counters (force pool limitations), but in this historians view, it is very accurate in portraying what each nation had the real potential to accomplish.

The only diplomatic options that slow the original game down much are when certain events happen you have to roll to see how they will effect the US entry time. At the end of each turn you add up each sides economic might and that also can effect the US entry. Other than that, there aren't many diplomatic rules of any sort.

The Australian Design Group put out an expansion called 'Days of Decision" which is completely a political game focusing on the pre war build up of military and alliances from 36-39. But that is completely optional.