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The Global effects of World War II affected most nations of the planet, and left a lasting impact on the world that remains today. The United Nations, the Cold War, NATO, the Warsaw Pact, nuclear weapons, and many others are rooted in World War II.
Economy
In contrast to World War I, the Western victors in the Second World War did not demand compensation from the defeated nations. On the contrary, a plan created by U. S. Secretary of State George Marshall, the "European Recovery Program", better known as the Marshall Plan, called for the U.S. Congress to allocate billions of dollars for the reconstruction of Western Europe. Similar measures and policies helped put Japan on the path of economic recovery as well.
Also as part of the effort to rebuild global capitalism and spur reconstruction, the Bretton Woods system was put into effect after the war.
The attempts by the Western Allies to help in the recovery of their former foes were motivated by two main goals: It had been noted by many that the oppressive reparations demanded of Germany after World War I had contributed both to economic troubles in the decades following them, but had also been intensely disliked by the Germans, who were of the opinion that the war had been far from their own fault alone. In the end, the reparations had probably played an important role in allowing Hitler to rise to power. A repeat of such a scenario was to be prevented, even though some politicians in the Morgenthau plan in fact advocated turning Germany into an agrarian state to prevent future war.
The secondary reason for this economic help was the rising threat of the Soviet Union and later on, of the Warsaw Pact. Instead of subjugated enemies, the western Allies preferred to have economically strong allies, a goal which both Western Germany and Japan fulfilled perfectly during the next decades, becoming staunch supporters of capitalism and western democracy, as well as an armed member of NATO in the case of Germany.
On the Eastern side of the war, the Soviet Union forced the conquered nations to change their economies in line with the soviet-mandated goal of a communist planned economy, eventually nationalizing all industries and much of all private property.
One of the economic effects which affected almost all participants to a certain degree was the increased participation of women in the workforce (where they had taken the place of many men during the war years), though this was somewhat reduced in the decades following the war, as changing societal mores forced many to return to home & family.
Politics
Since the League of Nations had obviously failed to prevent the war, a new international order was constructed. In 1945 the United Nations was founded. Also, in order to prevent such devastating war from occurring again and to establish a lasting peace in Europe, the European Coal and Steel Community was born in 1951 (Treaty of Paris (1951)), which became the predecessor of the European Union.
The future Warsaw Pact countries did not subscribe to the Marshall Plan. In the Paris Peace Treaty, the Soviet Union's enemies Hungary, Finland and Romania were required to pay war reparations of $300,000,000 each (in 1938 dollars) to the USSR. Italy was required to pay $360,000,000, shared chiefly between Greece, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union.
In the areas occupied by Western Allied troops, capitalist governments were created, in the areas occupied by Soviet troops, communist governments were created. Germany was partitioned into four zones of occupation, with the American, British and French zones grouped as West Germany and the Soviet zone as East Germany. Austria was once again separated from Germany and it, too, was divided into four zones of occupation which eventually re-united and became the state of Austria. The Cold War had begun, and soon NATO and the Warsaw Pact would form.
The repatriation, pursuant to the terms of the Yalta Conference, of two million Russian soldiers who had come under the control of advancing American and British forces, resulted for the most part in their deaths.
In the military sphere, World War II marked the coming of age of airpower, mostly at the expense of warships. While the pendulum continues to swing in this never-ending competition, air powers are now a full partner in any military action. World War II also saw the creation of guided missiles which, like airpower, are now used in virtually every conflict.
The war was the high-water mark for mass armies. While huge armies of low-quality troops would be seen again (during the Korean War and in a number of African conflicts), after this victory the major powers relied upon small highly-trained and well-equipped militaries.
After the war, many high-ranking Germans were prosecuted for war crimes, as well as the mass murder of the Holocaust committed mainly on the area of General Government, in the Nuremberg trials. Similarly Japanese leaders were prosecuted in the Tokyo War Crime Trial. Although the deliberate targeting of civilians was already defined as a war crime and it had been used extensively by both sides, most notably in Poland, Britain, Germany and Japan, those responsible were never tried for it. In other countries, notably in Finland, the Allies demanded the political leadership to be prosecuted in "war-responsibility trials" — i.e. not for crimes of war.
The defeat of Japan, and its occupation by American Forces, led to a westernization of Japan that was surely more far-reaching than would otherwise have occurred. Japan approximated more closely to a Western style democracy and, because of its defeat by the USA, set out to imitate the United States. This huge national effort led to the post-war Japanese economic miracle and Japan's rise to become the world's second largest economy.
The destruction of Europe and the destruction, via aerial bombing, of a significant portion of the United Kingdom's cities would also symbolically destroy the aura of invincibility the European nation had in the eyes of their colonies. Coupled with the enormous amount of money it had expended during the war, an empire was perceived to be an unnecessarily expensive possession. Thus this would provoke the rapid decolonization process that would see the empires of the United Kingdom, France and others swept away. United Kingdom was angered in the process.
Technology
The massive research and development involved in the Manhattan Project in order to quickly achieve a working nuclear weapon design greatly impacted the scientific community, among other things creating a network of national laboratories in the United States. In addition, the pressing for numerous calculations for various things like codebreaking (Colossus) and ballistics tables kickstarted the development of electronic computer technology.
See also
