Before Kabuto joined in, his declaration of war was a huge bluff that probably went exactly as he planned. The five nations joined forces, marched off in one direction, and left both of the remaining Jinchuriki in one place. Tobi's original plan was probably to get everyone worked up about a war and capture the last two Jinchuriki at the same time.
Consider the allies he had before Kabuto. At that moment in time, it was Tobi, Zetsu and Kisame, along with the white Zetsu army. The plan to have Kisame feign his death and begin stalking Killer Bee went perfectly, and even though he was killed in the process when he was prematurely discovered, he managed to reveal the location of the two Jinchuuriki. Had he managed to stay undercover for longer, we'd have likely seen a Rinnegan wielding Tobi, along with Zetsu and maybe Kisame ambushing Bee and Naruto and the small force sent to guard them, with all their backup on the other side of the warzone, locked in battle.
The one thing he didn't account for was Naruto taming Kurama and being able to utilise its chakra, which is what revealed Kisame. That moment was likely the beginning of a downwards spiral for him. Even then, he might have salvaged it if he'd gone himself rather than letting Kabuto go for him.
I'm tempted to say that without Kabuto, he might have had a better chance of ending the war his way. Kabuto's Edo Tensei stuff allowed him to recover from the failures rather than give him his only chance at victory. The whole point of the war was to capture the Jinchuuriki, and up until Naruto spotted Kisame, everything was going great for the bad guys.